With the return of Strictly Come Dancing and again the likely presence of a sportsman in the final - Austin Healey is the 3-1 favourite and Mark Foster my outside bet - it seems a pertinent time to consider the options open to our sporting heroes once the sun sets for the last time on their field of play.

Only yesterday in these pages Mike Atherton felt compelled to write something of a eulogy to Darren Gough before he “swaps whites for all-in-one sequins, and craftsmanship for clowning”. I think Atherton should not underestimate the craft that goes into clowning. In Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian circus company, it is the clowns who are generally paid the most; you can fly through the air on a piece of string or put your foot in your ear all day long, but it's the men with red noses who take home the biggest cheques.

And good on Gough for recognising where his future lies. Many search in vain, acting the clown without getting paid for it. Paul Gascoigne's depressing existence is a reminder that former sporting superstars need to be wound down with regular exercise, a set routine, attention and praise. Without it they wilt.

When I was a little girl it seemed to me that my dad had three options at the end of his football playing career in the early Eighties. He could open a pub, buy a post office or he could manage or coach. An appearance in a ballroom dancing competition was never an option for those old pros, more is the pity. Imagine how Lilia Kopylova would have got to grips with Norman Hunter in a rumba or Flavia Cacace getting steamy in an Argentine tango with Liam Brady; no, neither can I.

The goalposts, though, have moved. In the space of two weeks this autumn, my husband, Kenny, three years into retirement from professional rugby union, had not one but two gargantuan stages on which to compete. I was in China when he casually threw into a conversation that he'd been asked to take part in Soccer Aid, the Unicef football match played at Wembley this month. “As what?” I said.

He tells tales of being invited for trials at Dundee and Hearts as a kid but nobody, including his mum, has backed this up. He has a photograph, at 10 years old playing football on the beach in Portugal with Alex McLeish (who was in his twenties), but surely the producers of the ITV show needed more proof of ability than a crumpled photo and Kenny's word? Apparently not, and he was offered his place without a trial.

On the first day of training for Soccer Aid, Kenny arrived home in some unfamiliar get-up. Rugby players and footballers both wear tracksuits, right? So why, when he walked through the door, did he suddenly look like a footballer? Was it the cut of the tracksuit? Was it the colour? Was it the aftershave? He came home with a new ball and practised in the garden while regaling us with tales of how fabulous Luís Figo was and how his manager, Kenny Dalglish, had praised him. “Are you sure he wasn't being sarcastic?” I suggested. Was Bryan from Westlife still in his tracksuit at 8pm? Did Gordon Ramsay relive the training session to Tana, his wife, as she baked him apple strudel?

The match came and went, Kenny had an assist and he made about 28 dirty tackles before Hugh Dallas, the referee, booked him. On presenting his loser's medal, Sir Geoff Hurst called Kenny a “dirty Scottish b*****d”. It seemed to be this comment from a knight of the realm, not lining up in midfield next to Figo, that Kenny was most proud of.

Two weeks later, another great sporting stadium for Kenny to appear in. It was the Help for Heroes rugby match at Twickenham. There were a few training sessions for participants to familiarise themselves with their team-mates, though at least this time all of them were past or present rugby professionals or Armed Forces players. No room for GMTV presenters, former spin doctors and the cute ones from Westlife in this encounter. Kenny quickly got into the old rugby players' habits. “I won't be home after training as we ‘have' to go for a few beers,” he told me two nights before the match. In his time at Wasps it was those Thursday night bonding sessions, he informed me, that kept the team winning.

The match was a surprisingly good watch. Kenny scored a try in front of his kids, who are now very confused as to what he actually does. They preferred him in sequins during last year's Strictly. He was again on the losing team, but, with around £1.25 million raised, every player felt glad to be part of the occasion.

It's almost a week since the match and Kenny thinks he may have cracked something in his chest because he finds it a bit painful to breathe. But there is no race for full fitness because, as far as I know, he's not running the New York City Marathon or participating in January's Dancing On Ice. And before you say it, he does have a real job; these diversions just make the transition to mere mortal a bit easier.

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• Graham Spiers