I will always remember the day before I retired, before the last game of the season in 2002, I went to Arsène’s office and knocked on his door. I had not actually had the face-to-face chat with him about retiring. It had been joked about around the dressing room – “Oh, Dicko is packing in” – and my contract was up but I hadn’t actually had a proper conversation with the manager about it. In a way I needed him to confirm to me it was all over. I knocked on the door, perhaps trying to grab another year off him, and offered to hang around the dressing room and be a nuisance. He let me down gently. He leaned back in his chair and said, “No, Lee. It is time.” It was like a...
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