#1018 - Peter Crouch - Behind The Bravado of Modern British Football

0:00Do ex-players turn to podcasts because TV punditry feels fake? um god I felt like I was maybe one of the first like to to do a podcast I only did a podcast because I had a book to promote bizarrely and uh someone said I'll do a podcast and then I genuinely thought no one would listen to it and then um you know we we had a laugh doing it and I probably said a hell of a lot more than I probably should and then I and then I realized people were actually listening you know it was one of those where I we weren't planning on having a huge following and then it kind of arrived and then I don't know it was it was a bit more of um the fact that I was being open and honest in a world of football where you're told to be guarded and and secretive you know it's very much like don't say the wrong thing and um and I think the fact that we were open and honest gave it a platform and people wanted to listen to it and um the the the punditry stuff yet i think it's a little bit more still in that world of um stay guarded don't say the wrong thing um whereas podcasts as i'm sure you know you know yourself you can definitely be yourself a little bit more and show your personality and i think that's um i think that's obviously the the benefit of them what is it about the world of football that encourages the players to be so guarded because you're right i i haven't i have an understanding of the like psychology of the motivation of players from other sports of rock stars uh and football players seem to be very sort of dead outside of the uh permitted interview at the end of the match which is 30 seconds long there's not much going on what is that prescribed top down is that something that's cultural bottom up what's going on i do think i do think it's changing in a lot of ways because i think certainly when i was playing it was very much going to an interview do a press conference but don't say anything i think that bizarrely was our mentality was i want to come out of this interview having got through it and not said anything too controversial inflammatory anything to wind anyone up.

2:16If we've got a Derby game on a weekend, I don't want to get their supporters riled up by saying something negative about the other team. I want to go in there and say the plainest answers I can possibly say. Well, there is a reputation among footballers for giving slightly bland answers. Exactly right. And I think there's an element of that I totally understand because quite often, I think in a world now where players have social media, players can have their own voice, players can get things across there's certainly a definite shift in it I think certainly when I was playing and before me the kind of newspapers ran the the media really and I think something that you say in a newspaper in a headline as I'm pretty sure you would know being on a podcast yourself if someone takes something you say out of context and puts that in a headline you know that can look very different to what you're trying to get across and I think if you're certainly in Britain at that time most people formed opinions through newspapers and I think if I'm saying you know saying something tongue-in-cheek about a player on the opposition side we all know it's a joke everyone in the room knows it's a joke but if you put that in a headline and make it look like it's not a joke people can get offended and people's opinion of you will be warped and I think certainly that was the whole probably reason behind the fact that we don't want to say anything and we're boring and if most players used to give very boring interviews i happens to think it is changing a lot now i think um certainly with through the world of social media we can see a lot more of players personalities podcasts like this people do want to come on and you can kind of you're not just a footballer um you know who does a boring interview at the end of the game you can be a little bit more than that now well i think about ufc fighters who maybe more of what they do is outside of the sport, right?

4:14Almost all of what they do, boxers too, it is all about the press conference. It's all about the podcast. You know, look at someone like Ariel Helwani who will have each different fighter from a card that's coming up on UFC or, you know, BKFC or whatever. And that is what they do. And I still, I don't know. are we seeing footballers change because they can now counter the narrative in the mainstream press they can always just put up an instagram story or they can address these things directly is it your opinion that because you had no direct access to be able to put something out to the fans or to the world other than again through the same newspaper that just said something mean and out of context about you previously that it meant everyone was a lot more scared about getting stuff wrong?

