Dancing on Ice gave me my identity back after retirement

Ex-football ace Anton talks skating, family and racism

- EMMA PRYER

ANTON Ferdinand says Dancing On Ice gave him back his identity after quitting football.

The ex-West Ham ace said he knew nothing but soccer until he retired in 2019 having joined the East London club's academy at nine.

He says: "When you retire from football, or any sport I'd imagine, you lose a bit of your identity and nothing ever prepares you for that. That's what's happened to me.

"If there's anything that I can say about Dancing On Ice, and how good this process has been for me, it's that I really have this sense of being myself back again."

Anton, 39, said he was lucky to be able to go from retiring as a player straight into a job with his football agency - but nothing compared to the adrenaline of being on the pitch.

"All of a sudden that's gone and you never get that again," he says. "All I knew from five or six was to be a footballer. Everything as a footballer is laid out what to do, what to eat, how to sleep, how to recover.

"But when you've retired you've got to put your own structure in your day, which you've never been taught to do, and that is what I found the hardest."

Anton credits wife Lucy Cornell and their three young kids with picking him up when he felt low.