“WE’D LOSE A GAME AND I’D TWO-FOOT THE ‘F**K IT’ BUTTON. MY THINKING WAS CATASTROPHIC… I WAS ALL OVER THE PLACE”

I woke up in a hospital bed with absolutely no idea how I’d got there. My family were standing around me, totally distraught. All I felt was confusion before falling back to sleep. I woke up a second time and felt drunk. ‘What’s the time?’ I asked. ‘You’re in St George’s Hospital,’ replied the nurse. I was hammered and also suffering from a concussion, so everything was a blur – but slowly, I started piecing it all together. The night before, I’d been at the infamous QPR Christmas party of 2014. The newspapers falsely claimed that I’d been injured during a brawl with a group of Crystal Palace players after someone spilled a drink on Rio Ferdinand. That was rubbish. The truth was far more embarrassing.

I’d been up to my usual madness, drinking heavily, and had to leave the venue with a couple of the boys who were trying to make sure I got home OK. I tried to run off but ended up falling over and banging my head on the headlight of a parked car. Even now, it’s difficult for me to admit that, but at the time I thought it was a joke. I asked the hospital staff when I could get out and get back on it.

I sent a selfie from my hospital bed to all the lads in our WhatsApp group... then I began to sober up and realised the severity of what was going on. Glass had got lodged inside my head and I lost lots of blood. It had been life-threatening, so the doctors told my family to get to the