4:59Everyone was petrified, genuinely petrified. And you've got to think about it, quite often in football, it's working class background, lads are coming from tough environments, maybe not the most educated, and that's genuinely the case. And I think you're then put into a press conference with what I would say at the time, very well-educated people trying to make you trip up on your words or say things that you don't want to say and I think of course that young lad 18 19 years of age is going to be pretty guarded you know in an environment like that and I think that is you know certainly has been the case I think with regards to boxing you have said like you said there um it has become a show more than the I mean quite often the the boxing takes kind of a back seat to the this whole you know performance everything is WWE yeah it feels like you know we're all trying to kind of sell subscriptions and sell tickets and i totally understand it you know you want to the biggest spectacle you can and you know there's people behind the scenes that want to make a hell of a lot of money from it and they are but um yeah i mean quite often i think it's almost pulling the wool over the eyes of the of the fans in some degree to say you know two people that look like they really hate each other probably don't they're just selling the fuck i'm i'm as you're speaking there i'm wondering whether most team sports tend to not be like that and i think that that's the case i don't think as many basketball players steph curry isn't giving tons of interviews talking shit about other people um baseball not the same uh cricket i guess but i suppose cricket is a quite placid by nature and the sport is a little bit more gentlemanly so like the shit talk would be of a different kind if you were to do that but uh when i think about tennis fucking novak jockovich was just on jay shetty's show um so i'm wondering whether there's maybe something different about you're part of a team and whoa whoa whoa peter what did you just say there's 10 other guys on the pitch that are at the mercy of that shit thing that you just said yesterday like we're all you everyone's given a stick um so you're responsible for the blast radius of the bullshit around you does that make sense yeah and also i think you know with a with a team sport like that there's a there's an element of you know still being at school you know like you want to fit in you know if you're in a in a in a single sport if you're a boxer or a golfer you know you can say what you like it's on you right and i think you know if we i always remember it's kind of jamie carrigo who really drilled it into me when i was at liverpool um you know going to the press conference don't say anything to kind of wind up the opposition or give them an opportunity you know the man united game man United Liverpool game for instance was it was such a huge game the Liverpool Everton game or any Champions League semi-final like anything you said in that press conference it was it was almost I remember him kind of almost coaching you through it it'd be like don't say this don't say that don't wind them up in this way you and I'm going in there thinking of all the things that Jamie's told me to say in the press conference because he's thinking you know he's he was more experienced than me at the time and he's just trying to help me out in the fact that you don't want something blazoned all over the newspaper all over sky sports news you don't want to say the wrong thing and i think that was why quite often footballers give very mundane interviews that's a great get out of jail free card if somebody purposefully actually just gives one because i didn't have anything to say that day i was being i was being tactical yeah there you go and also there's some boring footballers out there as well that might contribute too um so i think i said before i think there's archetypes of psychology in some sports, you know, sort of golfers being very precise, maybe a little bit autistic, baseball players being sort of superstitious and maybe a little bit obsessive.

8:52What is the psychological archetype, the common psychological archetype of top flight footballers in your experience? Yeah, I think I got to a top level. I got to, you know, Premier League, I played for my country, I played in the Champions League and, you know, I've won a small amount, but I'm very proud of the career I had. But I still class myself as, yeah, I got to a top level, but I would not class myself as elite because I saw the elite and that was a different mentality to what I had. I enjoyed myself. I won games and I enjoyed it. Whereas we'd win something or I'd get to a final and I'd sit back afterwards and go, that was fucking amazing, loved it.

9:39Whereas the players, I'm talking certainly the players I played with for England, Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, John Terry, that kind of player who was multiple, multiple winners, you know, Rio Ferdinand. They just did not look like they enjoyed it ever. And like, it was always the next thing. It was like, you know, we've won that game, but we could have done that. or, you know, we've won that, but tomorrow we're training again. And not just that, it rubs off on everyone else around you. And if you look at, you know, certainly the team in 2005 that won the Champions League with Liverpool in Istanbul, not the greatest team to ever win a Champions League, let's be perfectly honest.

10:24But, you know, that mentality that Gerrard had, I thought, and Jamie Carragher certainly at that time, kind of dragged that team to success. And I think that rubs off on other people. or not. That is the mentality that I would say is the best of the best. I think there's probably regrets in there and there's a little bit of pain because they probably look back, some of those players now think, I wish I'd just enjoyed that. Well, they'll look at you with a sense of envy and think, God, Peter just had so much fun. He looks back with fond playfulness and I have this sort of weird reverse stoicism where I didn't let myself feel the wins but I did let myself feel the failures yeah and I don't know what's right or wrong there do you know I mean like yeah if I had if I had that kind of mentality and don't I'm not I wasn't unprofessional you know I mean I was obviously the minute I walked through the training ground I'm switched on but I did sit back and go like or what you know I'd watch a match of the day and go car was great there you know I did really well there.

11:25Whereas they would always be looking at the negatives and try and improve. And of course, I tried to improve as well, but I did enjoy the fact that we were having success. In your experience, did those people just have that for football or did that bleed into the rest of their life? And then to compare that to you too, is that something that you find relatively easy with the other stuff, with playing with the kids, with doing the podcast, with starting a business, with enjoying your time on holiday and work and all the rest of it? My point being, I wonder how much of that is you are an elite performer within this pursuit and this is the mindset that's made you show so and you are a obsessive typically negatively focused person which means that you pay a lot of attention to where things are going wrong and you improve but that's just you and that is global that's across your entire life is that how you like these people are like that in and on the pitch and off the pitch in both both camps oh I would So yeah.

