Les Ferdinand | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:00Teens share everything. That may include the bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease known as meningitis. Even if your teen's been vaccinated in the past, they could still be missing meningitis vaccinations. Ask your teen's doctor or visit meningitis.com today. Sponsored by GSK. Les, I've been looking forward to this. Have you? Yeah, you obviously haven't. I said to him a little ago, when we had our chat a few weeks ago, I was like, does he do lots of these? Is he looking forward to it? But I definitely have. Yeah, I was looking forward to it. I mean, it was hard to get a date in the diary, but I'm glad we've done it.

0:31And you've made it on a day with a tube strike. Exactly. No problem. Tell me in your own words, who is Les Ferdinand? Who is Les Ferdinand? Oh, geez. Outside of the footballer. However you choose to say it. Imagine someone watching, listening, that she doesn't know who you are. If someone didn't know, if I was explaining myself to someone, I'm a former Premier League footballer. I spent 20 years playing professional football. and then ventured into being a sporting director. That's very humble of you. Very humble of you. So you don't know this about me, but I don't support a team. Oh, right, okay.

1:08But I gravitated to that Newcastle team, which was just like cavalier. I was showing my age, back page of the newspaper to get the news and so on. Even though I'd watched the game, it was amazing times, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a great era. And it's really weird. I was speaking to, randomly this morning, I was speaking to Prince Nazim, right, he called me by mistake and we started chatting and he said, you know, the 90s, that era was, he said it was great for boxing but it was great for football, everything just seemed, I said, I think we lived in the best era there ever was and he was like, no, 100 % agree.

1:49It's cool you got to play in it. Yeah, and that's what I'm saying, you know, everything about it, you know, it was the introduction and the Premier League and that coming in and that kind of blew football into another stratosphere. It's gone into another one, an even bigger one now, but it kind of blew football up and it became more mainstream. What was it like being part of that? Because you were old enough to look back on the whole kind of transition of pints after the game to then proper diets in place and so on. You lived through all of that and the money just going... Yeah, I was fortunate when the Premier League came in And, you know, you saw a lot of former players who had been absolutely exceptional footballers who, you know, went into running pubs, went into running nightclubs, went into owning shops, whatever it was.

2:37And, you know, had to still work when they finished playing. The money hadn't been in the game. Yeah, the money wasn't in the game for those guys. And you've just seen it evolve over time. And fortunately, I caught a little bit of that. Yeah. but in context of probably the chat we're having off camera actually you know they were golden times compared to what now is almost sort of entertainment we were talking about formula one and the kind of almost the drive to survive type elements of it we're both fans of the sport but we can see there's entertainment maybe first before sport where do you sit with football right now without wanting to sound too old you know again i was having this conversation the the other day and people say the game weren't like it used to be you know tackles i mean the referees being mic'd up and all the all the bits and pieces now it is the air is a little bit more razzmatazz than it is the actual blood and thunder of what what football was you know people rolling around and getting you know free kicks for holding their faces when they've been kicked in their knee or their ankle and they're holding their faces as they go down it's all it's all changed you know Years ago, you'd get kicked and you wouldn't want to show the opposition that you were hurt.

3:47So you just jumped up. Now they're screaming before they even go down. It's not good to watch. It's very, very different to watch. Because you brought a lot of physicality to the game, right? You're a big, big guy. And you could use that. You're penalised for that now, surely, in the current game. Yeah, without a shout out. You say, I brought physicality. It's because physicality was brought to me. And that was what the game was, centre-half. I always tell people this story. I always remember as a player. When they started to change the rules a little bit, I remember playing against Arsenal at Queen's Park Rangers, and there was always a ball that a midfield player would play into a centre-forward that you thought, oh no, I'm going up in the air here, and we'll be playing until you had to go for it.

4:27A defender would come through the back of you, go up in the air. And then when they changed the rule with the tackle from behind, what the referees did straight away was they would give the defenders one opportunity. They'd come over and they'd go, right. so i remember playing here so i saw and tony adams goes through me on the halfway line go up in the end i fall down don't complain i just get up and the referee runs over and he says tony tony that's your one no more anymore you're gonna get booked so he's like oh and as he's as he's running away he's got the boldy right i've had my one yours is next and you knew another one was coming you know but yeah back then as a center forward he was able to give a little bit back as and you shook hands at the end of the game and everyone got on with it.

