{"id":686531,"date":"2026-01-10T10:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T10:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/686531\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T10:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T10:27:11","slug":"england-and-prem-icon-living-off-grid-nobody-can-get-hold-of-him-football-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/686531\/","title":{"rendered":"England and Prem icon living off grid – ‘Nobody can get hold of him\u2019 | Football | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people dream of a quiet life after retirement, but one former England<\/a> international has taken this concept to the next level. That\u2019s because, according to fellow ex-pros, David Batty has essentially gone off grid since retiring from the sport.<\/p>\n

A player for Leeds United<\/a>, Blackburn Rovers<\/a> and Newcastle<\/a> United during his heyday, Batty eventually retired in 2004 after returning to Elland Road. He was a regular for England during his career, featuring 42 times for the Three Lions, including representing his nation at the 1998 World Cup<\/a> in France.<\/p>\n

But eyebrows were raised among his former team-mates when Batty was wished happy birthday in a group chat last month, after the West Yorkshire-born star turned 57. However, much to the surprise of the cohort, there was no response.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the case for Mark Viduka, who played with Batty at Leeds, as he told the BBC<\/a> that Batty has essentially gone into exile. The Aussie said: \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone has seen him since we played together. Everyone was wishing him happy birthday \u2013 but he\u2019s not even in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIn this day and age, everyone shows off everything they do in every moment, like what they had for breakfast. Who cares. If anyone was not going to be like that, it was Batts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coaching, management or punditry seem to be the paths most players go down after hanging up their boots, but according to Batty\u2019s agent, Hayden Evans, his post-football choices haven\u2019t come as a surprise either. He added: \u201cIt was clear from day one that he would never go into coaching, for example, and never seek that as a route back into football.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid has been as good as his word, which is him through and through. He always said, \u2018When I retire, that will be it. I won\u2019t have anything to do with the football industry.’\u201d<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t appear to have been lying either, given that Batty appears to have snubbed most, if not all, football-related activities. Former team-mate Mark Atkins remarked: “We have tried to get him to the dos we have had, but nobody can get hold of him. He\u2019s not that type of person. Even if he was living five miles away, he wouldn\u2019t turn up because he\u2019s a very personal guy, really.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people dream of a quiet life after retirement, but one former England international has taken this concept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,207602,207605,207606,207604,393,31425,12632,125202,94,8641,4884,1860,24464,207603,101,2250,16,15],"class_list":["post-686531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-england","tag-britain","tag-david-batty","tag-david-batty-now","tag-david-batty-off-grid","tag-david-batty-retirement","tag-england","tag-england-football","tag-england-football-team","tag-england-international","tag-football","tag-football-news","tag-great-britain","tag-leeds","tag-leeds-united-fc","tag-off-grid","tag-premier-league","tag-retirement","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}