If you feel a bit aggrieved or hard done by, you probably need the break just to reset yourself and give yourself time for different learning - to get out there and experience different things.

In my last years, I was conscious how I used to play the game when I first broke through. It was absolute chalk and cheese. I probably finished at the right time. There won't be many players like me in the future.

I suddenly thought, if I was going to make a go of it, I was going to have to look after myself and not keep apologising for knocking people over. That transformed my career.

The four and a half years I had at Stoke is something I will always look back on with pride because it was a huge achievement. To be able to last in a high profile job as long as I did showed that, for the most part, I did a decent job there.

Technically, the green screen acting can be difficult because there's something worse than a tennis ball on the end of a stick; it's an Australian visual effects assistant running around a field with a cardboard dinosaur head on the end of a stick while wearing sandals.

I could go right now and work for a non-profit organization, but I have a passion for sports, and I love to write and speak.

I enjoyed every minute of being at school. I was doing my work but still playing football.

Hugh Grant is about the only actor I've met who has taken any proper interest in football, being a big Fulham supporter. But he'd be far too good-looking to play me in any film.