5:09Very, very different now. I can tell you, actually, you're pleased to have been part of that era. Did you really enjoy it? Because there's an element, and we can sort of link that to anyone at the pinnacle of sport, where you're fighting for your place, you're dealing with whatever's going on in the changing room, in the sort of the outside world. But did you really enjoy, because it's so many people's dream, right? And it must have been your dream as a kid and you realised it. You know, it's really strange. And as a kid, it wasn't my dream. I loved football, but I never thought I was going to be a footballer.

5:38What did you think you were going to be? I had no idea, but I didn't think, because there weren't many black faces that I saw playing football at the time so that I could relate to, to say, right, okay, yeah, I want to do that. Normally you see people in a job and you go, yeah, I'd like to do that. But there wasn't many that I could relate to, so it wasn't an option that I thought was going to be there for me. I didn't think, as much as I love playing football, I never thought it was going to be an option to play. As I was saying, you can't be what you can't see, which brings us to role models as well and also to the fact that when I met you for the first time and had a chat, there was a real element of frustration that black players coming through the game don't then get elevated into positions of authority and power.

6:21Is that still a trend or is that changing? I suppose I went into, I came out of football, went into coaching and I always remember when I was playing I was talking about doing my coaching badges and I remember a real prominent coach had been a manager, was a coach and was now on the other side he was sort of like in the boardroom I was having a chat with him and he said to me for people to take you seriously as a coach you need to find a good non-league club where a chairman's got ambition and that chairman's going to back you and then people will see that you want to be a coach or a manager. And I said to him, I totally understand that and I get that, to show a hunger and determination and start right at the bottom, but why do my peers not have to do that?

7:15And I mentioned some names of players in the same era of me that had come out of the game and gone straight into managing in the Premier League. And you're saying to me that I've got to go to a non-league club. And I said to him... That's prejudice, right? and i said to him why do you why do i have to do that and he said no no no i'm just saying if you want people to say you seriously as a coach and and know that you're you need to do all your coaching badges and i said no i totally get it i 100 % get what you're saying but why does no one else why are you not saying that to anyone else why are you saying that to me and what he said he did turn around he said we need to to look at how we think of things in the boardroom that's a cultural yeah i said that's a traditional toxic has that changed how long ago was that that So I was still playing because I've been retired 18 years now.

8:02So I would have been in my early 30s when he said that. And I'm now 58. So you're still super current and relevant and immersed in that world. Someone coming through now seeking that same advice as a black player, aspirationally wanting to be a coach. That advice surely must have changed. Well, if you look at the Premier League in terms of how many black managers or coaches are in there, there's none. Because Nuno's just gone the other day, so you've got no black coaches. When I became Sporting Director at QPR for a period, Chris Ramsey came in as a black coach. And if I'm not mistaken, he, maybe Chrissie Eton, I'm not sure, in 2014, was the only black coach in the Premier League at the time.

