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My cousin Joe was just the coolest kid and I wanted to be like him. He had girls, could do whatever he wanted and he was a bricklayer, so I decided to do that.
I always break it down I am three different people. I'm Troy Deeney the footballer, I'm daddy who the kids get to see and I'm Troy which a few of my mates get to see.
Going back to 2012, it was a bad year for me. I lost my dad as well, so burying him a week before I went to jail, just having all of that emotion, it just hit me hard.
When the world's moving towards being the most inclusive it's ever been, it's unthinkable that certain basic aspects of life are still so unfair for the black community.
I grew up in pubs so my whole thing is 'the game happened,' people would go into the pub afterwards and discuss 'it should have been a penalty, he should have scored that.'
I just got a lot of expectations and pressure on me, but it is what it is. I've got the best job in the world, I work two or three hours a day and get paid handsomely for it.
My dad was well known on the streets, shall we say, and he had a different lifestyle, which could spill into the home setting. Being exposed to that at a young age was difficult.
I'm different to someone like Jamie Vardy, who is a lot quicker than me but if he loses a yard he loses a large part of his game - whereas I never had the yard in the first place.
Some of my friends were gang-affiliated or gang-related, but that was just the way things were. I was lucky because football kept me busy and away from that bad path, to an extent.
The Sun is a massive paper and I understand the roles and responsibilities that go with that. I want to add something unique and give a different perspective, not only on sport but many areas.
I don't want to sound too critical, but a lot of fans at some grounds I go to have got cameras in their hands, taking pictures of anything rather than generating any atmosphere during the game.
I saw some comments in regards to my son, people saying: 'I hope your son gets corona.' That's the hard part for me. If you respond to that, people then go: 'Ah, we've got him' and they keep doing it.
It's perceived that money can take care of anything but in my experience it makes everything 15 times harder because you can't act 'normal' and you're not allowed to be vulnerable or weak but we all are.
Actually, I used to think that it was normal to feel bad, like, Doesn't everybody feel like this? It was only when my drinking really got out of control that people went, 'Troy, you need to see somebody.'
I'm just a regular person. I treat every person the same. I like to think that I'm respectful. I'm honest with everybody. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, sometimes it doesn't, but I'll always speak my mind.
My mum had me when she was just 18 and she worked three jobs, including bar tending, to put food on the table and she also went to night college. She worked really hard for us and I kept myself busy with football.
Back in the day you used to have a fight. You win, you lose, you get up and go home, dust yourself down. Social media made it so that if you lose a fight it is on camera, you are embarrassed and you are forced to react.
I have never been to Jamaica and in footballing terms, I feel English because this is where I grew up and played all of my football. That is not to say I don't have immense pride in my Jamaican heritage - I certainly do.
For me, when I was growing up I was told the police weren't on our side. From being stereotyped because we drive nice cars to being judged for the clothing we wear, I was told I would never be given the benefit of the doubt.
When I was 15, Aston Villa offered me a trial for four days. In those days, I was more interested in making mischief and I didn't even turn up until the fourth day and then they sent me packing because they said I wasn't dedicated enough.
Even now, as a footballer I've experienced many types of racism. Whether that's abuse on the field or from the crowd, it's never easy to deal with, but social media is now the biggest platform for these cowards to share and target their hate.
There's so much negativity over this issue of dual nationality - nearly always from people who don't have mixed family backgrounds and don't understand that it's perfectly natural for those of us who do, to feel loyalty to more than one country.
During therapy I have realised that my work ethic comes from my mum, Emma. She used to work two or three jobs at a time to keep food on the table in our council flat in Birmingham. She taught me to stay disciplined, to go to Sunday school, all those things.
The core of who I am and what I'm about, I'm a loyal person, I'm honourable, as I say I'm a softie I'll do anything for anyone. But, there's this other part of me that, I've been exposed to so much at a young age that's now, right, I have to look after myself.
Since coming out of jail, I still made mistakes daily. Don't me wrong, I'm not an angel by any stretch of the imagination, but my mistakes are just normal ones now like forgetting to go to the shop when the missus asks or not putting the bins out, stuff like that.
Part of my job leading the line for Watford is to occupy centre-halves - by that I mean those battles with Huth, say, to try to win headers when the ball is played forward. But I also look to bring centre-halves out of position to the flanks and make space for my team-mates in the middle.
People always say to me, 'It must be so much pressure and so difficult playing out there in front of 60,000 people.' I always say, 'No, not really.' Playing football and earning great money isn't difficult. Working three jobs and raising kids alone, which is what my Mum did. That's difficult.
Dad was involved in a lot of crime and the police were regularly coming to our door looking for him. From the age of three he always made sure I had a football and he'd make me play with much bigger kids. But he'd tell them, 'Kick him and if he moans he'll come in.' So I got taught to grow up very quickly.
When I talk about it, now people imagine I had an impoverished childhood, especially when I tell people we used to have to put coins in the side of the telly. But we were really happy. Mum never complained, there was always music playing in the house and we were always dancing around. It was a great childhood.
Whenever you play against Fred - we certainly did it - you let him get it because he has to take three or four touches. He doesn't know how to do one or two touches. Anyone that watches his game, he gets it facing the wrong way, turns, turns, chops, chops and he'll give you the ball three or four times a game.
If I scroll down my Instagram replies, the tenth one down features a racist emoji - which is not unusual. So I follow the protocol, which is to block the user and report the message under the category of 'hate speech and symbols.' Then I am told that an emoji with a monkey and a banana is not considered racist.
As footballers that's what we do when it comes to bonuses. we don't sit there and go 'yeah can I get £20million as a bonus.' You have to sit down, 'how much money does the club make, what's their reported loss.' You have to sit and go through it all and go OK, this is what you take, we feel that we should get that if we do this.
I would go on record saying that there is probably one gay or bi-person in every football team. They're there, they are 100 per cent there. I think people that are gay or from that community definitely are very worried about having to shoulder the responsibility of being the first. I think once the first comes out, there would be loads.
Certainly when I was a kid, in the early '90s, men couldn't show weakness. It was very much a case of suppressing pain and getting on with it. I remember when I was six years old, I was playing football with kids who were three years older when, one day, I fell over and began to cry. And my dad was like, 'Don't ever let someone see you cry.'