“I WAS FRUSTRATED TO BE ON THE BENCH AT NEWCASTLE, AND IT ALL CAME OUT IN MY GOAL CELEBRATION”

You grew up in the days of the old Soviet Union – did that motivate you to take up a career in football?

My father was a driver in the USSR, while my mother worked in the hospital restaurant in Tbilisi. In those days, there was only one level everyone could really work at, and when my father was injured we had to rely on money from the state to get by. So for me, I always saw football as a way to bring in money and help my family enjoy a better life. When the Soviet Union split up, my family had to leave Abkhazia when the fighting broke out. We’ve been refugees ever since. We’ve never been able to return home.

How significant a role did football play