8:53You move on to 2025 and there's none. There's a massive disconnect there because you said, and this is quite an important point to make, when you were coming through as a player, there weren't many people that you could see. That changed. So that was... So I'm just trying to join the dots, looking in from the outside, why very clearly there have been phenomenal black players that have done so much for clubs, country. and so surely that that must mean i get myself into trouble there's a hierarchy of some kind of a kind of barrier to entry and it's how you break that i think i guess if you knew the answer you don't because as super relaxed as you are your whole demeanor is relaxed you know when you're when you're on the pitch and when you are wanting something to happen you go after i'm just just curious as to why that's not changing um it's a question that's asked all the time and you know people come to me say what do we need to do and i'm saying well hang on a minute you know it's um it's like someone burgling my house and the police can't turn up and they're saying to me what do you want me to do now you know I mean it's your job to find out you're supposed to to find out who burgled my house not me not asking me what do we do now do you know what I mean so it's um but it's frustrating because there's a load of players that have done their coaching badges and and want to progress but not being given the opportunity and you know we keep talking about breaking down these barriers we keep talking about you know like i've often said wealth for a long time now so i'm not wearing any more badges any more t-shirts i'm not taking any more knees i'm not doing any of that because it doesn't seem to you know it's it's the flavor of the month for a while and then after it's what comes after that i keep saying what comes after that you know and that's where we are right it's all very well talking about it like we are now i mean i'm already in that mode of like what needs to happen but it's out of my but yeah just i just for me I can't understand and racism in football you've you've lived through a huge transition there there's been a lot of talk and a lot of things initiatives brought in what is the current state of it in your opinion right now I think in stadiums unfortunately over the the last four or five years maybe a little bit more than that we've seen it start to rear its ugly head again and if you looked especially on social media I think the numbers are increasing every year in terms of people being racially abused or sexually abused whatever whatever whatever the the you know any type of abuse people are being abused and it's and it's rising rather than being that's increasing yeah your stats are increasing and i and i think it's easy i mean years ago i mean the first bit of uh racist mail i had someone had to write a letter put the name of the club on the letter get a stamp go out and post it right had to go to had to go quite a bit of trouble to do it now you can just sit in your room and go bang bang bang bang bang did you get that did you get that sort of racist oh yeah I got letters through the post and stuff like that you know if I'd done particularly well against a team scored a goal or whatever it was then you know there was a chance that I would get racist abuse by the form of a letter or something in the post I mean you and I are from an era where there's a sort of man up and get on with it and fend for yourself but was there any safeguarding is that the right terminology or did you have anyone supporting you because if you think about the fact that there is a young lad there that's come through huge odds to be at the pinnacle of the sport you can't help but have an ego at that point right you manage it really well but the point is you're out there wearing a shirt for the club and country that puts you in that spotlight and then at what point do you have to manage not wanting to retaliate probably when you're out on the pitch go back to me you can hear what people are saying and so on how did you manage that you do you just you unfortunately there's not a lot you can do you can't you can't jump into the into the stand and start having a fight with people so you know you hear you well that was it was funny because i mentioned that in in an interview i did you know it took for a talented Frenchman to jump into the crowd and kick people kick someone for us to realize we had a racism problem in this country it took to that and I said can you imagine if a black player had done that he'd never played football again it's a really good point never play football again you know so and you know the other thing was he got he got vilified for it but actually i'll never know what was being said but it snapped him it broke him right and yet there's an element of going back to those those proper glory days of you playing where it's almost like you were pieces of chess on a board and not humans you know for people to be able to say some of the things you must have heard people coming out of their mouths and so on there's an element and how yeah again almost the same sort of question but just that that resiliency you've almost sort of built up are you at peace of all that i have to be yeah you know you seem again super relaxed you know i was you know just talking about thinking about back to that canton our moment uh people don't know this and a lot of people won't realize this i did the first ever racist campaign in this country with canton or after he did it we were both sponsored by nike at the time and and nike did the first uh racism campaign in this country and um me and him did it together and that was wow i can't even remember when it was it makes you feel old yeah i was really i was still at school when he i was watching when he did the uh yeah when that happened yeah there you go it was at crystal palace when many and i at crystal palace yeah and um and we're still we're still talking about it today there's a whole thing left on yeah i'm finished there and we won't solve it here but thank you for sharing that you mentioned those sort of thoughts of going into coaching and ultimately it's led you to be president now how much thought did you give after playing days because I often imagine what it must be like for you where you walked out countless times to huge, ruptuous applause.

14:45You were also a scorer, right? You know, your ultimate forward. So you actually get that glory when you score a goal and get to celebrate. So then at some point knowing you're going to hang your boots up but potentially miss the agility. I want to know about that transition from thoughts coming towards the end of a career and how you managed sort of missing that dopamine. Yeah, I mean, again, I was asked about this because you know the statistics that say say that football comes to the end of his career 85 percent of footballers um marriages break down after they finish playing football 85 percent 85 percent and they and i remember doing the interview and person asked me why do you think that is and i said well all of a sudden you've gone from a purpose in your life you're getting up every morning and you're going into a training ground and blah blah blah and you're out of the hair of your partner or your wife which can work for something yeah exactly remember that that those few hours of separation is great in some relationships so all of a sudden you're under you're under her feet all the time and and probably getting on her nerves a little bit because you're around the house and not doing what you're supposed to be doing or should be doing and then all of a sudden unless you've been very lucky and fortunate in terms of what you've earned all of a sudden what you were you was able to do as a footballer this is just my my opinion what you was able to do as a footballer so if you need a new sofa with the wages at a footballer and you go and get it next week if you decide you want it today you go and get it tomorrow and all of a sudden when you're retired and the money's not coming in as frequently or as much as it was, then all of a sudden that sofa might take a couple of months to buy, so your whole lifestyle changes and with that, the depression not going into a training ground each and every day I mean I was really fortunate I played till I was 39 and I was still being offered a contract and I remember sort of like going into AD Booth, who was the manager at Watford at the time, and said to me, come in and I thought I'm going to come in, I'm going to de-train myself out of football.

