Shaun Wright-Phillips

So I think it helped me.

And when I was younger in primary school, before I even played, I had to play netball.

my headmaster from primary school, Mr. Ojoski, always said to me, if I don't play netball, I'm not allowed to play football.

And he always said it would benefit me.

And it was only as I got older, I kind of realised that it actually did, because he said, you will know what's around you without having to always look.

You can kind of anticipate where somebody's going to come.

And there was a few times I got out of situations and I was like...

well, how did I get out of that?

And then it all kind of just floods back and you know people's positions on the pitch so you know kind of right, well, he's coming from that side so the space is either there or there sort of thing.

Yes.

Cried like a baby when that happened, by the way.

Yeah.

Because I always, as a kid growing up, playing for City through the ranks, I just thought, like, it was quite naive for me to think it, but I just thought, I'm just going to be there all my life.

I'm never just going to go anywhere.

They had to sell me, basically.

I didn't know at the time, but the club was in a bad situation at the time that I left, and that obviously would have helped them

in that situation.

So they had to accept the offer basically.

Yeah, but the connection I had with the fans, all the stuff around the club, and we used to do a lot of stuff in the community.

So I'd always do the Christmas panto every year.