12:20And in all honesty, I'm probably doing myself a little bit of a disservice of the fact that I am like that as well. Like, you know, I think when you get to that level of sport and winning matters, right, it really matters. Then I do think you take that into every aspect of your life. And I think that's a good thing. Like, you know, I don't let my kids win anything really. and um you know my my my wife's saying you know just just let her win and you're like no like and i'll come back i'll come back and say yeah like i destroyed her she's like 14 you know i'm like play tennis and i want to win i want to be you do know that one day yeah but that that i think because my dad was like it with me he would not let me win at anything and then when i got to the point where I did beat him it meant so much more because I think if she my little girl's really good at tennis and um and I just I obviously she's getting to the point where it's you know she's good but obviously the moment she does beat me is the moment she's gonna she's gonna feel so good I think it's all that pain that she's gone through before is gonna be worth it and I genuinely that's gonna be her champions league yeah but I believe that my dad did it to me I was playing tennis and we used to have these battles and my mum used to come down and I mean she'd come down for five minutes we'd both tell her in no uncertain terms to leave it was so aggressive people used to come down to the to the park to watch me and my dad's games and um they were so it was it was intense and it got to a stage where I was just about to beat him and he pulled a hamstring and um and I got home I said that I said that I was over the other side of the court and I said dad don't don't you dare and he said i can't help it it's gone and when we get back and i you know we've he's carried on this this thing for ages and i've got back and i've sat down and then he's just gone you still never beat me know have you

14:21and i was like oh you know and we never played again never played again yeah but um you know i don't know if i'll go that far but i would i definitely think that there is a there is a lesson in you know you need to learn to yeah i think i think to lose and then it's definitely means more when you win because you've earned it so those players the ones that you'd say are sort of top of the top elite i mean you know even from the outside somebody that i've caught a bit of a glimpse of this would be uh cristiano ronaldo as far as i can say how old is he 41 42 something like that yeah and still looks fantastic still very aggressive with that i don't know how balanced at least some of the stuff I've seen it seems like this guy's got but he's also got like an infinity team powering him and this big engine that's behind him yeah but I think that was in him that was in him very early I played against Cristiano when no one knew who he was we had Charesma on one wing and Ronaldo was on the other and Portugal versus England under 21s no one knew who he was and oh my god he was he was absolutely sensational as you can imagine I mean he was the tricks the flicks he was a machine and then he came to Manchester United And I remember Rio telling me, you know, and this was very early on.

15:34I mean, he must have been 21, 22. And, you know, he's not even barely kicked the ball in the Premier League. And he's telling Rio and, you know, various other people in the team that he wants to be the best player in the world. And I think, you know, that takes a certain type of person to say that when you're so far away from being there. You've got amazing talent. You've, you know, you've definitely got the ability to get there. but the fact that he's he was saying that at such an early age he had one goal and that was to to be the best player on the planet and and then to achieve it is is incredible how receptive are players to that kind of bravado because i think when you talk about again solo sport ufc right you think that conor mcgregor's of the world the best shit talkers in the world colby covington whatever you know i mean you can do what you want maybe your coach will say you idiot you shouldn't have said that but really there's no one else that you're at the mercy of and it's a really really good point uh kind of the same the difference between being uh taylor swift and the ollie sykes the lead singer of bring me the horizon if you do or say a thing as a solo artist fine it's on your shoulders if you do or say a thing with the rest of the bandmates you now need to go and answer to them on the bus or in the dressing room or whatever so if i imagine that teams want confident players because a good player will help the performance of the team but there's this trade-off between how much that person gets to capture the limelight and how much that person steals all of the attention and there's this battle between the two things so is there a concern about someone getting too big for their boots what is the reception of somebody that's got bravado like that like well the thing is listen i've played with other players as well who've probably said the same thing and got nowhere near it you know and obviously they get ridiculed for it um i think it's good to have i think you know there are certain players like you know zlatan ibrahimovic someone who who's outspoken but backs it up and i think there's nothing better than and there's nothing we love more than someone floyd mayweather you know someone at the top of their game who talks the talk but backs it up with results and i think you know we've in sports especially like i love all sports and the characters are the people that make it right the people that say they're going to do something and then they do it is just and you know because the whole you know that everyone watching once they say they're going to do something that everyone wants them to fail um it's that there's something certainly in this country in england we are we absolutely love people failing someone said to me i remember like buying a nice car if you buy a nice car in england people want to key it you know if you're in america or u.s we'll celebrate the fact that you you've done well you know but there's something about that in this country that i like um it's definitely not going to let you get too big for your boot yeah there you go and i think you know cristiano would have been ridiculed at that age there's players far more on a on a uh far more ahead of him at that time but the fact that he had that goal and achieved it is something you got respect what What did being inside of Premier League dressing rooms teach you about masculinity?

