West Ham United defender Matthew Upson admits stuffing pages from the local phone book into his boots rescued his career!

Called up for the first time by Sven Goran Eriksson in 2003, Upson spent four years in the international wilderness.

But after being recalled by Fabio Capello, he is now heading for South Africa full of confidence and fitter than ever before.

Upson said: "It's been a huge part of turning my career around, because it has kept me on the football pitch.

"I had a bad run of injuries and I had imbalanced my body so badly that I couldn't possibly get fit.

"But I met this guy and we worked together for one week and I never missed a training session after that. It was superb.

"When he tells you what he thinks you need to do, it's easy to think he should be in a white suit in a mental hospital, but he's phenomenal. I still wear the pages now.

"It's hard to say how many because your body gets measured. I see the guy once a month."

The man in question is Ron Holder - an expert in kinesiology, the scientific study of muscles and movement in the body.