Politics is like football if you see daylight go through the hole.

Music is my thing. It's my thing it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me it's Christmas to me religion to me poetry to me.

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

Thanks partly to the kind of poets that we now have and partly to funding there's been a gigantic shift in the way poetry is perceived... Poems on the Underground poets in schools football clubs zoos.

Music was important. Football was the easy part.

If you can miss getting up in the morning and running into a wall I miss playing football. I'll never be a frustrated athlete.

In the last year my wife has noticed me struggling to get downstairs on a Sunday morning. I've two young children and football has been so good to me over the years I don't want to spoil it.

I obviously take a lot of pride in what I do on the football field because that has the ability to influence a lot of people. That puts smiles on people's faces. That gives people a pep in their step on Monday morning when they go back to work.

You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless or you can spend it on a football stadium or a golf course.

Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn't thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I'm just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn't paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.

For a kid who's lost his mom and all the rage and grief that no one was able to talk out of me football was a very therapeutic sport. Very.

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end the Germans always win.

There are the medical dangers of football in general caused by head trauma over repetitive hits.

Football is like life - it requires perseverance self-denial hard work sacrifice dedication and respect for authority.

Now learning a bit more about footballers I think what they need to do well is someone who really wants to stay in the background and just be a strong support.

Football management is such a pressurised thing - horseracing is a release. I'm also learning to play the piano - I'm quite determined - it's another release from the pressure of my job.

There are many ways to grow football-wise. You go slow or are pushed to go faster otherwise you get left behind. For me there would be trouble in stopping learning.

I want to see a player on the football field. I want to see what kind of teammate they are what kind of leadership qualities they have. I want to see how aggressive they are how much fun they have playing the game.

Leadership must be likeable affable cordial and above all emotional. The fashion of authoritarian leadership is gone. Football is about life. You can't be angry all day.

We're in a leadership position in sports. People look up to the National Football League.

I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership but raising children isn't. Hey it made me a better leader: you have to take a lot of people's needs into account you have to look down the road. Trying to negotiate getting a couple of kids to watch the same TV show requires serious diplomacy.

Well football teams are perhaps easier to control than political parties I'm sure the Prime Minister would agree with me but yeah I think every team needs discipline and a sense of self-belief and that's important that's what leadership's all about.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it no real success is possible no matter whether it is on a section gang a football field in an army or in an office.