My Sporting Life is The i Paper’s look behind the curtain at what drives sports stars to greatness. This week, we speak to former England footballer Rio Ferdinand, widely considered one of the best centre-backs of his generation, who is best known for his 12-year stint at Manchester United, where he won six Premier League titles and one Champions League trophy.
Making my debut for West Ham is probably my proudest moment
From the age of seven I was hell-bent on being a professional footballer. I worked for the majority of my life trying to get there. It’s difficult to pin it on one match.
I made my debut for West Ham at 17. So that meant a great deal to me. Playing for England was another one, and then becoming a winner at Manchester United.
As a player, there are things that you absolutely want to achieve. You want to become a professional, you want to play for your country and you want to win trophies. And I managed to achieve all three, luckily.
Iain Dowie was a good mentor to me at West Ham
He was a centre-forward but I think he spotted some potential in me. He was always giving me pointers. Obviously he used to play against me in training a lot, so he would tell me about certain things I should be doing to look my best.
The door was always open with me at Manchester United. I don’t think anyone found it difficult to talk to me. If you speak to any of the players, they would say I was one of the most easygoing guys in the changing room.
If a young player needed to talk or had a problem, they knew they could come to me for advice.
Joe Cole wouldn’t touch a football in the changing room
I didn’t notice it at West Ham, more so with England. It’s quite rare when you consider you’re going to go out and play football, you need to get a good touch of the ball and understand it and get used to playing with the football. But he made sure he never got near a ball.
If you rolled the ball towards him he would jump out of the way. He wouldn’t touch it. So quite weird.
We used to just play games and try and make him touch the ball. We used to roll the ball at him all the time. He never got the hump to be fair to him. He would laugh. But he just made sure he wasn’t going to divert from his ritual.
The best piece of advice Sir Alex Ferguson ever gave me
It was the first thing he said to me, actually. I remember we were sat in his office. It was quite simple, really – he told me to work hard.
I’d been given a great opportunity. People would give their right arm, a limb, to go and put the shirt on and play football. And I carried that with me throughout my whole career, to be a professional is a privilege.
The ones that think they’ve made it don’t last long at the top. Just keep maintaining that hunger and that desire and that kind of attitude of “I haven’t made it yet”. There’s always things to learn. So to rest on your laurels is something that I wasn’t able to do. I didn’t let myself slip into that mindset.
I only had two roommates – Roy Keane and Frank Lampard
They were both very different. I can’t tell you why [laughs]. I controlled the remote control in both cases, so that was good for the TV.
Frank was a bit more noisy. Whereas Roy, I would just turn around and he would be stretching his hamstring all the time. He was just mad, but it was great.
They are both great guys. I still speak to both of them now, actually, so it wasn’t too bad. We still keep in touch.
My kids take the mick out of my YouTube channel
I love it. It’s something that I’ve always been interested in. I’m not scared to dip my toe into new things.
I was one of the early adopters of social media, definitely in the football world. Now I’ve got a business that’s doing really well, but I’m enjoying it at the same time. It’s like the best of both worlds.
Failure is a part of life. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not that bad. I’ve always been one to take risks.
Airbnb and Rio Ferdinand are launching a once-in-a-lifetime football experience, where fans can go behind-the-scenes at a podcast recording of “Rio Ferdinand Presents”, meet Rio, and attend a Fifa World Cup 2026 quarter-final match in Los Angeles. Fans can request to book “The Ultimate Quarter-Final Getaway” for free from 12 May at 10am BST at airbnb.com/rioferdinand
