Gary Lineker was embarrassed by his lack of body hair early on in his career.
Gary Lineker
The 'Match of the Day' host has admitted he was a "late developer" when he was in his late teens, and did not grow much body hair until after his Leicester City debut in 1978.
He said: "You talk about joining a football club at 16. I didn’t reach puberty until I was 17 or 18. I tell you that is embarrassing for a young man. Everybody else is in there and, obviously, I had no body hair."
The 60-year-old star felt so ashamed he would often shy away from his fellow pro footballers in the changing rooms.
Speaking on the 'Manatomy' podcast, he added: "Genuinely, in the showers every day I would go in holding myself, hiding in the corner, back to the wall. It was tough, it was pretty cringey.
"I hadn’t really grown yet. I always scored goals and I was always lightning quick but I was such a late developer in all sorts of ways."
Gary also opened up about being a slow starter in football.
He said: "Even in football I didn’t get into the county team and the under-16s. 16s, but Leicester saw something in me. They saw the speed and then thankfully I started to, eventually, reach puberty. Things were a little bit better after that.”
The former Tottenham Hotspur player - who went on to score 48 goals for England - also admitted he has "concerns" about getting dementia after years of heading footballs throughout his career.
He said: "It's a worry. I don’t mind admitting that it concerns me."
Gary also spoke out about how he was always concerned about heading the football and confessed that it could be "too late" for him.
He said: "I used to think, 'That can't be good for your head.'
"I don't know whether that's too late for me - the damage might have been done. Maybe I've got no damage. But I'm telling you, as a footballer, I don't know how you can now not be worried about it."
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