16:44So I started, I went in every day and fair play to AD incorporated me in the first team football. So I got myself to a level of fitness and I think what he thought was once I got there, that persuaded me to play for another year but I got to that point and then they went away on pre-season tour to Finland or somewhere like I said do you want to come I said no I'll stay and play with the 21s and I'd stayed and I trained and I trained with the 21s till they came back and I always remember the first day of the season was like you know the first game they were playing away and normally you know on a Friday you get on a coach wherever you're going to you get on the coach and you get your seat and you go right okay this is the start of the season I remember coming out of the training ground as the coach was going up the drive at watford and i thought to myself i'm really glad i'm not on that and i can't realize i've made the right decision to retire because a lot of people must struggle with that lack of identity so you were you were properly at peace i was at peace i knew it was time and uh you know as much as i i loved football and and if i could play today i would still play but the knees and everything else my back was telling me that now you listen to your body yeah yeah i had to listen to the mindset point of you right that's really good to hear that so that you sort of you transitioned mentally um and peacefully if you like but what kind of what did you then spend your time doing because you had a purpose every week you had a game to train for which keeps you physically fit keeps you mentally sharp how did you transition that i was i was really fortunate because coming out of of sort of like playing uh i thought like shaking hands with the bbc and said look i'd do some there you know the football focus and and so on and so forth and so um a lot of my time on the weekends was was still taking up watching games and commentating on games so you're still part of still seeing people you know and when you go into that little room and you've got three or four former players doing the same thing that banter's still the same and so you're kind of like still involved with it without having the day-to-day involvement of going into a training ground so that kind of like softened the blow a little bit until I and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go back into coaching I didn't know whether I'd get a job as a manager and then I started thinking well what's next what's next for me and fortunately for me Harry Redknapp went back into Spurs and asked me to come in and coach and so I went in and when I got in there it's all I got a taste of it and thought right I'm gonna do my coaching badges and so I went through all the process done my pro license got everything I needed to be a manager but I just didn't think I was going to get a job and so I looked at other avenues and the sporting director role was one even though there was no no black players or former black players in that role I just felt that you know the business side of it and sort of being in the boardroom and seeing what how it all functions i thought that was the avenue i wanted to like that because there's an element of personal um satisfaction by doing that also you know that that's um a visible face yeah it goes back to that whole like dare i say you talk to yourself out of the coaching job because of the fact that the advice you've been given and which is something that's got to change what is the role of your presidency well I was sporting director at QBR for 8 years 8 and a half years and then I sort of stepped down from that about 2 years ago now so I've gone back into doing a bit of media stuff just to keep me out of the house so apart from playing some golf and you look again super relaxed is it a transition time for you at the moment or you're just enjoying some time out yeah it's a transition time I'd like to go back in I feel like I learnt a lot in my first role and I still feel like I've got quite a lot to offer to football so if I can if I get the right opportunity to go back and help somewhere then I'd like to do that we touched on I guess we call it mental health stuff you've been through the resilience you've built um and and I want to know kind of almost what you do and have done what works for you to keep mentally fit and is that tied into playing golf getting steps in and keeping physically fit yeah you know I go through phases where I feel like right I've got to get on it and then I do shows like this and see that I'm putting a bit of a tummy on and then I have to get back in the gym again so um yeah that kind of like keeps me keeps me ticking over you know you know you talk about the mental health side of things and as you said when I was playing that was never that was never talked about and so when you saw players who drank heavily or gambled heavily um no one actually knew what was going on with them and you know when I look back on it these guys were going through mental health issues you know if they weren't playing well they didn't know how to deal with it and there was no one there to try and help them so they they turned to things that numbed their time in football and you know unfortunately some of them went went by the wayside because of it but there was no there was no help right at the beginning of uh this journey with external stories i interviewed stephen corker ah okay what a talent and and what a reflection from his point of you to to have the maturity perspective to look back on all the addictive sort of things that sidelined his career did you swerve all of that did you have any because because there's a tribal element to football right you're a band of brothers yeah spending a lot of time together so you know often you can copy the people around you right so there are people that have got into drugs i'm not specifically talking about football here or drinking whatever because the people around them do but it feels like you managed to just keep out of all that i was really fortunate I was never a big drinker.

