There weren't many options growing up, so I would wear whatever possible. I once saw a little boy wearing Jordan sneakers in a movie... and that made me dream.

The only thing that can protect me from someone coming from behind are the rules.

I'm always learning. I have to.

I've always said I learned to defend myself from an opponent coming for a hard hit. Tricks are part of my repertoire; I use them to try to get past my opponents, but the objective is always to score goals.

Honestly, it's not the medals that I feel so proud of. It's the way I conducted myself as an athlete, the hard work that I put forward.

I grew up on the tennis court with lots of other kids. There were like 40 kids all afternoon and I was one of the youngest ones, so I always had to chase everybody to keep up.

I've always prided myself on being a football player.

In the 1980s when I was growing up in the Berkshire town of Maidenhead I was heavily into tennis. It was the era of Borg and McEnroe. I used to spend hours hitting balls against a wall, imagining I was beating them both.