I'm probably going to need a new knee at 35 but I'd do it all again. I've done myself proud

EVERY morning begins with a painful reminder of what might have been.

- BY MARK MCCADDEN

There are even some nights when Terry Dixon is jolted from his sleep by a twinge in his knee.

He reckons he will need a new one eventually. But at the age of 35 he isn't ready yet for such a radical intervention.

His most recent trip into hospital for surgery came last Christmas. This time was just a clear out," he says

"But my other operations, I've had two clear outs, a meniscus, a dislocation of the knee, so they had to reconstruct the whole knee... there's been quite a lot... a cruciate... I've done everything you could think of.

"My knee niggles me every day of my life, just doing normal things.

"Every morning I wake up, I feel it. Sometimes I wake up during the night with it. I have to sleep with a pillow in between my knees.

"I feel like it's going to get worse. I'll probably have to get a new knee at some point. I'm only 35, so hopefully I can hold on for a little bit longer."

Dixon was once Tottenham's and Ireland's next big thing. Spurs-bound Mason Melia wasn't even born when Dixon was making back page headlines here and in the London newspapers.

He joined Tottenham as an eight-year-old. By the age of 14 he was labelled 'The Irish Wayne Rooney', because of striking similarities in appearance and in their styles of play.

And it wasn't long after his 16th birthday that he won the first of two senior call ups under Steve Staunton.

But by the age of 20 his dream of a Premier League career was in tatters.

These days he works for London Underground, maintaining the motors under the trains on the busy Central Line. He had to give up his previous job with a tunnelling company because it was "tough on my knees."

He enjoys the work, and getting to watch eight-year-old son Teddy on the left-wing for Northampton.

"He's technically very good," he says of Teddy.

"I'd like him to get a little bit angry on the pitch. He's not as angry as I was.