I'm Oxford United's goalkeeper, and today I'll be starting my 12th season as a goalkeeper in the lower leagues. I began playing in goal as a kid for Stoke Lane, my local team in Bristol, and in 1995, when I was 13, I went to Bristol City. They released me that year because I was too small, and within a week I went over to Bristol Rovers, my boyhood club.
When I turned 16, I began a three-year apprenticeship at Rovers. This was the old system, before clubs opened academies to hothouse kids. My first wage as an apprentice was GBP42.50 a week, then GBP50 in the second year and GBP90 in the third. I was up at six every morning to get two buses across town to train. We had to clean the players' boots, the changing rooms, even the toilets. Not many players will do that today. I had to go to college, to do an A-level in leisure and tourism, in case I didn't make the grade; but at 18 I earned a one-year professional contract with Bristol Rovers, on GBP125 a week.
Your career does take some strange turns at this level. In that first season as a pro, I trained with the England under-18s - the likes of Jay Bothroyd [Queen's Park Rangers], Boaz Myhill [West Bromwich Albion] and Jermain Defoe [Tottenham Hotspur] - and things went well at Rovers until 2006. Then I dropped down two divisions, to Salisbury, in the Conference South; we won promotion to the Conference (National) straightaway - so I'd taken a step back to start going forward again.