Maziar Kouhyar will be playing football in the National League next season after his current club York City were promoted yesterday. But it's not long ago since he was selling cars for a living in Solihull.
“Leaving my job was a big risk,” Kouhyar told The Athletic.
“But, having got the taste back at Hereford, I wanted to give it one last go. I knew I had to give it everything and that meant concentrating only on football.
“I didn’t want to work, other than play for Hereford. I wanted no distractions. Even though it meant I wasn’t earning as much as last year when still at the car dealership.
“On my days off, I would go and train. Might be in the park or the gym. Anything that I felt would help me live like a full-time pro."
Also pleased with Kouhyar's sucess is Tom Latchem who works for Be who represent the Afghanistan-born winger.
“There is a glaring lack of south Asian footballers playing pro in this country,” said Latchem.
“Something like 16 out of 4,000 at the last count. We want to do something about that and Maz has become a great example.
“I’d seen he had dropped out of football so made contact through LinkedIn. We met and there was almost a sadness about him. But we got Maz in at Hereford through another client of ours (manager Josh Gowling) and the rest has been down to Maz.”