When I retired in 1994, I was never tempted to drop down the divisions to carry on playing. In fact, I never kicked a ball again, not even in a charity match.
— Gary Lineker
In the old days, you had an audience of about 400, half of whom were committee members from somewhere or other sitting in their suits. It's become a real sports event with sports fans now.
Most of my best games were when I felt crap - I could hardly move on the morning of the World Cup semi-final in 1990 - but there's a thing called adrenaline that gets you through.
Kids are learning to play. That's why we're seeing an emergence. That's why we're seeing the Under-17s and Under-20s doing better in international football.
Football is losing its heart and sense of humour.
It's nice to have the power of Twitter to correct things that were incorrect.
The possibility that a provincial town could win the League completely bucks the trend.
We are living in difficult times. There are a lot of people out of work - am I going to stand there and whinge? No, because I am lucky to have such a wonderful job.
I've got about 5 million followers on Twitter, and if I tweet anything, there will be faux outrage.
I watched Leicester City lose in the 1969 FA Cup final with my dad and granddad when I was eight and cried all the way home. I have seen them get promoted and relegated. I played for them for eight years. I even got a group of like-minded fans and friends to stump up a few quid to salvage the club when they went into liquidation.
On TV, if you fluff your lines, nobody gives a toss. But if you fluff a penalty in the World Cup, well - we all know how much that matters.
World Cups can be career-defining.
I think medically, football is generally well looked after. There are always checks made. Anything which can be done to make footballers or sportsmen of any area safer has to be encouraged.
I sort of fall apart in terms of stamina after about 25 minutes!
The E.U. has its weaknesses, but it's been pretty good for us, and it's been pretty good for Europe, and it's kept peace.
In terms of the pricing of football tickets, there's no need - given the massive amount of money that's coming in now from television rights, there's no need for them to be greedy. Look after the supporters; make sure they can still afford to go and watch football.
Some players are quite homely, and they don't see themselves going abroad; others would relish the challenge. I can only speak personally, but I always wanted the challenge, and to go and live in a place like Barcelona was great.
I've known Mark Hughes for half a lifetime. We joined Barcelona in the same summer of 1986, played together under Terry Venables and Luis Aragones, and have kept in touch ever since.
I've now been in over 100 adverts for Walkers, and we've had a lot of laughs along the way.
This whole 'tired footballers' and three-games-a-week thing is an absolute myth.
A couple of defeats, and you are gone - that's the danger of World Cups.
Football's the big cheese, if you like. It's easy to have a swipe. There's a lot of footballers, and when they fall foul, they become big news.
It would be more weird if people didn't stare at me or shout at me.
The two centre-backs, Rob Huth and Wes Morgan, are in many ways journeyman pros, but they have that wonderful attitude and never-say-die spirit that has culminated in them being top of the league.
We are in the the entertainment business, and we all know if you are top of the tree, you get big money.
There is Twitter outrage at everything. Be it a pair of trousers or a short skirt, somebody, somewhere, will not like it.
If I hadn't have been good enough at football, I'd have been a sports journalist - which is what I do now anyway. Or a cricketer. I might have been a cricketer.
Playing football and presenting TV are totally different things, but there are similarities: it's exciting, it can go well, it can go badly... the difference is when presenting goes badly, it doesn't really affect anyone's life, whereas when you have a bad day on the pitch, it affects people's moods for a whole week.
When Bob Wilson left the BBC for ITV, I got the 'Football Focus' job, and it went from there. It came completely out of the blue, but the fact I had a high profile certainly helped.
We're all concerned about sports rights being so expensive. Obviously, we are funded by the licence fee payers, so it's not always easy to compete with those who can get greater revenue.
As footballers, you just grow up with people from different backgrounds and different colors of skin.
Personal records are not what football is all about, but as goalscorers, we live and die by figures and numbers because, ultimately, that's how people will judge you.
We do not want to alienate supporters.
Not many players would turn down a chance to play for Real Madrid and Barcelona, as they're right at the top the tree in terms of football.
I know people think that a lot of sports stars are a little bit up themselves, but they all have their heroes, too.
This whole science thing of working out if players are a little bit tired just gives you an excuse to leave them out.
Ultimately, if we can develop enough players, the balance of foreign players isn't great, but that's because we're not producing enough players.
Most clubs would actually like homegrown players because they're a lot cheaper.
In all sports, people get competitive; things happen that shouldn't happen.
I've been in the public eye so long, I can't remember how it was when it was different - from my mid-20s onwards, when my career started to blossom and I became an international, world cups and things.
It would be a great adventure for Leicester to be in the Champions League.
What you learn is that you can't please everyone all the time.
I generally have a brand of brief on every day.
That's what being a footballer is, really: you train at this time, you finish at that time, then you do that, then you go home, then you're not allowed out, then you do this... there comes a point in your career - about thirty, thirty-one - when you get a bit sick of being screamed at.
Looking at the way the game is played, I'm envious of the conditions. We played on some ropey World Cup surfaces. I genuinely never look back and wish I earned the money they do today, but I do think of that element.
I don't think there was a definite day, but it would have been around my mid-20s. I was always interested in the media side of things. When we travelled with England away, or to World Cups, I used to sit with journos while they wrote their copy.
Presenting football is something that I love to do. I'm very fortunate being able to do one of the BBC's flagship shows.
People are fed up with the way things are. There is a lot of bitterness out there, a lot of anger about a lack of jobs and concerns for the next generation.
You never know how long a player has left, especially with strikers. Once you turn 30, as a striker, you are usually on the way down, and playing from the age of 16, at such a high level, has to take its toll.
I think the important thing we have to remember about football in this country is that it is very vibrant, and it's very good to watch, not only in the flesh but also on TV, because our stadiums are full.