18:44Well, yeah, I mean, a hell of a lot. Like, you had to grow up very quickly. I remember being 14. I mean, it's a totally different time now. But I mean, some of the dressing rooms I was in in that age, and you're playing with kind of men, you know, and I kind of didn't, I didn't develop to a little bit later, you know, 14, 15, very skinny, very tall. and I'm in a dressing room with men who are just hard men and the coaches were incredibly tough. What youth setup were you in? I was at QPR for a little while and then I went to Tottenham when Gerry Francis moved and then I ended up back at QPR and I made my debut.

19:30But yeah, I was at Tottenham and it was hard and also I grew up in quite a nice environment you know and um you know my dad obviously said to me quite often i was too nice i had to i had to change i had to be someone different on the pitch um because i'm playing in an environment where you know people are fighting for their lives you know and they're you know that tackle that means something to me is life or death to them you know i mean i had so i had to make that life or death for me um so i had to just change my mentality be a different person when i went over the white line and change the kind of character i am off the field kind of always tried to remain the person that i was but just be a different person on the pitch um and and i think that environment definitely helped me um certainly become the yeah become the person and the um and the player that i was definitely i played a lot of cricket as a kid i played for to a pretty high standard i played for durham and then i did some training stuff with england and uh that's the same i mean even maybe younger because the thing that you get to do with cricket as a sport which isn't as much about physicality and is much more about technique you can as a 13 i started playing adults at 13 and you know i'd be playing maybe fourths at 13 and then i'd probably start i think i had my first seconds game when i was 14 and then you know you're playing twos and ones and then you're going to play you're already playing county you'd set up and then you're playing you know, Durham Academy, Durham Seconds.

20:55And yeah, you're right. You're 14 years old in communal showers with guys. And another interesting quirk in the game of cricket is that you're in the pavilion for 50 % of the game, unless you're batting. Your time in the dressing room is maybe more than any other sport except for baseball. But the difference with baseball being that their dressing room is on the pitch so it doesn't have as much privacy so yeah it's a real fucking baptism of fire you know there was one day where my head got shaved like i was in you know i'm in the pavilion and i my dad saw me go into the dressing room with hair and then by the time that we'd finished batting we hadn't lost too many wickets so no one had come out i came out without hair i think i had the exact same thing i went on to a the we played the milk cup in ireland but we were still at school i was uh i was playing the under 16s and that that team those lads they were they had already gone full time um so like i was still at school we were kind of part-time so they had a real tight bond and then we were like three players who were playing a year above you can only imagine you know we were the whipping boys right so yeah it was like i don't want to have my head shaved well that's not an option um so yeah you get your head shaved and you kind of muck in and you want to be you're not really kind of on the inside of it and I found that tough at first but um and you know you I think to myself god it would have been easier to stay at home and not go to training or but you know getting through that and overcoming those things is is definitely feathering your cap and I think it you know it is such an old school way of looking at things and you know the coaches were so hard on you and it was whether or not you could sink or switch it was basically look are you hard enough to deal with this yeah and they were overly tough on you but i i do think you know i know it's a bit old school we can't do that now but i do think it made me it did make me stronger and i you know the fact that there were certainly some players who would sit here with you now and say it was bullying it was terrible because they didn't make it you know they didn't they they they were selected out yeah and they they did find that tough and they couldn't deal with it and i totally understand why but the fact that i did manage to overcome those hurdles definitely made me made me you're stronger mentally and, you know, definitely maybe, I think, stronger for everything that life throws at you.

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24:25What about masculinity and that sort of male posturing thing when you get to everybody being a professional player. I have no idea what this looks like inside of the dressing room or on the training ground. Lots of big squad, big-ish squads, you know, got a bunch of physios, some S &Cs, et cetera, et cetera. It's like a big group of people that are all moving around. It's a basketball team. She's got a much smaller team and squad size. What's that like? What does masculinity in professional football look like? Well, it's incredible. It's how you imagine it. I think it's very kind of, macho dog eat dog world you know I think people want to take your place um you know any weakness is preyed upon um that if you look at the masculinity side of it I suppose it's very much um you know we you you have to man up basically and I think uh certainly things nowadays it's a lot it's a lot better but you know if I went in to see the manager and said you know I'm struggling a little bit mentally, it'd be like, well, you drop then, you know, you obviously can't, you can't deal with it, you can't, you know, that kind of struggle, I think it's very, it was very old school, I think it's very different now, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't show any weakness whatsoever, even if I was feeling down about anything, you just don't show it, and I think that was, you know, kind of the environment that I grew up in and the environment that I played in, but I do think, I do think it's much better now, and, you know, certainly men in general talk about things more now don't it is that the same inside of the dressing room have you got any indication that it's changed when it gets to football yeah i think so i think i think it's a lot more accommodating than you would expect now i think you know it's very multicultural like you know everyone's very different very different walks of life um all over the world um different beliefs religions um certainly when i was in the youth team and coming through it was very english um kind of british culture that was policing the dressing room.

