A FORMER professional footballer has carried out research into how psychology can make sportsmen into real winners.

Ex-Premier League footballers such as Gary Neville and Denis Irwin were consulted for David Horrocks' degree work, which explored the mental skills needed to stay at the top of their profession.

And findings from David’s dissertation, which are the first of its kind in UK, will be published nationally.

But he is already writing for the British Psychological Society’s national magazine The Psychologist.

Mr Horrocks, from Cliviger, was given the opportunity to focus on the psychology and the pychological aspect of the football as part of his BSc (Hons) in Sports Psychology at the University Of Central Lancashire.

He found that the most succesful players have become experts in their games by having an elite knowledge of the opposition.

Instead of watching general points of a match such as corners and penalities, which the majority of players will do, some premiership players analyse how a player receives, passes and intercepts the ball to make better judgements on the pitch.

The 39-year-old wanted to become a professional footballer from the age of 18 and had spells in the game at Blackburn Rovers, Blackpool, Rochdale and Accrington Stanley.

But after realising he would not reach the top level of the profession, David began working in IT sales for 12 years before making a return to football as a mental skills coach at Burnley Football Club.

David said: “I worked with Manchester United first team players to identify the cognitive characteristics of deliberate practice, so, for example, what do players do when they are away from the training ground that helps them prepare for big matches and how ultimately that affects their decision making and performance.

“Vast differences were found between truly elite players and average Premiership or football league players.

"It was not just natural ability and training hard that got them to and kept them at the top.

“Once that had been identified, I then used the information from the United players to set out and design an educational method to teach youth players and reserves between the ages of 16-20 from Bolton Wanderers.

He added: “I came to UCLan with a foundation degree from the Open University and an FA Level Five in football specific psychology.

“The course seemed like the next natural step, as it is a British Psychological Society professionally recognised degree course – plus the lecturers in exercise and psychology were extremely helpful.”

David now plans to undertake a PhD at the University Of Central Lancashire.