Football teaches you a lot about life. When my son was barely three, I signed him up for my local club, Little Foxes. He hated it at first, of course — but he soon got into it, and so began his enduring love affair with the beautiful game.
Despite the disappointment of realising, around the age of 12, that he was never going to be the next Ronaldo — a rite of passage I suspect other parents will be familiar with — he still plays.
It gives him focus, friends, fitness and something to talk about (football being a universal language) — and it has taught him some useful life skills, not least how to deal with crushing defeat which, as a Chelsea fan, has come in rather handy of late.