It was the brown envelopes that kept falling through the letterbox that filled Dean Windass with foreboding.
Windass was a spiky but effective striker whose 18-year senior career had taken him through all four divisions, including spells in the Premier League with Bradford City, Middlesbrough and Hull City, plus the Scottish top flight with Aberdeen. While he was never one of the game’s superstars, he had earned good money at a time when English football was booming.
Yet, seven years after his 2009 retirement, Windass was effectively broke, his accounts emptied by a tax bill for £164,000 ($223,000 in today’s exchange) — a legacy of an ill-advised investment in the movie industry — and a divorce settlement.
“I remember going to a…