THE EARLY YEARS

I grew up in a place called Hither Green which is in the Borough of Lewisham, in London. When I was about four we moved to Lee, about a mile and a half away, that´s where my parents still live and it all started from there really.

My first real memory of football was watching the 1990 FA Cup final - Manchester United against Crystal Palace - and I thought, ´I fancy a bit of that´. I went training with a team in Blackheath but I hated it the first time I was there. A year later I went again and I just got hooked. We had a really good manager at the time who started up the team from scratch. We had some very good players and it was a really successful side. We won all the cups and the league and just had a great time.

Birmingham´s Liam Ridgewell used to play in the same team, he came to us when we were about 13. We had a few other lads who nearly made it but never quite made the grade. A fair few did their apprenticeships at clubs but I think there was only me and Liam Ridgewell who went on after that. There was another boy called Michael Smith, an apprentice at Arsenal, who I think went on to play professionally but I´m not sure where he is now. We had a successful side at the time but people´s interests change, luckily for me I persisted with football and it paid off.

I got scouted when I was 11 or 12 by West Ham and I was training at Chadwell Heath for a couple of seasons. When the time came to sign schoolboy forms I had the option of Charlton or West Ham. I ended up choosing Charlton simply because it was a much closer club to my home. I was with the Addicks throughout my school years. We trained twice a week then had a game on a Sunday morning. I remember playing a couple of games in the FA Youth Cup and I had to take time off school to take part in that. I used to play school matches on Saturday and Charlton matches on Sunday which was a bit awkward. The school teachers didn´t like you missing games and the club didn´t want you to get injured for playing for the school but I was always happy to play in both.