It's named the Lombardi Trophy for a reason, because we play and live in Titledown. We've got the best fans, and I can't wait to go home and see those fans and bring home the Lombardi Trophy.
I am a sports enthusiast, and if given an opportunity, I want to be a sportsman, even today. I want to promote the sport that is indigenous to India. Kabaddi is a matter of national pride. Why can't cricket, hockey, football and kabaddi be given equal platforms and co-exist? I believe that can happen.
In doing your work in the great world, it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once heard on the football field: Don't flinch, don't fall; hit the line hard.
Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella.
The club continued to make significant player decisions without involving me. In the end such a breach of trust and confidence meant that I had no option but to leave.
One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of George W. Bush's Iraq War.