He was a professional rugby player in the area that I played as a youngster. So a lot of people who I went to school with knew who he was and knew that he was black. So I would get racist taunts in school.

There's never been completion in my football career because I've always been striving for that next thing.

Where I grew up, people obviously knew my dad because it's a small place and he was the top player for Swinton - they'd go and watch him play, see him in the papers, so they knew he was black.

I like to let my football do the talking, I'm respectful of other good teams such as Arsenal.

When you take a year off from football, you come back for all the enjoyable moments. When you're not playing, you miss out on all the highs, but you also miss these disappointments. But I would rather be in the arena to be excited or be disappointed than not have a chance at all. That's football. That's why everybody plays it.

When I got injured, I think I was starting to sense that there was more to the world than just sports. This dream of playing professional soccer probably wasn't the best track for me.

Every boy learns more in his hours of play than in his hours of labor. In school, he lays in the materials of thinking, but in his sports, he actually thinks: he whets his faculties, and he opens his eyes.

I don't want to have to say, Honey, you know, could you turn off the sports channel because I'm not a big sports fan, and I don't love the television being on just for the sake of turning on. I'd like turning on for some thing specific.