I was shot on a night out - but that wasn't the reason I was released by Liverpool

An interview with Jon Otsemobor is not like many others.

In the half-an-hour he spent with the ECHO on a piping hot day in May 2020, before he completed a run around Sefton Park, we talked being shot in the backside, getting arrested at training and El-Hadji Diouf gate-crashing his apartment with several scantily-clad friends.

But Otsemobor, who turns 39 today, is a deeply likeable character. He has been coaching his son's under-eight team and dreams of returning to his boyhood club in any capacity...

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"It would be an honour," he says.

After retiring from football in 2014, he initially became involved in property management and personal training, but both interests have been placed on the back-burner, for now, as he eyes his coaching badges in the near future.

He also speaks glowingly about representing Liverpool - the club he supported as a boy, despite being offered a YTS by Everton first - and what it means for a young Scouser to play for his club.

Basically, it is an unforgettable half-hour.

Otsemobor spoke about being shot - the incident happened in Wonderbar on Slater Street in the city centre in 2003 - during his two-and-a-half hour appearance on Under the Cosh.

He explained that the shooting, which occurred less than 12 months after his Liverpool debut, was an unfortunate accident, mistaken identity; the wrong place at the wrong time.

The bullet passed straight through Otsemobor's buttocks and, fortunately, missed his hip. It did, however, take off the finger of a reveller near him, who ended up in the same hospital that evening.

The gunman shot another victim that night, leading to