22:20And I went to a massive drinking culture in Newcastle when I went there. It was part of the camaraderie, but it wasn't what I did. I wasn't a big drinker. I was fortunate. I'd had family members who were alcoholics, and I always looked at them and thought, that's not where I want to be. That's not who I want to be. And so I stayed away from that. You mentioned Stephen Corker, coach Stephen Corker, and then when I went to QPI, he was one of the players. Of course. I had some really good conversations with Stephen. He's a good lad. He's a great lad. It's great to see that he's got his life in order now and he's going in the right direction and he's not afraid to talk about what he's been through and stuff like that.

22:59It goes back to that role model side of things. Do you see yourself as a role model? I keep getting pitched as a role model. I see you as a role model. Especially when I went into the role I went into. It was interesting because a journalist asked me, do I feel like I need to be successful to help the next cohort of black players looking at perhaps going into the sporting director role, do I feel like I need to be successful? I said, why has every other sporting director been successful? And what's your definition of being successful? Because you don't know what my role is at QBI, you don't know what they've asked me to do, but you're saying I need to be successful to help the next one come through so there's loads of Caucasian directors of football that move from job to job to job not because they've been successful at all of them seems like there's an extra layer of pressure and expectation yeah and and that's what we got to get away from yeah it's really invaluable to share that that my next question for you was and is what is your definition personally as a lesbian sitting here now of success?

24:07I mean for me when I went into QPR it was when I spoke to the owners it was about trimming the the the wage bill I went into a wage bill that was around about 78 million by the time I left we had it reduced to 15 and trying to stay competitive in the championship was hard but we managed to do it at the same time we needed to sell players and we we did that you know when I went in we're you know in eight years I was there I spent 30 million we with the sale of that's just gone as well. It's given them a bit more money. You know, we've made over 70. So for me, that's successful. I mean, the ideal for me would have been QPR getting promoted back to the Premier League.

24:46But that's not actually within your control. Yeah, we were unfortunately way off of that in terms of being able to do that. You know, when we was trending in the top six, we were punching well above our weights because we had like the 15th worst budget in the league. But, you know, as supporters, supporters don't understand that because they've seen this side be successful. They've seen this side in the Premier League and that's where they want to see him again, but they don't understand what it takes to get there. Bar's been set, yeah. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And same question, but real personal to Les.

25:17And think of that as, again, the reflection on a career that, you know, talk about success, you're playing, scoring for huge clubs, country, and actually being content right now, which a lot of people are not, you know, you've got that. chilled by what is your definition of success i mean for me uh coming from where i came from in terms of non-league football and you get into into the professional game you know i came in at 19 i came in really late compared to to some of my peers and then actually achieving and and and and getting to play for represent your country because once you get there you get into the professional ranks and then you start playing on a regular basis the highest accolade you could probably get to is playing representing your country and and you get there and then i say right don't you don't want to do it once you want to do it more than once and you know get there on on several occasions for me that that you know in terms of a career yes i wish i had won more and you know i spent a lot of time at qpr when i probably could have moved on and perhaps that stifled me from winning a few more trophies but um yeah i'm pretty pleased with the way the career win yeah i have to say it was a pleasure always watching this without getting myself into trouble again um when i watched you come out to play and there was there was that feeling amongst the team as well everyone wanted to be there you felt you felt i felt like you were going to give it all you know you are an all or nothing kind of person right you know back to today so i'll come in and i've got you fully present whereas there's there's back to that almost entertainment and stroke sport and so much money in the game sometimes i'm watching a game whether it's national or club and you just think are they really committed is there half an eye on so because there's just so much distraction now there's so many kind of deals going on outside of the game right it's just like i never felt that with you you're smiling no do you know why because you're saying it's kind of like turned into entertainment more entertainment but we were called the entertainers yes you know because because of the brand of football we played um not because anyone weren't committed we were just on the front foot the whole time and you know if you scored mega to watch our motto was you score one we'll score two if you score two we'll score three and inevitably you knew i think we became everybody's second favorite team because they knew whenever we played there was going to be goals well there's never a nil nil was there it was like seven six or something with you with a hat trick here we go all the days what advice should you give to someone um coming through now looking at life in the sort of you know wanting to be a footballer and sort of you as a role model looking back enjoyment it's the one thing you know when I was sporting director at QPR one of the things we used to say to the parents allow your kids to enjoy football because you'll only get to where you you want to go if you're enjoying it if you're going in there and you're thinking I'm doing this because I want to be a professional football you're going to put too much pressure on yourself and you're not going to enjoy the journey and the best footballers I've seen in whenever whenever I've watched football the best footballers in the world I've ever watched and seen whenever they play they play like they're playing in a park with their mates free free and just you know you watch Messi you watch Ronaldo you watch Henri you watch Ronaldinho my favourite player the Brazilian number nine you watched him play and they play with a joy and it's almost like all the shackles come off and they just enjoy what they're doing flow state exactly and that's that's what i would say to any kid yeah listen to listen to your your your coaches because they'll never give you advice that's going to harm you they only want to see you improve so i would say listen to your coaches but enjoy the game enjoy what you're doing you've played against an unbelievable array of players world class who's the greatest player you've ever played against, in your opinion?