26:27I mean, it's superbly diverse now. Yeah, that's what I mean. I think all corners of the globe is covered in the dressing room now. And I think certainly when I was coming through, that kind of British, it was this macho, almost drinking culture, if you like. I think that's gone now. Talking about diversity, there are no publicly gay Premier League players. Each Premier League club can register a squad of up to 25 players plus unlimited under-21s. 20 clubs, that's 500 registered first-team players at any given time. If you include all of the under-21s who make senior appearances, the number rises to about 600 to 650 active players across the season.

27:09Currently, zero active Premier League male players are publicly out as gay. Statistically speaking, there should be 20 to 35. Same in La Liga, same in the German League, same in the French League, and there is one gay guy in Serie A in Italy. Why? I could not tell you. I think, I genuinely think now, if someone came out as gay in a dressing room, I think they'd be very well supported. I think in a Premier League dressing room, yeah, of course you're going to have idiots in the crowd. I think people that are, you know, maybe stuck in the dark ages, we've seen it with racism um you know it's still it's still not completely kicked out is it i think you know we've seen an incident recently um at the liverpool match um with bournemouth with you know that that proves that i think it's got far better i think there's you know there's still a way to go um but with with regards to to someone coming out i genuinely believe that um you know if there is someone out there you would urge them to come forward and if they want to and of course it's their decision because if they don't want to that's that's certainly their decision as well but I do think it would be well supported as regards to why I mean I played with Thomas Hitzlberger who has come out as gay, I played with him at Aston Villa but you know he felt he couldn't come out at the time for whatever reason he came out afterwards but I see I've spoke to Thomas and you know we've he's felt very well supported since he has come out So it's just a shame he didn't do it while he was playing.

28:50Yeah, I mean, it's a good point. It's your choice. You don't need to. Exactly, yeah. You are a professional athlete. I do not need to know about your sexuality. Absolutely. That being said, people talk a lot about lots of things that they're getting up to, right? This is my new car that I've just bought, and this is my new dog, and I just got married, and I did whatever. and yeah if we've got this you know 600 to 650 player ecosystem that exists in the premier league each year which is cycling through right that's not fixed that's you know over the last decade with uh people moving in and out you're talking maybe close to 2 000 maybe 3 000 uh and if you were to look at sort of the rates of how often you would assume there would be at least one gay player in this group you're talking 20 to 35 people it's none and um regardless of whether the locker room and the press and your fans would be fine with that or maybe even like in support of that maybe even you know be a positive there is evidently something true or not that is lingering to cause those players, it's almost 100 % a guarantee that there is not no gay players right in the Premier League.

30:11So it has to be either they're focused on being professional. Yeah, maybe. But I get the sense that given I feel completely liberated to talk about whatever I want, most players might actually like to have their sexuality out there. But they don't. So whether it's real or imagined, And there's something lingering, I think, that's causing guys, because it's not the same in rugby. I don't know whether it would be the same in cricket. I wonder as well, you mentioned before about the class thing. I wonder how much of this is because football is still very much dominated by working class in a way that rugby perhaps isn't the same, in the way that cricket perhaps isn't the same.

30:54Tennis, also not the same. So yeah, maybe it's a class thing. too yeah but perhaps i mean i i don't know i mean i've spoke to thomas about it and you know he felt he didn't he he wanted to concentrate on his football he felt a lot of you know a lot of a distraction distraction to him he also thought you know i don't know what the fallout's going to be because because no one's really done it while they've what they've been playing at the top level um so yeah it's a it's a difficult one um to to navigate um but i genuinely think you know from everyone I've been involved in football a long time now.

31:29And I do think that there would be a tremendous amount of support for someone that did. It might be interesting when it happens. It would be like a really kind of a monumental moment when that does happen. Yeah. I mean, you know, like you say, the statistics or the chance of it happening is you would expect it to happen. But no, it hasn't done so far. but I think it would be probably a good thing for the game when it does. What was it you were saying, Dean, about there's only one guy in Formula One as well? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you pick your favorite sport of choice. And I don't know, it's strange to me, not to harp on the sort of pride acceptance thing, but um people that criticize pride even my gay friends that criticize pride and like okay we've done like you know we've sort of owned all of the different territory that we need to and i think in many ways brands change their display photos on twitter to have a rainbow behind them for pride month and all the rest of this stuff like you know that looks looks like it's pretty well conquered to me but then when we look at elite sport the numbers don't really seem to stack up um so it seems like you know there kind of is work to be done in some of these ways or maybe it's the case that all players actually that's another good point i'm talking against myself here i'll let you know when i'm done um i'm just having an argument over here uh how many players straight players do you know about what they're doing with their relationship well that's what i mean like if i'm a footballer i know how i feel right and if i if i was gay i I think I'd be quite open about it, but I don't think I would be shouting it from the rooftops either.

