'I have 14 metal plates in my skull, with 28 screws holding them in place and 45 staples. The pain was unbearable, like a bomb going off in my head. And I was a lucky boy' Tottenham Hotspur's Ryan Mason on the incident that ended his career

Ryan Mason.

This Ryan Mason feature first appeared in the September 2018 issue of FourFourTwo.

When you’re a professional footballer, it’s easy to lose sight of what the game’s actually about – you forget why you love it. You see it at clubs all the time: guys training, but not enjoying it, not playing with a smile, not making the most of it.