Jim Whitley: From Premier League football to treading the boards, the former Man City star is now a singer performing as Sammy Davis Jr
HE'S winning now he's singing.
Jim Whitley was a terrier in the midfield for Manchester City, starring in 1998 to become the club's young player of the season.
Whitley played alongside City hero Shaun Goater, Georgian playmaker Georgi Kinkladze and Shaun Wright-Phillips.
He also represented Northern Ireland at international level, earning 3 caps against Spain, Turkey and Finland.
But his City dream turned sour when he fell out of a favour and was loaned out to clubs including Blackpool, Norwich City, Swindon Town and Northampton Town.
Whitley found his feet again at Wrexham and went on to make 140 appearances for the Welsh side before injury cut his career short.
Unable to find a club following an operation on his knee, he retired from the game in 2006 and turned to painting and then singing.
Now, he's getting ready to go on a 49-show tour playing Sammy Davis Jr in a stage production called Crooners, in which he gets to show off his incredible tap dancing skills.
SunSport caught up with the talented performer to discuss his love for treading the boards. Whitley, 42, was happy to tell us where it all began.
"I was in the school choir as a kid in Wrexham, and I also played flute in the school band," he said.
"But when I got to 14-years-old football took over and I put performing to one side to focus on the game."
However, fate and destiny soon had a hand in bringing Whitley back towards his first passion.
As he was getting to ready to hang up his boots at the age of 31, a local singer wanted to write a song about the town of Wrexham.
Whitley, whose brother Jeff also played for City, was among the players selected to sing along to the ditty.
He recalled: "There was a girl who had a written a song about Wrexham. She wanted players from the club to sing along to it.
"I was picked and I just loved being in the recording studio. I saw this guy singing Frank Sinatra and he could see I was interested and it suited my voice.
"He invited me over to the Rhyl Theatre to sing a few numbers and I performed Lady Is A Tramp, Fly Me To The Moon and Come Fly With Me there.
"Then, the bass player who was part of the band asked me to join him in London for a musical about The Rat Pack.
latest football features
"They were all West End singers and I had to learn very fast. It was really sink or swim and they were trying to teach me tap too.
"But the more and more I did it, I knew I had to improve. So I went and learned how to do it with lessons.
"Since then, and through word of mouth, I've been performing at weddings and clubs, as well as at Wrexham's 130th birthday celebrations. It's been quite a journey."
Whitley admitted that while he was confident about his singing, he was more worried about tap. In fact, his previous football skills didn't help him adapt in the slightest.
"I could dance but when somebody put a mic to my feet it would sound awful," he told us.
"Kicking a ball, your feet have to be quite solid. Whereas in tap, it has to be quite loose.
We're not on this planet long, so it's always good to learn new skills.
"I love learning new skills, I started football when I was ten and I just went straight into it.
"And that was the same with tap for me. I just really focused on it. It's always something that impresses people because it's something that takes time to get.
"We're not on this planet long, so it's always good to learn new skills."
During his playing days, Whitley confessed he would never sing in front of his teammates but music was always part and parcel of the dressing room.
He acknowledged that a lot of players think they can sing and have released records, but he gets more of a kick out of being on stage.
He said that both football and singing require you putting on an act too.
Whitley explained: "Music has always been part of the dressing room.
"There's always certain people at a club that take it upon themselves to look after the music.
"And there's always one that thinks he can sing too. I do think a lot of players like both, so they do dabble in that world.
"I've not released singles and gone down that route, but I absolutely love performing on stage, whether that's in front of 500 people or over 2,000.
In football, once you get on the pitch, you have to put on a facade - a mask - and you perform. And it's exactly the same in the theatre. You put on a mask, you go out and perform.
CHANGING GEARS Fabien Barthez: From World Cup-winner to racing at Le Mans, the extraordinary transformation of the world’s most recognised goalkeeper
"In football, once you get on the pitch, you have to put on a facade - a mask - and you perform.
"And it's exactly the same in the theatre. You put on a mask, you go out and perform.
"The biggest difference is if you have a bad game on the football pitch, there's ten other players that can be blamed as much as you.