33:20I'm not going to do a press conference and say, you know, my sexual preferences. If you went out and Jamie Carragher was like, right, Peter, we really need you to just don't say much. Don't say much. And you go out and you go, my sexual preferences, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you. That's what I mean. We're there to play football, you know? And I think, of course, if someone is gay, and I'd love them to feel comfortable enough to come out if they want to but having said that we're not there for that you know we are not there to broadcast what you know my preferences are I'm there to play football I'm there to do a job something that I love doing and actually you know that might take something away from the job that I'm doing you know and I think you know we're all professional I think footballers just want to get on with playing and do something they love and done since they were a kid and that potentially could be a distraction so that if there are people out there that you know don't feel that they want to come out then that's totally fine as well interesting we were saying before about how um previously there was a disadvantage because you didn't have a direct route to be able to broadcast what it is that you've got going on uh and in many ways that was a weakness but now that it's an availability there's almost this sense of like entitlement or obligation it's like well tell me tell me what you've got going on is that a new car what happened with the dog is the dog is it like how's the dog doing you know has it been spayed yet like there's this uh necessity for everything to be keeping up with the kardashians well i i've found this myself like um because i do a podcast with my wife and um you know the stuff that we talk about at home quite often we talk about on the podcast but i've kind of blurred the lines a little bit now where i'm like people will come up to me and be oh how's kaz doing you know that's like abby's friend you know talk about the dog and i'm like how do you know these things and i just forget i did it yeah we we've we've talked about it right and because we're sitting there on our couch we do it at home the stuff that we say you know i forget sometimes what's out there and what's not and you know people will come up to us in the in a supermarket and say things about our lives and i'll be like how the hell and then it just dawned on me the fact that we've talked last week's episode.

35:31Yeah, yeah, exactly right. But I enjoy it and people seem to enjoy it with us. So the more that, you know, the more that that can continue, the better because we love doing it. Yeah. Going back to the sort of football culture thing, it certainly seemed like if you're a very successful player, Ronaldo-esque, you can get away with a little bit more. Does that encourage or tend teams who are winning to continue to sort of turn the screw of maybe toxic culture in terms of work rate, how hard and unforgiving people are, that sort of backbiting ruthlessness, which doesn't necessarily bind a team together.

36:18It's 11 individuals or a 25 squad group of individuals as opposed to a 25 squad group that are all working together. But if everything is going well and you're moving up through the rankings, everyone's sort of, we don't want to change what appears to be working at the moment. I have to assume that success permits things to become a little bit more extreme in that way. Yeah, I think I've actually been in both scenarios. You know, when you're losing games, that can be obviously very toxic as well. But also winning games as well. And like the players that aren't playing, that kind of atmosphere, like I don't envy managers trying to deal with so many big personalities.

37:02And, um, I think nowadays it's very much more like the players will let their agents deal with, with not playing and things like that. But, um, but I think when I was playing, it was definitely much, you'd knock on the door of the, of the manager and you'd have to direct relationship. You'd have a direct relationship. It's like, why am I not playing? And you know, you'd have that. You kind of agent now that speaks to them. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I've seen things now that I, I'm, I'm glad that I kind of got out when I did. When I was 37, 38, I was still playing and I just saw agents up in the canteen every day going in to see why a player wasn't playing.

37:41And I've just been like, why can't you just go and do it yourself? You just go and knock on the door. I didn't know that was happening. Yeah, a hell of a lot more now. And I think players hide behind their agents a little bit now, which is a shame. And yeah, they've got a role to play, agents. but I do think those conversations need to be because certainly you can have them yourself with the manager. But with regards to that toxic atmosphere, yeah, definitely when you're losing games, that can be really bad. Everyone's pointing fingers. No one wants to look in a mirror. And there are certain players, individuals where you just be like...

