Ian Holloway is talking about one of the telltale signs, away from frontline management, that led to him wearing hearing aids. “I became more and more aware how loud I was having to put the volume on the telly,” he says, before delivering the punchline. “My neighbours must be delighted.” The other giveaway came courtesy of his wife, Kim. “How often I had to say: ‘Sorry? Pardon?’ It started to really annoy both of us. At first I thought I was just deliberately not listening after 37 years of marriage.”
This Saturday, when his Swindon side visit Crawley hoping to maintain their League Two promotion push, Holloway, who turns 63 this month, plans to wear his hearing aids at a game for the first time. “Unfortunately ageing happens to all of us – your body does deteriorate – so put the ego down and get the best hearing you can. I want to be the best I can be for as long as I can be.”
Could it be a first for a manager? “I have no idea whether it is or not, I don’t really care. But I want to shout about it from the rooftops, because it’s absolutely incredible.” Though he accepts he may be “less pleased when I can hear what away fans are shouting more clearly”.
Holloway is in typically good form, but he has a serious message: the Swindon manager is keen to raise awareness and encourage others to get their hearing checked with Tuesday marking World Hearing Day. “The stats say most people wait nine years to get checked, fix their ears … why would you even dream of doing that? You wouldn’t do that with any other ailment, would you? It’s absolutely ridiculous. We’ve got to kill the stigma.
“I’ve got things behind my ears, so what? If it’s helping me hear better, I don’t really care what I look like. No one worries about having a hair transplant or ‘Turkey teeth’, so why be worried about a little amplifier on the side of your head to make sure your ears work properly? It might cost me a bit of vanity and someone might tease me, who cares? It’s hardly going to ruin a face as bad as this, is it?”
Holloway, who has three profoundly deaf daughters, as well as two deaf grandchildren, is more aware than most about the impact not being able to hear can have on life; four of the five wear cochlear implants, an electronic device to improve hearing. Holloway and his wife learnt British Sign Language to unlock the door to communication. “What you can’t hear doesn’t exist,” he says. “If you can’t hear other people, if you can’t hear things, you are isolated from the world.”
Last year he had his hearing checked at Specsavers in Swindon, who sponsor the club; as part of their relationship, most players and staff had their hearing and vision checked and, as a result, one player is also thought to be exploring hearing aids. Holloway’s test found mild hearing loss in both ears. He particularly struggled with word-endings such as “s”, “p” and “sh”. “Afterwards I was shocked, really, to see what I’d lost. You half-think: ‘Do I really want them [hearing aids]?’ Do I want to be seen as deaf and old?’ But, you know what, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m sitting here talking to you, clear as a bell. Before I’d have been guessing what you’re saying.”
Scientists continue to research the link between hearing loss and dementia; the NHS says the risk of getting dementia almost doubles if a person has untreated mild hearing loss. Alzheimer’s Society says there is evidence that hearing aids can slow cognitive decline in people at risk of dementia. It was an element that pushed Holloway to get help. He lost his mother, Jean, to Alzheimer’s in 2018. “She lost her sight a bit, her hearing, stopped doing her cryptic crosswords and went downhill very quickly – you’ve got to keep your mind active, your brain going and there’s nothing quite like football to do that. But you’ve got to be able to hear correctly as well.”
The immediate target is returning Swindon to League One for the first time since they were relegated five years ago. They have matched last season’s points tally of 62 with 11 games to go. “I’ve said to the players, if any of them have been moaning about me not picking them, I’ll be able to hear them now, so don’t bother with any of that,” he says. “Last year we were trying to stay up and there was more pressure then than there is now, because the pressure of getting relegated is horrendous. It’s getting to the squeaky-bum time, as Sir Alex [Ferguson] used to say.”
Holloway collected his hearing aids last week. “The second I put them on: ‘Wow!’ Completely amazing. I hate it without them now. It’s like everything is dull and I’m listening to things in a bucket of water. Insane. I feel like I have come out of the dark and everything is colourful … imagine a black and white drawing and all of a sudden you look at it and it’s 3D and colour.”
It is a fitting analogy given Holloway is an avid artist in his spare time. Before returning to management with Swindon around 18 months ago, he thought that was going to be his new career. He has previously painted Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp and Brian Clough, and recently finished a version of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, which has pride of place in his front room at home in the Cotswolds, but his latest painting, of his wife, is a work in progress.
“She looks a bit like Helen Mirren, which isn’t a bad thing because she’s a very attractive lady, but I’d rather it looked just like my wife … it’s been a year in the making, I still haven’t got it right and it’s frustrating the living daylights out of me. I put so much paint on it that I’ve got to sand some of my wife’s face off. It doesn’t sound good, and I won’t enjoy doing it, but it’s what I’ve got to do.”
Holloway insists he will never forget the moment Megan, one of the in-store staff in Swindon, kitted him out with his hearing aids. “She said: ‘You better get yourself ready because it’ll blow your mind what you’ve been missing.’ And it does,” he says. “She said the word ‘speech’ and, oh my God, it came out so clearly. Because what your brain does, it makes up what you think you’re hearing, and I was getting things so wrong. So many words, when it’s not clear, sound the same.”
Holloway, whose Swindon side are fourth, outside the automatic promotion places on goal difference, relives one of those episodes with Kim around the house. “Have a tin of beans, a pair of jeans,” he says. “‘I don’t want any beans, love.’ No, I’ve washed your jeans. ‘Oh, sorry.’ And there are plenty of others that we can’t talk about,” he says, breaking into laughter.
