A great man once said: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." This weekend there are five Premier League teams that at some point during "Survival Sunday" will need one last rousing Churchillian battle cry to help preserve their top‑flight status.

I should know. Going in to that final‑day scenario was one of the worst experiences of my life. Walking in to that changing room with so much at stake is a feeling the like of which I can't imagine being able to experience anywhere else. There literally are tens of thousands of people relying on you.

Inside, there wasn't the usual small talk and banter. The more vocal players were spouting off, more for themselves than for any collective benefit, and the manager and his coaches were going through their usual good cop, bad cop routine, depending on which players they were attempting to motivate.

The worst part, though, was the waiting. Players just want to get out there and get on with it. I remember one or two players that I was particularly close with embraced me with over-the-top hugs and screamed profanities in the tunnel. In my eyes all that did was reassure the other team that we were scared shitless.

When I think back my overriding emotion going in to that last game was one of terror. I was self-absorbed in my own panic, the realisation that everything I'd been fighting for could be about to fall apart. Seeking an ego boost I sought out the manager in his office and told him: "I can't get relegated. It's embarrassing." He put his cup of tea down, drew a heavy sigh, slowly leaned forward, and said: "Is that right? Well how the fuck do you think I feel?"

Many players go into this weekend already knowing that if things don't go to plan they will be moving on and, in some instances, they will have absolutely no idea where that might be. They may have a family sitting at home that don't know whether they're coming or going – they'll be thinking about the logistics, new home to find, new school for the kids, new people to get on with, new place to get to know, no friends or family nearby. Not a lot different to many people that relocate but most get a lot longer than four weeks to get everything done.

And if a club can't be found then all the players know the consequences. Standard wage reduction in the Championship is 50%, and that's a lot of money. I appreciate your heart won't bleed for them but some players will be left exposed on investments. I know players that have had to kiss goodbye to a sizable deposit on a property because relegation has got in the way. I actually lent a friend £20,000 so he could meet the repayments on his own mortgage until he got himself sorted.

The threat of relegation, however, impacts on far more people than the players. It's difficult to walk into the club shop or the offices knowing that the people working there – very often friends – may well be looking for new jobs if you don't perform. Harder still is walking around the streets and bumping in to fans who are very sincere when they tell you relegation would be the worst thing that has ever happened to them.

Managers try their best to alleviate the added pressure, acting under a haze of normality that never really fools anyone. Some draw inspiration from the silver screen and sit their squads down to watch powerful Hollywood moments such as Al Pacino's inch‑by‑inch speech from Any Given Sunday. Others think that running around in the woods shooting paintballs at each other or driving around in a go-kart is the way to go. If a team haven't bonded by the last weekend of the season then it's unlikely to happen after an hour in the middle of nowhere.

The most effective thing I have ever seen for a group of football players was to sit them down to watch a montage of their best pieces from the season. There was no negativity whatsoever, just highlight after highlight of skill, goals, inch-perfect through-balls, crunching tackles, goalline clearances and great saves, all punctuated by clever shots of players hugging, high-fiving, smiling and laughing. It only lasted about 15 minutes but it was long enough for each player to feel reassured about his value to the team. So simple, but so effective.

Many people seem to believe that the last thing players threatened with relegation should need is a rousing team talk, given the motivation that they should already have to stay up. But, by definition, a team going into the last day staring down the barrel are already short on confidence and haven't been playing well for the majority of the season. Very often they will also have had a fair amount of disquiet in their ranks to contend with too. If any group of players needs a stirring team talk, it's these.

On the pitch things take their natural course, the nerves are either conquered or they aren't. This is usually the deciding factor because once the game starts the fans are just as nervous and too edgy to be of any real benefit. Apologies if that sounds a little harsh but I can tell you, hand on heart, that I wish I'd been playing the game in front of an empty stadium and I think the rest of the team did too. The constant cheers going up from supporters indicating that there may or may not be a goal somewhere else affecting the situation was a horrible distraction.

When it comes to the crunch, though, with just 90 minutes standing between success and failure, much of what a player has learned, so far as skill and technique are concerned, goes out of the window. Churchill once said: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." I know exactly what he meant. twitter.com/TSFguardian