After I told my story on Tribalfootball I've had a lot of parents come up to me, a lot of people from my club, Avondale Heights, come up to me and ask me about the articles. They want to organise to get all the young players together for me to speak to them about how important school education is and pretty much give them an insight into how brutal the football world is.

The reaction I got from the parents was great. My boss, his son goes to a sporting school, and he even read out my article in class to the kids! Stuff like that, it shows there's more to life than football.

A parent came up to me the other day and she said 'I loved your article and could you possibly come speak to my son?' And I said 'what's the problem?' She replied: 'He's not taking school seriously and I told him to read the article and he did but I don't think it came through to him'. It's kind of like they see me as a role model for these kids.

If South Melbourne, who are arguably the biggest club in the National Premier League of Victoria, came up to me and asked if I could help them speak with the kids I'd be happy to help them, I'm not like one those people who wouldn't help their rivals, I'd help any club in our league.

People that I've known now for years didn't really know what I've done in my football and what I went through and then they read my article and they didn't realise how much I've done.

I'm a humble person and they were actually quite surprised what I did in my career, they actually said it was a brilliant story, people were quite excited after the first part came out. All my friends and old coaches saying to me 'when's the next part coming out, I'm looking forward to reading it'. I wasn't expecting people to be interested in reading it to be honest, I was really surprised.

People felt inspired by my story, Sydney FC goalkeeper Thomas Heward-Belle, he even messaged me saying my article was an inspiration. I didn't actually expect the reaction that I got from people. It was really nice. It was a relief for me to get it off my shoulders and I feel a lot better as a person.

I've had a lot of boys from the A League message me and I say it's so true, and I'll say it again, not enough is done about it [after sports careers finish], forget soccer; golf, rugby, AFL, every sport and there's nothing in place to help these people.

I'd like to see people advised about other careers outside of football. If you don't make it as a multi millionaire, you have to work when you finish. To be successful in football is hard, to make football your life and earn enough money nearly impossible. Its happened to a lot of the people who leave the A-League.

They need to be advised and educated while playing football and find a different hobby. They get wrapped up in the football world and they never get asked what they enjoy and they don't get exposed to a different lifestyle.

I had a friend called Sean Highdale, who's now working in property development in England. At one time he was going to be one of Liverpool's biggest players, he was cast as the next Steven Gerrard but he had a brain injury that stopped him from playing. Instead, he put all his money into development and has since become very successful.

If you don't find yourself educated at a young age like Sean, or myself - and if you're 29, 30, 32 with kids not making a lot of money and got no career path after football, I honestly feel really bad for these players because there's no education or exposure to anything else.

When I got released by Liverpool nobody gave me another route. It should be the club's responsibility to educate players when you're around football from 11 to 19, especially at Liverpool, where you're getting told Steven Gerrard went from under 9's all the way through, anyone can do it, but not everybody is Michael Owen, not everybody is Steven Gerrard.

I'm a foreman in construction, I build houses for a living and I play football as well. If you had of asked me when I was 19 'would you enjoy building houses?' I'd say no, I wouldn't know what to do. But I really enjoy my job and it's something that I've been exposed to since coming to Australia.

You don't get told that when you're young. If the kids were told, it'd put them off playing. If someone said to me when I was a kid, 'there is a good chance you're not going make work every day and football's your life and nothing else but you're not going to make it', I'd be like no chance, what'd you mean I'm not going to make it. It puts doubt in their heads and stops them progressing as a player. I can see why they do it but it's not fair.

I'm quite happy to help these kids coming up and give them advice, point them in the right direction. I'm not sure how I'd do it but I'll definitely give them my story and hopefully it can help them. It's unexpected but it's been unbelievable and I'd love to help kids and advise kids. It's something I'd love to do, because at the end of the day football's football and these kids are more important than just kicking a ball around.