"But on stage, you've got no one else. You could mess up the lyrics, anything could go wrong and that was always the most nerve-wracking thing for me.
"It's only when I started to see professionals mess-up with such ease that you start to realise nobody is perfect.
"It's all about keeping your cool when things don't go well."
Being a former footballer, Whitley revealed that he does feel under additional scrutiny for his performance.
"Knowing that I've not come from the same background, people might look at me and study me more than one of the other singers," he divulged.
"They could think that I shouldn't be a good singer because I was a footballer and didn't come from it.
"So I always feel I'm under a lot more pressure because of that."
But when the curtain falls Whitley's not short of admirers and he joked about the banter he gets from from cheeky football fans.
I've had people come up to me after shows and tell me I'm a better singer than I was a footballer!
He said: "I've had people come up to me after shows and tell me I'm a better singer than I was a footballer!
"That's the bit of a banter that keeps coming round, but the theatre world is a different world.
"You can't shout and heckle like you would in a football stadium.
"And there's other people that'll see in the program notes that I played for Man City and Northern Ireland and they'd ask me if I really played for them.
"Some just can't quite put the two together!"
Whitley went to Ysgol Bryn Alyn secondary school with Robbie Savage in Wrexham and they're still mates.
He's hoping to invite "Sav" to see him tap after being impressed by his pal's dancing skills on Strictly Come Dancing.
"I'm hoping to see if Sav can see me perform tap. He's seen me singing before, but he's not seen play a character.
"I thought Sav was excellent on Strictly Come Dancing. He went in the gym, made sure he was in fine form and it's nerve-wracking.
"To go and do Strictly Come Dancing, especially if you've not danced before, doing it live there's always that moment you could blank.
"Football, you know what you're doing, but to get on live TV and do that is scary.
"I'd love to do it (Strictly Come Dancing), but because I've been out the game for such a long time I don't carry the weight of some of the names on there as a celebrity.
"If I went on there people would probably think, 'who the hell is this guy?'
"Funny enough, because I'm not of the big celebrity status, I've found that I've been accepted a lot easier on stage.
"I've had a very good feedback, and it's actually been quite nice to slip into another field without being really noticed."
After Whitley was released by Wrexham, who couldn't afford his rehab, he turned to painting portraits.
In fact, he was once commissioned to do a study of Princess Diana for her former butler Paul Burrell.
And Whitley's painting of David Beckham is hung up on the wall in the PFA offices in Manchester.
But he found making an art a lonely experience and counts discovering performing as a blessing.
"The transition from football to music happened at about the time I retired," he said.
"I was gutted when I had to retire. I'd just had an operation on my knee and my contract was up at Wrexham.
I'm not one of the ones that football paid out so much that I don't have to work again.
"They couldn't afford to keep me on for my rehab. I was let go and I couldn't go to a club to go on trial.
"I did turn to portraits, but that's a very lonely existence.
"At the time when I finished football, I was there doing nothing.
"I'm not one of the ones that football paid out so much that I don't have to work again.
"I had to earn a living, so I thought I'd try portraits. I went into that full-time, looked at all contacts I knew at the clubs and took them in to show the players.
"But being sat in a room, on my own, that was tough. So the music became a blessing in disguise."
MOST READ IN FOOTBALL
Established in the theatre world, Whitley recalled what he was told my Man City legend Colin Bell as a youngster.
He's taken that mantra into singing, dancing and acting and the former winger is armed with a songbook (he writes music too) and is ready to stretch his acting chops.
"I was always taught as a kid... I remember Colin Bell, he always use to say 'give 100 percent because if things don't work out you can say you did your best.'
"I've done that for everything I've always tried, so right now in music I'm doing everything I can to improve and be the best I can.
"I've written songs with my guitar, could somebody take on one of my songs and do something? I don't know, the possibilities are endless.
"Because of the music side and the crooner side, more acting is involved in this role. That would definitely be a new skill to learn.
"There will come a point when I've done music and I've gone as far as I could go with it, that I'll think of something else. But I'm still learning, so we'll just have to wait and see."
Jim Whitley is starring in Crooners, which runs from March 8. Be sure to for a show near you from their site.