From teenage prodigy to depression, turning down Manchester United to
playing with a chain-smoking team-mate, BBC Sport puts Matt Jansen, 35,
under the sporting spotlight.
The forward started his career at Carlisle and turned
down the Red Devils to join Crystal Palace in a £1m move in 1998. He
joined Blackburn a year later for £4.1m and enjoyed the best spell of
his career at Ewood Park, scoring 57 goals in 182 games.
He narrowly missed out on England's 2002 World Cup squad and suffered a motorcycle accident in Rome that summer that left him in a coma for six days. His career never really recovered from it and he went on to play for Coventry, Bolton and Wrexham and never won an international cap.
He joined former Blackburn team-mate Garry Flitcroft at Northern Premier League side Leigh Genesis in 2009 and followed him to Chorley the next year.
You are currently player-coach at Northern Premier League play-off chasers Chorley, so how is that going?
I'm looking at the next step and that's management and coaching. If called upon I'll play. If we have got a few injuries, I can turn out or give the lads a rest but I am more than happy to concentrate more on progressing with my coaching badges.
You have teamed up with former Blackburn midfielder Garry Flitcroft. What is that like?
We played together at Blackburn and we were friends from those days. Garry bosses everyone around. We work a bit like good cop, bad cop and I like to say I'm the good cop.
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