It's all looking up for O'Doherty

“I killed a mouse,” says O'Doherty. Though through his matter-of-fact delivery, my moderate confusion and his Irish accent, I can't quite believe I've heard that correctly and double take. You did what? “I killed a mouse. M-O-U-S-E. Yeah I came face to face with a mouse, which was always my ultimate fear; I've always hated mice. And then I finally caught one in a trap and saw that it was very, very small – almost like a tiny puppy – and it was quite an awakening. I've smacked a few fish on the noggin but apart from the regular bugs that I've stood on in my footballing career I don't think I've killed very many things.

“I grew up in a house that had mice in it. And I just had this fear that they would appear in my bed or in breakfast cereal or in the unlikeliest and grimmest places so for the last 30 years I've woken up most nights believing a mouse is in my bed and then I finally got my own house and a mouse appeared in it – it felt like Jaws. In defeating the mouse I kind of realised that maybe the mouse wasn't the problem at all; that the mouse is really just a metaphor for doing something and killing the mouse had just been the activity that was needed to break me out of the routine of doom that you get into when you're feeling sorry for yourself,” O'Doherty reflects.

“There's a time for rising like a phoenix from the ashes and there's also a time for lying in the ashes like a broken phoenix just going, 'Ah, poor phoenix'.”

Don't be put off by the phoenix though, “It sounds terribly serious, it's mostly just loads of jokes and stupid songs.”