When Chris Davies was told at age 19 that an arthritic condition in his foot would stop him playing professionally, his dream was shattered.



The midfielder had seemed to have a bright future in the game. The captain of Reading’s youth team and a Wales international at under-17, under-18 and under-19 level, having qualified through his Welsh father, Davies was left devastated.



“I went to see a specialist and he said, ‘You may not be able to play full-time football again. You’ve got to explore other avenues in the game,’” Davies said in an interview in 2012 for Loughborough University’s student newspaper. “I took all that information on board and I was absolutely exhausted by it. I went home and cried all night.



“I left at 19 with nothing to show except a couple of memories and a few caps. And that was a failure. Whether it was my body that failed or my mind that failed, or a combination of everything, to me...