In an interview conducted recently, Tottenham hero, Ledley King revealed all the challenges has faced after retiring with no life skills.
But the 31 year old defender was left feeling helpless when injury cruelly forced him to hang up his boots unexpectedly five years ago. Such is the world of modern football.
“When you come out of school at age 16 and go straight into football, you don’t really have any life skills,” says King, who is now an ambassador for Tottenham.
“For the first couple of years it was like being on work experience – learning to deal with people differently and come out of myself in a different way. It’s something I’ve been growing into ever since.
He admitted that he wish he was not so one-dimensional during his playing days but now that he is away from the game, he has evolved and is no longer one-dimensional.
Back then, even as a teenager, he came on at left back at half time only for Liveepool to come from two goals behind to beat 10 man Tottenham 3-2.
“I ended up feeling a little bit guilty,” said King, “almost as though it were my fault. I’d made my debut when we were 2-0 up and as soon as I had come on it had all gone wrong!”
LedleyBrenton King, 38 years old, is an English former professional footballer who played his entire career for Tottenham Hotspur from 1999 to 2012, playing a total of 321 competitive matches in that time. He was named by The Times in 2009 as Tottenham’s 25th best player of all time.