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After dropping down from Premier League football with Middlesbrough to non-league Gateshead in just four years, Josh Walker has admitted he needed help to turn his life around.

Still just 29, Walker was regarded as one of the most promising prospects in English football as a talented teenager.

He came through the club’s highly-rated Academy and captained England at several youth levels.

Walker, who hails from Tyneside, made his first team debut in the memorable match at Fulham which saw Steve McClaren field 10 homegrown players in his starting XI in May 2006, just days before the UEFA Cup final.

When 17-year-old Walker was sent on as a second-half sub, the average age of the Boro team dipped below 20. With the likes of Matthew Bates, David Wheater, James Morrison, Tony McMahon and Lee Cattermole all featuring in the first team that season, it seemed like Middlesbrough was the best place for a young player to be.

Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go to plan for Walker, who found it hard to break into Gareth Southgate’s first team plans.

The current England head coach replaced McClaren just a month after that 1-0 loss at Craven Cottage and had plenty of experienced midfielders at his disposal.

Given his tender age and the strength of the first team squad, Walker needed to be patient but, by his own admission, he wasn’t.

In an interview with Teesside Live last year he revealed: “At 17 I’d be banging on Gareth Southgate’s door asking why I wasn’t playing every week. I look back on that now and wonder what the hell I was thinking.”

In 2006/07 he made a handful of appearances for Bournemouth during a loan period with the then League One club and managed eight games with Aberdeen the following season.

That trip north of the border included a memorable goal for the Dons in the UEFA Cup tie against Bayern Munich in February 2008, just a week shy of his 19th birthday.

It seems those early tastes of the big time whetted Walker’s appetite for more of the same when he returned to Boro.

In 2008/09 his chance finally came. Southgate named him the starting line-up for a vital home derby with Sunderland and he put in an excellent display before suffering an untimely injury.

It seemed Walker just could catch a break. He did make five more appearances as Boro slipped out of the top flight but even in the Championship he failed to win regular football. His final league start in a Middlesbrough shirt came in a 1-0 home win over Peterborough in February 2010, by which time Gordon Strachan was in charge.

Six months later he joined Watford in search of regular first football. Looking back now, Walker believes he wanted too much too soon.

“Before I signed my contract with Middlesbrough,” he told the BBC, “I pretty much had my choice of any team I wanted to go to but Steve McClaren brought me and my family in and told us his plans for me.

“There was no better place for me to be at that time. My career started to level out a bit when he left for the England job.”

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Ultimately, he admits he made some poor choices in terms of the clubs he joined.

He spent time on loan with Northampton and Rotherham before left Boro and while with Watford had two spells with Stevenage and another stint with Northampton.

A loan spell with Scunthorpe resulted in a permanent deal but, in 2013, he dropped out of the Football League at the age of 24 to sign for Gateshead.

He insists he made some bad decisions.

“It was never an attitude thing with me. I lived my life properly from a young age. From 11-years-old my commitment and dedication to football was as good as I’ve ever seen from any kid. I just had an eagerness to play, so when loan moves came up I’d just take them. Looking back, I should have never gone to some of the teams that I went to.”

Gateshead turned out to be a low point professionally and personally.

“I was very bitter,” admitted Walker. “I didn’t really watch football anymore because I didn’t want to know what was going on.

“As a kid, my biggest setback was probably being on the bench as a 17-year-old for the first team. So I went from that to playing in the Conference and being a complete shadow of myself.

“I needed help. I was out far too much, I was drinking far too much and I was indulging far too much. I wasn’t me.

“I eventually got it; I spoke to someone quite regularly.”

Four years ago Walker joined Indian club Bengaluru and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of playing in a new country.

From the sub-Continent he moved to Edinburgh City and appears happy and content with life in the Scottish capital.

Older and wiser, the 29-year-old urges anyone suffering from depression to seek help.

“To anyone out there who is having a bad time within their sport or work - go and speak to someone,” he said.

“It took me years to build up the courage to do it. It was actually my partner who got it sorted for me. I don’t know if I would have done it myself so I’ll always thank her for doing that.”

Walker certainly bears no ill-will to the players he came through the ranks with, including former England team-mates who are now senior internationals including Fabian Delph, Kieran Trippier and Jordan Henderson.

“Now when I watch England or the Premier League, I’m proud of all those lads I played with,” he said.

“I’m proud to have played with them. I’m so delighted that they’ve gone on to have the careers that they’ve had, because they fully deserve it, the lot of them.”

The genial Geordie can now reflect on the good times he enjoyed as a young player including the impressive treble of captaining England at three different levels from Under-16 up to Under-20s.

(Image: Tom Banks)

“The first time I was named England captain it was in the Victory Shield against Wales,” he recalled. “Inside I was so proud I just wanted to cry. I couldn’t wait to get out there and I loved every minute of it.

“I thought that might have been my only chance to captain England but I was lucky enough to do it over 30 times. It’s something I probably won’t fully appreciate until I retire.”