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Football, for me, was a place where I got accepted for being a good footballer.
I was not a very good football player. My coach hated me - I don't know why, I guess it's probably because I wasn't very talented.
I want to be a coach one day. This is important to me. I think I have a pretty good foundation of football schemes and X's and O's.
The lads I played football with on the street when I was a kid in Cardiff were as good as me, and in many ways, my career is due to them.
I can play in different positions, and if I can do what I'm good at, score goals, show how good I can play football, then it's OK with me.
When you have good players in your squad that means other clubs are looking to them as well. For me, it is a normal situation in football.
I think I do a pretty good job of not letting things distract me from what I want to do and what I want to accomplish as a football player.
Football will always be about the results because if you are winning and taking good results you are not asking me about the young players.
Because I was big, I didn't have to listen to anyone doubting me. I was just considered good at football or whatever, there were no questions about it.
In basketball and football I would cry. I didn't understood why all my teammates weren't good. Then I started boxing and I knew it was different. I said, this is all me.
My first year in Germany has been something different for me. I think it's been a big step for me, a different style of football, and I think it's been good. It was a very up and down season for me.
At first I didn't take football too seriously and then I realised what I wanted to do. I was seeing players get moves; a good friend went from Ilkeston to Luton and that made me see what was possible.
The directors told me they were going to recruit good players with whom I could play decent football. Marko Marin, Oscar and me, we like to have the ball at our feet. Juan Mata likes the ball; so does Ramires.
I'm quite a shy person, but I know I'm a good football player. That's just the way I am. That's the way I grew up. My grandmother brought me up, and she is the same way. She's understated, but she knows what she's worth.
We used to play touch football, where you put the little rag in your pocket. I was good because I was fast. I wasn't the greatest at catching. Sometimes the ball would come so hard and fast that it'd knock the wind out of me.
Football is a fickle game - if I do get the jeers and the boos I'm just going to take it as them missing me playing down there because I miss Southampton. I miss the fans and I miss the good times we had down there. Of course I do.
I know my game is about trying to get past players and I know that if a bad tackle is coming my way, I have to jump or push my body out in front, but this is football. If they try to foul and target me, then I'm doing something good.
When I was at drama school, I was totally broke, and a lot of my mates had jobs and were financially very good to me, so if, for example, I take them away on a trip to a football match in Europe, it means that I can pay them back a bit.
I wish I could go to the school where my close friends go, but I obviously can't. The good thing is, they're really good about inviting me to all the football games and all that stuff. So I end up having an adopted team spirit for a school I don't go to.
When I started playing football, I started as a left-defender. Maybe I wasn't very talented in that position but I knew that something good could come out of it. I got some skills with my feet and that helped me a lot later on. Those qualities have helped me a lot in my career.
When we win, I'm excited about winning. That way, I get the ups and downs of a football season. But I also know that it's never as good as it seems; it's never as bad as seems. You always have to stay focused because you never know, for me. My role, it could expand. So you just got to always be ready.