Growing up as a kid, I played for Wallsend Boys Club, a famous boys club. I had such a good childhood and upbringing there.

My favourite game has to be winning the Champions League against Chelsea in 2008, because nothing can top that. My favourite goal was at Wigan in 2009, which came late in the game and pretty much clinched the title for us that year.

If you look at anyone's career, there are times when you have hard times. Even the best players have to struggle through things.

When I was setting out as a kid, five, six, seven years old, England was a dream. One of my best days as a player was my England debut - but it didn't quite happen after that!

It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity. It brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret.

I was chomping at the bit to get my career started - so after I took all the theater courses at Brooklyn College I enrolled in a two year program at AMDA in the city (The American Musical Dramatic Academy) I was there for 6 months and loved it.

We've had enough career politicians in Helena who think the people are here to serve them. It's supposed to be the other way around.

By the time I was 23 or 24 and had written the first manuscript of 'The Final Winter', I knew I wanted to make it a career but didn't know how. It took me a long time to grow into myself, but when my love of writing returned, it did so with an enormous amount of venom. It is now a mainstay in my life.