First mentor in football?
I don’t think I’ve ever had a sit-down mentor, but obviously I think I’d go with my Dad in terms of being there from a young age through good and bad moments. I think the older I’ve got, he’s kind of let me be in terms of me being more experienced and understanding the mental side of the game. Certainly from a young age, when I remember getting released from Liverpool and bouncing back from that, he was just positive about the whole thing.
He told me to just go and enjoy football and play with my mates again, and that’s certainly what I did, and then got picked back up again a couple of months later at Tranmere Rovers. It’s about never getting too high and never getting too low, trying to stay level-headed the whole way and enjoy the process.
First professional game?
Milton Keynes Dons away in November 2008. I remember everything about it. There were about 8,000 fans there. I just remember being so nervous.
We travelled down from Tranmere on the day of the game, which was about four hours, but I wouldn’t change it for the world and loved every minute of it. We got beat 1-0, but I’d done really well in the game and got Man of the Match, so it was a proud moment.