GAME OVER #2: 🗣️ 'Nothing will ever match playing football. You are never going to find the same adrenaline or reach the same heights'

Three ex-pros — Rory Loy, Lee Mair and Mark Reilly — state it can be EXTREMELY hard to transition… but you can make it if you try

Welcome to part II of award-winning sportswriter Stephen McGowan’s investigation series into the impact on footballers when they hang up their boots. Yesterday, we heard about former Aberdeen defender Kevin McNaughton’s desperate post-retirement cry for help.

In Part II today, we hear from three familiar faces of the Scottish game, as Rory Loy, Lee Mair and Mark Reilly spell out the stark reality of the transition years. In tomorrow’s final part, Fraser Wishart and Chris Higgins of PFA Scotland outline what the players’ union are doing to help ex-players adapt to life after football.

Parts II and III are for paid subscribers.

This is Stephen’s fifth Nutmeg investigation: four previous here. To access Stephen’s full investigations, plus monthly data breakdowns from Nick Harris, Adam Clery’s tactical analysis, and player columns … sign up for a Nutmeg season ticket in August - and you’ll get 12 months of access PLUS a year’s subscription to the beautiful, 200-page print quarterly delivered straight to your door.

By Stephen McGowan

RORY LOY began his career as an attacker with Rangers before playing for Carlisle, Falkirk, Dundee and Dumbarton. Loy, 37, ended his playing career in 2019, and is now a respected matchday pundit with BBC Scotland.

“Football is not like other sports such as golf and tennis where you need to fund your own travel and living expenses until you get to a certain stage. You become institutionalised.

At Rangers, you are given your breakfast and lunch. You take your dinner home with you, there are instructions on where to be, what to wear and what time to turn up for the travel that’s laid on for you.

If you have done that for 20 years and you are not the most educated individual, the real world can be a case of, ‘Jeez, I need to do all this myself now.’