38:17The other thing is when you're losing and people aren't playing, with social media now, you can put out... I mean, I've watched one certain player do nothing in training you know he'd be the first he'd be the last in he'd be the first out every single day he wouldn't even tie his laces when he was training and then go home and he'd have someone filming him on instagram he's running up some stairs as you know he's running around his drive and he's doing shuttles and all the fans are like why is he not playing you know he's working even look how hard he's working not doing anything he's not doing anything in training i'm like wow but you know that just shows you that how the wall can be pulled over fans eyes and you know that you're not really getting the the full story this is another disadvantage of that direct form of communication yeah yeah they can counter negative headlines in the press but they can also sell the fans a complete lie about how hard they're they're working a completely different story and you know that's that's actually fascinating yeah like the the back so we say back stronger on my podcast and it's very much like we say that because it was just the loose term on people's social media that used to wind me up so much what back stronger right everyone used to say it and it was like a hashtag it was like you can write the the the tweet or the or the instagram message of every player who's who's ever lived right when they've played and they've lost away from home was like um sorry we let you down the fans were terrific today we'll be back stronger next week right that we used to laugh at that because i'd just be like who are you trying to kid with this message you know you've barely tried you know we've we've got pumped and you're trying to say you know you've been coating the fans off to everyone on the on the changing room saying how bad they were and then it's the you know the generic diplomacy out front the generic message and the worst thing is you see the replies after and there's fans that are buying into it and i think yeah i think it's definitely i think people are kind of cottoned on to the fact that, you know, you can't pull the wool over these people's eyes.

40:14But for a long time, that was going on and it was frustrating the life out of me. If you haven't been feeling as sharp or energized as you'd like, getting your blood work done is the best place to start, which is why I partnered with Function. They run lab tests twice a year that monitor over a hundred biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it in a simple dashboard and give you actionable insights and recommendations to improve your health and lifespan. They track everything from your heart health, to your hormone levels, to your thyroid function and nutrient deficiencies.

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41:22Well, for me personally. Yeah. A coping mechanism or a performance enhancer? Yeah, it started as that. You know, like it started as a defense mechanism. I just look different. I didn't look like any normal footballer. you know I've talked about this before but I you know all my heroes didn't look like me and I was kind of I mean there were certain players that you know were taller but you know I wanted to go past players I wanted to I wanted to have a good time I wanted to I wanted to do skills I wanted to score great volleys I wanted to score you know I wanted to do things that you know players but players didn't look like me were doing and I think yeah certainly at school you know in that harsh environment of football um looking different and trying to fit in uh two different things so um yet humor became a defense mechanism became something that i managed to um you know if someone wanted to say something negative about me i would say it funnier and quicker than they than they were going to and i think that kind of stood me in really good stead in life really so i think that's how my character developed really and then it was like well i'm going to say anything because he's going to be sharper and quicker and funny with whatever he's going to say so that stopped very quickly and I think certainly the harsh environment with fans I think you know I came out and you know I'd laugh at myself before someone else could laugh at me and I think something that started is is a defense mechanism then kind of became my superpower I think after football it then became oh god there's a you know there's a footballer that can have a laugh he can laugh at himself in an environment that um is very take yourself seriously um it's very you know how good can we look how polished can we look i think yeah it might have been a quite a refreshing change for people that oh there's someone here that's doing doing well he's successful but he can also take the piss out of himself which was you know for me sitting here now it doesn't seem groundbreaking but i think certainly when i was playing it it did it did feel a touch groundbreaking what gets considerably better about life when you stop playing um it's hard i mean it's a tough one to stop because it's all you've ever known right and um since you were a child yeah i think when i first retired i was very much like oh my own boss now i can do whatever i like i can you know go on a holiday at christmas things like that i can you know do something on a Saturday.

43:48You know, there's certain little things like that. Like the first Christmas dinner was amazing. Like genuinely as a footballer, I'm in a hotel New Year's Eve. Didn't see New Year in ever. I've been asleep by 10 o 'clock. Christmas Day, very much like. Ready for Boxing Day. Yeah, I'd train Christmas Day. I mean, you know, I'd have a sandwich, like turkey sandwich, maybe that was about it. I'd eat pasta. chicken chicken I wouldn't I wouldn't have a Christmas dinner certainly no alcohol because we'd play 26th 28th first um you know seventh there'd be consistent games over Christmas so yeah that that first when I retired it was like right I'm gonna go for it Christmas day and I did you know um my stomach didn't know oh my god I ate what you know what I could I drank a hell of a lot and I had a great time but then that wears thin right you're like after the first christmas yeah that was that was great i'd rather be playing i genuinely would rather be doing what i love doing i mean going actually thinking about it now the christmas day training game it was the some of the best times i've ever had in my life why just no one on the road everyone's with you know with the families and i love my family's bits but it's nice getting away from them sometimes just getting that fresh air playing a sport when everyone else is sitting around hung over you are you're ready to go you're getting after it yeah it's it there is something smug about being so fit in a self-righteousness was as nourishing as the christmas meal or almost so yeah i think being my own boss was lovely but i'll be honest with you i work better in a in a kind of regiment in environment me too me too it's a it's so trite right but the reason that cliches exist is because they seem to be sticky enough to be fucking accurate um grass always being greener you know you when you were on the training ground not fully appreciating how nice it was fresh cold air like that snappy british cold air 9 a.m in the morning it's nice right it fills your lungs up and at the same time you're like oh we our national sport is complaining it's complaining first and football second and you want to be i wish i could i should have laid in this morning the kids are going to be a nightmare when i get back the missus is going to be me me me me not even going to get to get a roast today you know like just as you're waiting to do drills and everyone's chirping away like just in a little like the classic thing and then as soon as you finish up what is it that you miss you miss the thing that's on the other side so i i think that to be honest i think that that's kind of the perennial condition for humans across everything.

