It is not always easy listening to a footballer who has a reputation for being larger than life talking about the times when he has contemplated suicide, the occasions when he locks himself in his bedroom for a day or two at a time and can’t bring himself to come out.

It is a clear, crisp day in north London and Emmanuel Eboué is sitting in an empty bar at Enfield Town Football Club, across from the park pitch where he trains most days with a local semi-professional player he has befriended in a bid to stay fit while he serves a one-year ban from Fifa over his refusal to pay an agent. Over the course of the next two hours, the mood is mostly sombre as the former Arsenal, Galatasaray and Sunderland defender paints an anguished picture of a footballer denied the opportunity to do what he loves best and the heavy toll it is taking on his mental state.

But the darker tales are interspersed with moments of real levity that, behind that rather pained expression, help to explain why so many former team-mates cite Eboué as the funniest, most boundlessly positive player they shared a dressing room with. Take, for example, Arsenal’s visit to Buckingham Palace in 2007 to meet the Queen.