The former England striker’s career has taken him from Islington to Italy, Wales and now Japan where he is a positive role model of a footballer with epilepsy

As Jay Bothroyd settles into his 18th season as a professional he has already achieved everything he set out to do as a child chasing a ball around the playground. Now, however, he wants to create history in Japan. The striker plays for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo in the country where he has spent the past three years of his career and has started brightly this season with two goals in his opening five league games.

It looked as if Bothroyd was heading away from top-level football when he left England in 2014 for the Thai club Muangthong United but the low standard he found there prompted the former Cardiff striker to force his way out, moving to the J-League 2 side Júbilo Iwata. Bothroyd became a favourite with the club as he propelled them back up to the top flight, something which helped him to settle easily into Japanese life.

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“I always look back, not that I’ve got any plans on finishing soon, but when I do retire from football I can look back at my career and say that when I decided I wanted to be a professional footballer in the playground when I was an infant I would have said: ‘I wanted to play in the Premier League, I want to play for my country and I want to earn a lot of money’ and I’ve done all three of those. I’ve achieved all my goals and I want to keep achieving as much as I can for as long as I can.”

Bothroyd, 35, is still looking to better himself and finally lift a trophy, something he has not done since being part of the Arsenal team which won the FA Youth Cup in 2000. Triumph in Japan would increase his cult status in Sapporo and send Bothroyd down in history, a personal milestone for which he is striving. “I would like to be the first English person to win some silverware in Japan, that would be a big achievement for me. I am happy, I’m the highest‑scoring British person in the J-League ever and Gary Lineker was here, so that’s an achievement. I just want to keep trying to be the best I can be, work hard, keep myself in shape and enjoy each day.”

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Back home not many have taken notice of Bothroyd’s achievements abroad but he recently made headlines in England for blacking out in a training session. “I’ve got epilepsy, I haven’t got it really badly but I do have epilepsy and it’s something I’ve had since I was young, so it’s just one of those things you learn to live with.

“That was the first time I’ve actually had a seizure in football on the pitch, it had never happened to me before. The reason it did happen is because I forgot to take my medication for a couple of days and it caught up with me. I’ve got to take medication each day, I don’t see it as a disease, I see it as a condition and I embrace it. When that happened to me, loads of people contacted me and sent letters to say they didn’t realise you could be a sportsperson, achieve your goals with the condition. People were saying they were going to let their kids play football again, so I’ve helped influence people in a positive light.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Milan captain Paolo Maldini tackles Bothroyd during Peruga and Milan’s Italian Serie A match at Perugia’ s Renato Curi stadium in September 2003. Photograph: Pietro Crocchioni/EPA

Asia is not Bothroyd’s first foreign adventure. He spent two years at the Italian club Perugia from the age of 20, fulfilling an ambition cultivated every weekend watching Football Italia on the sofa with his father growing up in Islington, north London.

One of his team-mates in Serie A was Colonel Gaddafi’s son Saadi, a man who became a friend of Bothroyd’s during their time at the club. Gaddafi failed a drug test while with the club and would feature only once. In recent years he has faced a number of accusations including murder, drug use, misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he led the Libyan Football Federation. After football he became a special forces commander and was under United Nations sanctions after commanding units to repress the revolution in his homeland brutally and is being held in prison awaiting trial for the murder and torture of a former footballer.

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“I never experienced that side of Saadi,” says Bothroyd. “Maybe he does what he does in his country but when he was in Italy I never experienced the treachery that his father and brothers did. He loved football. When his people and his security were around him, he was always polite and respectful to everyone. When I saw all the stuff come out about him and his family, it was shocking to me.”

Japanese football is on the up and the fans will be confident of progression from a World Cup group comprising Poland, Senegal and Colombia in June. Bothroyd has seen the improvements of the domestic league since his arrival, not to mention the growing influence of Japanese players in Europe.

“You’ve got to look around the leagues, there are a lot of Japanese players in Italy, in England there are a couple, in Germany there’s a lot, there’s a lot of Japanese players everywhere. Japanese football is a good level, the place they do lack a little bit is physicality but technically they’re very good, there are a lot of very good footballers here, the standard is high. Look at the Club World Cup: Kashima Antlers played against Real Madrid and [Cristiano] Ronaldo scored the winning goal in the last few minutes of extra time, so that shows you the standard, it’s not a walk in the park here and it’s very competitive. I expect and hope Japan do well in the World Cup.”

Bothroyd’s own international career consists of 18 minutes in a 2-1 friendly defeat by France in November 2010. As now, the striker was going against popular theory by earning his senior England call when playing in the Championship for Cardiff City, becoming the club’s first England international. There is no sense of regret with Bothroyd, who had to brush off the disappointment of never representing his country again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bothroyd beats Adil Rami to the ball during his one appearance for England, when he came on as a substitute against France at Wembley in November 2010. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

“I got my England call-up which was great. People can say ‘one cap wonder’ but at the end of the day there aren’t many people who can say they got one cap, so I’m proud of it. I was unfortunate. Stuart Pearce came to watch me at training at the time and I was meant to go to another squad but I got injured, so it just didn’t go my way. But that’s life.”

Lineker’s time in Japan in the early 1990s was quickly forgotten by those who witnessed it but now Bothroyd has the chance to be remembered in the country he has made his home. He does not care that he could not compete with Lineker at international level. Bothroyd knows there are a number of different ways to make history.