With his side 1-0 down thanks to a strike from Billy Sharp and the fans at Bloomfield Road growing frustrated, Ian Holloway decided to roll the dice.
Off went central midfielder Jonjo Shelvey and on came a fresh-faced 19-year-old winger with the No 36 emblazoned on the back of his tangerine Blackpool shirt.
Within just six minutes, Tom Ince had repaid his manager’s faith. Deftly knocking the ball through Doncaster left back George Friend’s legs with ease, he curled a shot into the bottom corner and unleashed a primal roar.
More was to come in the dying moments of the match. Receiving the ball on a surface a world away from the manicured pitches of his childhood in Milan, Ince escaped the attempts to haul him down before firing a 25-yard thunderbolt into the top corner to secure victory in the 94th minute.
More than 5,000 days on from the day that belonged to young Ince, the day he scored his first Championship goals, he remembers it with the same fondness.
‘That rolls back the years, for sure,’ Ince tells Daily Mail Sport, when reminded of his brace back in October 2011.
Tom Ince’s first Championship goals came on a bobbly Bloomfield Road surface for Blackpool
Ince scored his latest goals in the league against Birmingham, bagging a hat-trick on New Year’s Day
‘I enjoyed the fun life of Ian Holloway at Blackpool. Going there, I don’t think I played for the first few months and I was thinking, “Have I made a mistake?”
‘But that was my first real taste of Championship football and it couldn’t have started better. Ever since that game, I never really looked back.’
The very same guile Ince showed to manoeuvre his way through the Doncaster defence can still be found more than 14 years on.
At an expectant Vicarage Road this New Year’s Day, the surface far more pristine than it was that night on the seaside, Ince caught the Birmingham City defence sleeping and darted in behind. Latching on to a teasing lofted pass, he steered a volley into the bottom corner to put Watford 1-0 up.
Come the end of the match, Birmingham had been dismantled by a hat-trick from Ince, now more experienced, but just as canny.
Those goals took the 33-year-old into the top eight in a list of the Championship’s all-time top scorers. He is the only non-striker in the top 10.
With 98 Championship goals to his name, Ince is 32 off Sharp in top spot, but he hopes to hunt the record down.
‘To be on that list and to have that type of company is great,’ Ince says.
With 98 Championship goals to his name, Ince is one of the league’s all-time top scorers. ‘To be on that list and to have that type of company is great,’ Ince says
‘I always try to set myself challenges. When I look at that list I think, “Can I try and score some more goals and get my name up there to chase Billy Sharp?” It’s a big thing. He’s been an out-and-out goalscorer, but one that I look at and will definitely challenge myself to try and get close to.
‘To get that hat-trick (against Birmingham) meant a lot to me, because you look at football now and I think there’s a stigma about older players. People say “it’s a young man’s game”, and I agree with that, but there’s definitely a big part for experienced players who have been at this level year in, year out, to benefit any team.
‘I always had that belief, but it just made me realise that I’ve still got a lot to give and I can still cause problems in this league.’
Ince, who came through Liverpool’s academy as a youngster before moving to a spate of sides throughout the English football pyramid, made his latest transfer to Watford in 2023.
The winger is now on his fourth manager at the notoriously trigger-happy club, having been signed by Valerien Ismael, before working under Tom Cleverley and Paulo Pezzolano.
But now, under the returning Javi Gracia – the man who led the Hornets to their best-ever Premier League finish and an FA Cup final in the 2018-19 season – Ince feels revitalised after a few years in the wilderness.
‘Since the manager’s come in, he’s had a calm and collected aura about him,’ he explains.
‘We had a couple of chats and he asked why I wasn’t involved in squads. I said “that’s football” and people have different opinions. But as far as I’m concerned, I train as hard as I can to be ready to play.
Javi Gracia led Watford to the FA Cup final in 2019 and returned to Vicarage Road this season
Ince feels revitalised under Gracia due to the trust the Watford boss has been placing in him
‘I said, “I’m always available and fit, so whenever you need me, I’ll bring my best”.
‘We had chats about opportunities but then it’s down to me. I’ve always believed that.’
