TRAINING KEY FOR YOUTH

Q AWhat was your history as a footballer?

My history as a player is always not achieving what you really want to achieve. I was in a couple of the youth programs at local clubs. I wasn’t successful at 16 and so I then tried to play for our local nonleague clubs. It’s very few and far between the people who do that and mainly it’s down to the amount of training you can do when you’re employed fulltime. The difference between players who do transfer into fulltime youth training programs, they are just so far ahead in mental and physical fitness. The pathway becomes difficult once you drop out of fulltime training.

Q AKnowing what you do now, is it frustrating you couldn’t go further?

Desire will get you a long way but it will only get you so far. Looking back, maybe I should have been away more practising my technical skills on my own, but I don’t really remember a time without having a ball at my feet.