29:18Ronaldinho. I was playing for Leicester at the time and we played Barcelona in a pre-season friendly. And it was the year that he scored, he'd just scored the goal against Seaman the year before and had that free kick that went in the top corner. And I remember every time he touched the ball, the whole crowd would burn him. The whole stadium was burning him, apart from a little congregation of Barcelona fans. Everyone was burning him. and then the goalkeeper saw a half volley the ball out and it went into him and he chested it and the friend of Mark and him came to try and get it he flicked it over his head one way flicked it over his head and then volleyed it out to the and everyone just stood up and started clapping and then just after that everyone cheered him every time he touched the ball he was just he was just sensational and all he did he just played with a smile on his face you know it was a pre season friendly but I just you know I've played with some great players you know Paul Gascoigne would be up there as one of the greatest players I've ever played with David Ginola, JJ Ococha as you know a few of the greatest players but when I think about them and how they played just like that just free.

30:23I love it taking me back to all sorts of images and visions leadership's a key part of you kind of leading from the front and having great managers that you've worked alongside what's probably your greatest experience of leadership during your playing career well it's a good question that i think important people have come around at different times in my career and i've taken little bits from yeah it's a very personal question to you yeah i'm not talking about who's the greatest either something that's that just resonated or had an impact probably jerry francis you know i i spent a bit of time out in turkey with a fellow called gordon mill who's really instrumental in in in starting my career off um because he put a lot of faith in me.

31:06He took me out of the reserves in QPR into this fantastic arena, which was Besiktas, and kind of put his faith and trust in me. And I felt I couldn't let him down. So he was really important. But then when I came back to QPR, Jerry Francis came in. And, you know, I grew up in Notting Hill, West London. I grew up on the estate where the Grenfell Fire was. And so I grew up on that estate. So it was, you know, I I had a bit of a rough upbringing in terms of like, I had to look after myself and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I always felt that, you know, I could look after myself. You know, I didn't really need anyone.

31:44I was cool. But Gerry came in and put an arm around me. And I didn't realise I needed that as a player and as a man, as a young man, I didn't feel like I could cope with whatever the world had to offer me. And then Gerry just put an arm around me and it just kind of like released loose all the shackles i was able to go and do what i needed to do i love that so he was important again there was a lot of probably bravado yeah and masking and sure hunts from your upbringing uh you know you show a weakness probably going to get your face punched in and what have you and on the football football pitch itself show a weakness yeah you know and the one one word you used right at the beginning of this was ego and I think we all we all have it every now and again and you know it's really funny when I when I went in as a as a sporting director every every morning I pulled up at the training ground before I got the car I'd say to myself please leave your ego in the car oh that hits home so I've got a guy who you'd love Steve Hewitt who was the CEO you know Steve yeah he's like leave your ego at the door and we he's he's invested in the business the studio we're sitting in now um great story of how him and ben francis came together where ben young lad thought he could do it all you know eventually kind of put his hands up and said my god i can't do this instead now i can work with you took it to unicorn billionaire status and that's it just yeah just try and leave your ego at it you know every day i go out of the car and i say leave your ego in here so you're an absolute pleasure to do it i could keep going for ages but we went out of time have you enjoyed this i really have i really have learned those you are yeah you're inspirational on those.

33:23Thank you. I appreciate it. What's keeping you busy onwards now? Have you got something you really want to still make happen or are you just working out things and chilling? Yeah, just working out what the next step is. Whether it's back into football. Like I said, I've got so much I say knowledge and understanding the game and what I've done and things I've seen that I feel I could help a football club. But I don't know if football's the thing that I go into next. You know, I'm just weighing up my options and seeing what's available to you. Whatever you do do, good luck. Thank you. Yeah, football will benefit in any way if you come back into it in any way.

34:03But thank you for making time to talk to me today. Thank you for having me on.