Now Jack Charlton wasn't wrong, I was a bad footballer.
I could have been a professional footballer and trialled with Blackburn Rovers. But I snapped my cruciate ligaments, an injury that has dogged me ever since.
Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.
Having a stadium in France named after a footballer from the Ivory Coast, even if I'm proud of my France-Ivory Coast background, is a great proof of integration.
I'm a working class lad. So at 25, and with no-one in our family having any theatrical inclination, when I said, 'I'm going to scratch all that and become an actor,' I may as well have said I was going to be a Premiership footballer for the chance I'd have.
I am footballer, not a public relations person.
For every footballer, to finish in the top ten of the Ballon d'Or is a dream.