Meet Tamworth captain Ben Milnes, 33, as he looks to down Tottenham with brutal ice bin routine
TAMWORTH captain Ben Milnes will have ice in his veins when he leads the National League minnows out against mighty Tottenham tomorrow.
Which is hardly surprising for anyone who witnessed his chilling post-training ritual on Thursday night.
As temperatures plunged to -4C, Milnes finished training on the frost-covered pitch at Tamworth’s ground The Lamb — then plunged straight into a wheely-bin full of icy water to chill out for five minutes!
And Milnes, 33, reckons it is a brrrrrilliant way to warm-up for the biggest game of his career as it helps his body’s recovery process.
While Premier League Spurs have state-of-the-art cryotherapy chambers at their plush Hotspur Way training ground, Milnes had to make do with a more humble container and several bags of ice.
As the temperatures plunged after part-time Tamworth’s only training session of the week, Milnes told SunSport: “It makes it feel warmer when it’s this cold outside.
“I do it after every Thursday night training session before games.”
Most people reckon that tiny Tamworth, who are 2,500-1 shots to win this year’s FA Cup, have snow chance of creating one of the biggest upsets of all time tomorrow.
But the part-time Lambs will be going flat out to put on a show in the hope of making Spurs chairman Daniel Levy’s blood run cold.
Milnes goes into bat for Tamworth looking to hit their visitors for six and turn Aussie Ange Postecoglou’s FA Cup dream to “Ashes”.
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Because the midfielder could just as easily have been playing professional cricket instead of trying to make Spurs stumble on a sticky wicket.
In fact, his cricket-playing brother will be at The Lamb roaring him on.
The Tamworth skipper said: “My younger brother Matt Milnes plays cricket for Yorkshire.
“He played for England Lions a few years ago when they toured Australia.
“He could have gone on to represent England but he’s had a few bad injuries over the last couple of years including a stress fracture of the back and hasn’t played much recently.”
Milnes was also a big hit at cricket as a youngster and for a while it was touch and go which career path he would choose.
He added: “My dad Mark played football and cricket and I played both when I was younger too.
“I played for Notts Academy and the Midlands age groups, so I was at a decent level.
“But when I was around 14 or 15 I had to choose which route I wanted to go down and I chose football, while Matt chose cricket. Cricket is too slow for me.
“Matt will be here for the game. He also came for our Boxing Day match against Forest Green. I go to watch him whenever I can, too.
“One of the biggest games he’s played in was when they won the Twenty20 final with Kent a few years ago — but I was playing for Buxton at the time and missed it.
“I haven’t managed to get to too many of his biggest games but the really big games are always on TV so I am able to watch him most of the time.”
Milnes — who runs a financial planning business with his wife — admits he is living the dream right now after bagging a hat-trick of footballing titles on the spin in the last 2½ years.
He added: “I’ve won three in three which is not bad.
“I won the Northern League Premier Division with Buxton, then joined Tamworth and won the Southern League Premier Division, then followed that up by winning the National League North.
“I don’t think I’m going to keep that record going in the National League this year.
“But it was always going to be pretty hard to beat three titles in three years.
“If we stay up this year it will definitely feel like winning another title.
“When you consider the teams we are coming up against and their facilities, budgets and players with league experience then it would feel very special.
“But beating Spurs would feel like winning a hat-trick of titles all over again in 90 minutes!
“Occasion-wise this is definitely the biggest game I’ve ever played — even though realistically it’s not the most important because the league really is our bread and butter.”