jack bannister

on the books
Wilson prospers with
PCA support
ormer Worcestershire
batsman Elliott Wilson is
forging a new career as
an independent financial
advisor with the help of
the PCA despite being
hindered by a chronic
back complaint.
The PCA’s support,
part of the Association’s educational funding
for past and present players, allowed Elliott
to gain qualifications in corporate finance and
financial advising.
He is now working as an independent
financial advisor from his base in Cambridge
and an office in St Albans even though he can
only sit for an hour at a time and then needs
to lie down for a similar length of time.
The discomfort is a legacy of the dreadful
circumstances that ended Wilson’s promising
county career after he had made 779 runs,
including two centuries, for Worcestershire in
his first full season for them in 2000.
“When I was 22 I went over to Australia
to play an off-season of grade cricket,”
Wilson said.
“While I was over there I had an injection
into a disc in my back and one of the medical
staff, who had flu, coughed on the needle.
“I actually got flu in my disc. It turned
pretty bad when it got into the bone, they
had to cut out the infection, and I needed a
double fusion.
“It really was unpleasant. I had four
months in hospital that year lying down
because my spine was infected.
“I was pretty ill and, sadly, that finished my
cricket career which was disappointing.”
Wilson was unable to work for almost
a decade after he retired from playing but
he put his time to good use by becoming
a voracious reader of books and also
developing his skills as an artist, he is still
represented by a London gallery, and has had
multiple solo shows.
“To start with I wasn’t very well for a
significant amount of time. I had to have a
lot of operations over a number of years so
I really wasn’t in a fit enough state to even
consider going into a work environment. The
infected area had caused the nerves to become
so sensitive that I had to rip pages out of a
magazine to hold them, as even the weight
of a magazine would cause inflammation,”
Wilson said.
“It sounds odd but the only way I could
move forward was mentally and so I ended up
reading a ridiculously large amount of books.
“I set myself the challenge of reading for
three hours a day and then got that up to
four hours a day. I pretty much did that for
a decade. I’m a pretty normal reader which
is 40 pages an hour so, if you do the maths,
that works out at around 1,000 books over
a decade.
“So I did use that period to move
forward. I really needed to achieve
something and I did that through
learning.
“I also did some art work in
that time. I couldn’t do more
than maybe a couple of hours
of painting a day because
holding my arm up affected
the damaged nerves in my
back.”
Wilson enjoyed his art but
needed a regular income which
is why he decided to become a
financial advisor and sought help
from the PCA to help fund his training.
He said: “People say: ‘why are you going
into finance?’ but the reality is you have to
earn a living. if you don’t have the appropriate
insurance in place which I didn’t have and if
you don’t have family wealth behind you which
I didn’t have it really is quite scary how little
money you get from the government.
“I just thought: right, how can I get round
that? I thought that being a financial advisor
really suited my situation because I could work
around my problem.
“I could take meetings and stagger them
through the day to give me the chance to lie
down which I need to do.
“It works for me but
“I set
myself the
challenge of
reading for three
hours a day and then
got that up to four
hours a day. I pretty
much did that for
a decade”
it has all been made
possible by the PCA
funding which I
think is a terrific
initiative.
“It really
helped me
knowing that
the qualification
which costs
thousands would
be paid by the
PCA. They really
did make it possible.
The drive to get the
qualification or to do the
reading was never going to be a problem, but
financing it was, and the PCA stepped up to
that challenge, I’m so grateful. Thank you
to everyone who has ever raised money for
the PCA
“It gives a solution to a problem. It can
seem a pretty negative experience having to
ask for funding but if it is asking for funding
to get a qualification then I think it’s a pretty
positive experience.”
thepca.co.uk / BtB issue 18 65