Ince knows his role has changed off the pitch, too. Where he was once the baby of dressing rooms across the country, he is now the third-oldest player at Watford behind Moussa Sissoko and Nampalys Mendy.
Indeed, the Hornets have one of the youngest squads in the league, yet still find themselves vying for a play-off place despite a recent run of three games without a win.
But with Ince’s 441 Championship appearances – the 10th most in the league’s history – he draws on his own experiences to help the youngsters keep their feet on the ground.
‘I think there’s a lot of belief inside the dressing room and my job is to control that and to keep a sense of calmness,’ he says.
‘Never get too high when you win and never too low when you lose because the Championship’s thick and fast. It turns around. If you look at the league this year, there are so many teams fighting for so many spots.
‘We’ve got a lot of young players who can be downbeat because they’ve not had a good game or they’ve not scored two goals themselves. I tell them it’s not about that, it’s about the team being able to function in the right way.
Ince is one of the oldest players in a young Watford team vying for Premier League promotion
The winger began his career in the Liverpool academy but left the club to join Blackpool
‘I’ve said to a couple of the guys that I’ve experienced what they’ve been through. I’ve done what they’ve done. It’s about giving them that little mentorship and saying, “Don’t be a one-week wonder”.
‘If they want to have goals and assists and play in the Premier League or go to a better team – whatever that player’s ambition is – it’s just about giving them advice and guidance to say, “Listen, keep your head down, keep working”.’
The composed voice Ince carries today is not so different from that of the wide-eyed boy who once trailed his father Paul, an iconic midfielder with Manchester United, Liverpool and England, at grounds across the country.
Fittingly, on the week Ince speaks with Daily Mail Sport, a video of him from 2004 has resurfaced, a grinning young lad speaking to Sky Sports alongside dad Paul and Jamie Redknapp.
As the younger Ince stands in front of the advertising boards, the interviewer asks him: ‘Is there anything of your dad’s play that you’ve picked up?’
With all the confidence in the world, he responds: ‘Discipline.’
In the two decades that have passed, Ince has been managed by his father at three clubs (Notts County, Blackpool and Reading).
Yet, the parallels might have stretched even further. Ince Jr had the chance to follow in Paul’s footsteps by joining Inter Milan, as well as returning to Liverpool, earlier in his career. But he turned down a move to the San Siro, while his move back to Anfield collapsed.
As a young boy, Ince said he had learned ‘discipline’ from watching his father Paul
England midfielder Ince played for the likes of Inter Milan during his stellar career
But there is plenty that Ince still draws on from Paul, and he describes it as a ‘privilege’ to have been able to call upon his guidance throughout life’s ups and downs.
‘I think when you have that father-son relationship or you have that player-manager one, you see two sides of that person,’ he says.
‘I was a fortunate kid to experience some great things like World Cup ’98 and watching him in Milan. But I think I’ve been lucky enough to have my dad outside of football and managing me as well.
‘I think for my career, the fact that I’m a totally different player and I play a different position has probably helped me. The comparison’s not been as much.
‘My character’s totally different to his, too. But discipline was a big thing for me. He was very straight down the line and made sure each day you’re giving your best. That’s the biggest thing.
‘I still have conversations with him now and talk over games that I’ve played in and I’m sitting there thinking, “I’m nearly 34 and he’s talking to me as if I’m 16”. But no matter what age you are, you can always learn, you can always pick up new things.’
Now, as Ince moves into a different stage of his life, he has one eye on the future. He’s finishing his coaching A Licence this summer, and admits he one day wants to be a manager in his own right.
Paul managed his son at Notts County, Blackpool and Reading and the pair talk regularly about football
‘Football’s been my life. I’ve lived and breathed it every day. So I want to stay in it,’ he says.
‘You see so many young managers getting opportunities at clubs now. For me it’s about doing my badges and once I’m close to the time of retiring, I’ll start my Pro Licence and get cracking. Once that’s done you walk into a whole new world.
‘My immediate goal is to keep playing as long as I can, but once that’s finished I’ll go into a new chapter.
‘I think it’s always nice to have that prepared so that when that time comes, it’s not a shock and I’m ready to go.’
