Players' interests is Clive Platt's game now

Having looked after his money, the lad from East Park in Wolverhampton won't have to worry about paying the rent on his current home in Leicester.

The 37-year-old hung up his boots with League Two promotion-chasers Bury last Wednesday, tearing up his contract which had the rest of the season to run, writes Craig Birch.

And Platt, who made 619 Football League appearances scoring 110 goals after starting out at Walsall in 1995, wants to make sure fellow footballers don't end up on the scrapheap when they call time.

He's linking up with Pro-Synergy, run by former Villa striker Ian Olney, the same advisors that helped him maintain his riches through his playing days.

He said: "I have been involved with the business for the last three years and it's picking up now, so I can give a lot more of my time and focus to that. It's my priority.

"It's financial advice, predominantly for footballers although we have corporate clients as well, with a company that had worked for me and put me in good stead.

"Now I will able to do the same for others and I have kind of had that role, unpaid, for a few years now. As soon as you get to 30, the young lads are all after advice in the dressing room.

"I have passed my exams, so it's about taking that into a job now and it's something I enjoy doing. I managed to span it out for the best part of 20 years but, on average, it's a nine or 10 year career.

"It's important to get it right early, I used my first-ever signing on fee as a deposit on my house and I have always been realistic in thinking it's not going to last forever.

"Every contract I got, I was in the mindset that it could be my last, so I planned accordingly. I have seen so many people have to really adjust.

"If you don't go too high when you are playing, it's not that big a fall when you finish. And our company has a couple of lads that have been lucky enough to play in the Premier League.

"I was with big Lucas Jutkiewicz at Coventry, Kieron Westwood has come down to play for Sheffield Wednesday but he's still a Republic of Ireland international goalkeeper.

"I am sure Callum Wilson will get there, if he carries on doing well for Bournemouth. I have also had a chat with a couple of the Wolves lads, although they are not official clients yet.

"I played with Michael Jacobs at Northampton and Danny Batth is a friend of mine."

Platt also revealed he may yet kick another ball in anger, although he freely admits his time as a full-time professional is all over.

He's toying with the idea of turning out at non-league level for the first time in his career, when his immediate injuries have been fixed.

He's been plagued since joining the Shakers, his ninth club, in January under the tutelage of former Rochdale team-mate David Flitcroft.

He had a calf operation in the summer and tore his hamstring in his Bury comeback, playing for the second-string against Manchester City.

He said: "It's been coming for a while, I have been thinking about it but back issues are what's led to me finishing. It would have been nice to reach 20 years, but it wasn't to be.

"Any injury I have ever had stems from my lower back, so to be going in the car to Bury and training every day isn't a great recipe. I wouldn't have been doing the club justice.

"I have played all of my career, at every team I have been at, it's what I am used to and I want to be a part of it. I have been around football long enough to know that.

"There's a few clubs, part-time, that have enquired so I might have a chat with those guys. I just think the day-to-day training is a bit too much for me now.

"I have spoken to Tamworth, Worcester City and Nuneaton Town, but not since the end of last season. Football, at any level, is a great experience and it's been a privilege for me."

The Black Country boy has come a long way from the playing fields of Deansfield Community School, which has produced a host of professional footballers down the years.

Neil Lewis played left-back for Leicester City, Lee Thorpe had his own nomadic Football League career as a forward and winger Mark Wright spent seven years at Walsall.

Today's graduates include Shrewsbury Town defender Connor Goldson and Wolves striker Leon Clarke, with Platt saying: "Deansfield should apply for academy status!

"Mark Wright used to live pretty much opposite me when he was a little kid and started out at Walsall, but there wasn't originally a place for me there.

"A friend of mind, a lad called Chris Salt, was a YTS there and advised me to write a letter to the club. I went on trial for the last month of their first year.

"Eric McManus was a great guy who ran the youth team and Chris Nicholl was the manager, I played a couple of reserve games and they offered two of us young lads contracts.

"It was me and Michael Ricketts who signed forms and we were both in the first-team by the end of that season. That got me a new three-year deal.

"I started a few games the next season, so that got ripped up and I got a better three-year deal. Then Ray Graydon came in, we never saw eye-to-eye and fell out quite a bit.

"I wouldn't totally blame him on that, I was a young player doing well and maybe I got comfortable. You can get a bit of a parenting effect at your first club and start to think it's all about you.

"When they were promoted to the Championship, I knew I wasn't going to feature much so it was good to move on."

A move to Rochdale, initially on loan, saw him become the club's record-signing for £100,000, after 32 games and four goals for the Saddlers.

He spent four years at Spotland and came across boss Steve Parkin, who would be one of two who would turn to him time and again as a signing.

Parkin took him to Notts County before a fruitless spell at Peterborough United, a fresh start proving just that at the recently-formed Milton Keynes Dons.

His place in MK folklore was complete by scoring the new-club's first-ever hat-trick, plundering a treble in a 3-1 League Two win over nine-man Barnet.

A career-best 18 goals in 2006-07 earned him, at nearly 30, his first shot at the Championship with a £300,000 move to Colchester United, managed by Aidy Boothroyd.

Like Parkin, Platt would later follow Boothroyd for a return to the Midlands with Coventry City, where he scored his 100th league goal at age 34 against Southampton in 2011.

He dropped back down two levels to join up again with Boothroyd at Northampton Town the following year, leaving weeks after his manager was dismissed in January.

Platt said: "Rochdale was the start of me playing away from my home area and I made some good friends there, also playing under Steve for the first time.

"Notts County was brilliant and I would have loved to have stayed there, I joined because of Steve who was running things with Bill Dearden when the club were in administration.

"As soon as it was taken over, they rewarded Bill with the sack and they tried to change the contracts that were offered to us, so I knew that wasn't the place for me.

"I probably played my worst football for Peterborough! There's always a place where it just doesn't work out. If I could look back and pick one club I wouldn't have gone to, that was it.

"My period at MK Dons was a highlight for me, it was a fresh club and a new start. I went there in the first year they moved, we were bottom of the league and stayed up on the last day of the season.

"I played under Martin Allen there for a year, which has to go down as the most bizarre season of my career. He was good but he was mad, like stripping off and jumping in a lake on one trip!

"They still display a plaque from my hat-trick there, Pete Winkleman put it up on the wall at the new stadium with my shirt next to it. I had some good times with them.

"Then I got the chance to play in the Championship with Colchester. That first season at Layer Road, playing up front with Teddy Sheringham and Kevin Lisbie, I hit double figures.

"It was like I had done the hard yards when I was young and moved up as I got older, later I went to Coventry and they were still at the Ricoh Arena.

"At one point, I can remember being third in the Championship playing in front of full houses every week. There were some great atmospheres.

"Aidy took me to both of those clubs and I played under him later on at Northampton, too. Steve was the same, even after Rochdale and Notts County he tried to sign me for Barnsley and Bradford City."

Platt fell just that little bit short of the Premier League, but more than earned his corn in the divisions beneath.

A veteran in every sense of the word, he warns youngsters now it's survival of the fittest.

He said: "When I got into the Championship, it went up a level in discipline and living right and I imagine it does so again in the Premier League. Those lads are absolute athletes.

"When I started at Walsall, you could have a good summer and come back a stone or two overweight, then just run it all off. Those days are long gone now."