46:31You're, you know, deep in university and you just wish that you could get out. I'm so bored of this lecture. I'm so bored. This course is stupid. And then you get into employment, whatever career you go into and you go, I wish that, you know, I remember when I used to go back to lectures and we'd sit at the back and just be able to chill out. We'd be able to have snake bite in the union at 11 in the morning on a Tuesday. Like, wasn't that cool? And then you get out of that and you're like, yeah, I just really want to have a family. I spend all this time on my own. I want to have a partner. And then you have to sleep in bed next to someone and they're too hot all the time.

46:58You're like, fuck, I just wish I was on my own again. You missed to have a family. And then you start to have a family and you're like, fuck, I just wish I could sleep in on a morning. The kids are bouncing everywhere. And then you're sick of your job and you want to retire. And then you retire and you think, fuck, I just wish I was back at work. And this is, I think, the perennial human condition all the way through. And humor, laughing at kind of the absurdity of it all, I think is a pretty good prophylactic against that. Yeah, I think we do complain. And as footballers, we complain about the smallest things.

47:33If one thing was wrong, we were on it. What are some of the more silly complaints that you can recall? Mainly about sessions. I did my coaching badges when I retired and I got up to UEFA license. My respect for coaches and managers now is through the roof. And I think about what I was like and what we were like to coaches. is if he got one number wrong or gave the wrong bib to someone or the cone was out of place, we were on him, right? It was like, oh my God, this is a shambles. You're a disgrace. You can't manage. You can't coach. Genuinely, that's the slightest thing. And then I think about it now when I was in that environment of being a coach and I think this is hard.

48:18This is tough. How you get all these egos in one, in various positions and pull them around and tell them what to do is an incredible feat, really. So my respect went through the roof for coaches when I did my badges.

48:37Yeah, I mean, I remember the same thing with cricket. I think maybe a little bit of it is trying to invert some of the power, that you know there's a power imbalance, that these are the guys who, in some form or another are kind of in charge of life or death for you and you are being held to a high standard it's it's you know it's the same as it's the same as seeing a police officer texting while he drives and you go hey you i know you're going to enforce this on me so this is my opportunity to be self-righteous and and very british about it everybody turns into cycling mikey when uh 100 i'd love to say that i would tell him as well and uh yeah i think i think part of it is we're gonna revert we're gonna invert this this power imbalance between the two of us and um but yeah we i think the humor thing okay this is absurd and it's difficult to do in the moment because we especially even you have more laissez fair philosophy when it came to the way that you played than maybe the more kind of intense negatively focused guys will still have been focusing on a lot of the negatives of how can I get better and where should I improve and so on and so forth.

49:56If that's the case, you know that there are going to be things in this situation that in future you're going to look back on with fondness and you know that there are, uh, and those are things that you're ignoring right now. And you also know that whatever it is that you want, you're going to pick holes in that thing in future so maybe trying to be a little bit less uh confident in what you think is what you want you know you're like i i just think i'm doing this thing right now and i'll just make you know i've been whining this week you're the ninth episode in this location it's been so much fun and beautiful and my favorite location of anywhere i've filmed over you know like a thousand episodes the seat's not that comfortable i've been sat in the seat like 25 hours this week and I've got this like little bruise on my lower back.

50:45I'm getting in at night time. I'm like, oh, my back hurts. Like my lower back hurts. I'm not going to remember the fucking bruise on my back in six months' time, but I'll remember how much fun it was to be here with the guys and to do ad reads and throw AG1 and element packets around and stuff like that, you know? So just, again, I wonder, I'm sure that this is kind of, like I say, a perennial human issue, but I think it's a distinctively British brand of it as well. Like the complaining, like Cycling Mikey, uh dynamic is like a particular thing so just trying to keep that in mind i think might be a nice way for people to let go of that stress i think the i think the character thing like you you mentioned there like i think being adaptable is the the the thing that i think we we forget about i think people have these goals like you say and you set the goals and if you don't reach them it's it's it's it's a failure you know whereas i'll have a goal and And I've had it my whole life, really.