Teddy Sheringham is perusing a rail of tailored suits in his bedroom: Hugo Boss or Gianni Versace? Emporio Armani or Ralph Lauren? Pinstripe or charcoal grey? Buttons or cuff links? He wants to look sharp when he walks into that changing room. It’s a Saturday morning in the third week of August and he is getting ready for work. Welcome to Camp Nou.

Camp Nou? That will be the name engraved on the small stone tablet that marks the entrance to his home in northeast London. Apart from the name – a source of confusion to local white van men – you’d never take it for a footballer’s house. Teddy doesn’t do gaudy. A gleaming Bentley sits waxed and polished in the driveway. It is just after midday when he leaves for the ground.

It is five weeks since he signed for Colchester United and his friends still can’t fathom it. The world’s trendiest footballer playing at Layer Road! No, someone will have to explain it.

He parks the Bentley in the makeshift players’ car park and makes his way to the rickety home changing room. He removes the No 8 shirt from its peg and hangs up his suit.

After a 2-2 draw at Sheffield United in the opening game of the season, it’s his home debut today against Barnsley. The away fans are on his case from kick-off and he makes a quiet start. Then Colchester slip behind and are reduced to 10 men after a rash tackle by their goalkeeper. The U’s are facing a hard day at the office. Their ageing striker is surviving on scraps. But on the stroke of half-time, he ignites the ground with genius.

The spark is a fine run by the defender George Elokobi, who wins possession and races down the left side of the field. He knows what Sheringham wants; they have practised it all week in training – a low cross played towards the near post. As the ball is about to be played, Sheringham feints to go wide, but immediately checks inside to get across his man and he finds the net with a deft flick of his boot.

The Colchester faithful erupt. The master raises his arm in triumph.

Teddy at 41, still doing the business. IT’S A Saturday evening in early September. He is getting ready to hit the town with his friends Shaggy and Woz and has just stepped from the shower to the bedroom, where the plasma screen on the wall is showing highlights of England-Israel. He reaches for the remote and flicks through the channels until he finds The Weakest Link. The show doesn’t normally ring his bell, but he has been told it might be interesting.

“The nine contestants in the studio tonight are glamour girls with footballer connections,” the presenter, Anne Robinson, announces. “We’re about to see how much they’ve got up top.”

He watches as Alex Best (“the original Wag”) and Michelle March and a girl called Charley from Big Brother are introduced. Then his screen fills with Danielle Lloyd, the 23-year-old model and former Miss Great Britain.

“So Danielle, Teddy Sheringham . . . he was your boyfriend?” Robinson observes.

“Yes, he was,” Lloyd replies. “But he has been everybody’s boyfriend!” Robinson scoffs. “Probably everyone here has been out with him.”

“Exactly,” Lloyd concurs. “Soon he will get round to me, won’t he?”

“You’d probably suit him, Anne.” “Why’s that?” “You’re more his age.” The camera turns to Amii Grove, another of the contestants. “Amii . . . are you going out with Teddy Sheringham?” Robinson hisses.

Teddy at 41, still loving them and leaving them. WE MEET at his home on a Friday afternoon. He throws a teabag into a mug adorned with two huge knockers and flashes a mischievous grin. “I’ve been reading this again,” I tell him, producing a copy of his autobiography.

“Rubbish, innit?” he says. “It’s not great,” I agree. “Naah, it’s rubbish, mate,” he insists. “So why did you do it?” “I was approached to do it. My agent said, ‘Why don’t you write a book? You’re coming to the end of your career at 31’.” He laughs.

He looks fabulous. He’s wearing jeans and a fashionable T-shirt and oozes health and vitality. He pinches a centimetre of flesh from his tanned and (slightly) hairy navel and complains that he is putting on weight. “I’d better watch it,” he says with a smile. “I’ve never had that little roll before.” But don’t believe it. The experts all say that Teddy Sheringham did not get where he is today without looking after himself. He diets. He is dedicated. His body is his temple.

How do we explain the contents of his fridge? Not easily. You open it expecting Gatorade and Powerade and Lucozade and gallons of bottled waters from the world’s purest springs. You open it expecting fresh fillets of meat and fish, fresh pasta and ravioli and the freshest of organically produced fruit and veg. You open it expecting foie gras from Fortnum & Mason and cultured yoghurts from Harrods and reduced balsamic vinegars and condiments from Selfridges.

But where does the great Teddy Sheringham get his energy? You make a list.

(Those of a sensitive nature, please look away.) 2 Time Out bars. 5 tins of Foster’s lager. 1 Caramel bar. 4 tins of Red Bull. 1 jar of Tesco’s strawberry jam. 5 bottled beers. 1 jar of Colman’s horseradish sauce. 2 bottles of Dom Perignon. 1 tub of Flora. 2 bottles of white wine. 1 jar of Colman’s mustard. 1 carton of milk. 6 (slightly rotten) tomatoes. He examines the tomatoes curiously and throws them in the bin. “Not exactly what you would call performance-enhancing,” I observe. “No,” Sheringham admits. “But you haven’t looked in here.” He opens an adjoining cupboard and you suppress the urge to gag. 4 tins Ambrosia rice. 5 tins Heinz baked beans. 4 packets of biscuits. 1 box of Shredded Wheat. 1 box of teabags. 1 jar of instant coffee. 1 entire shelf laden with crisps and sweets.

It’s an absolute junk-fest.

Teddy at 41: how do you explain him? FIVE years have passed since my last interview with Sheringham in December 2002. He was 36 and still firing for Tottenham, but it was hard not to conclude that he had reached the end of the road and that the next phase of his career would be in management. But that was our conclusion. Teddy wasn’t ready to stop.

“I was very disappointed to leave Tottenham,” he reflects. “I still felt I was good enough to offer something to the club. I went away that summer and thought, ‘What do I want to do?’ ” He signed with Portsmouth for a year, then agreed to join a West Ham side still desperate to get out of the Championship. The month was August 2004. After 13 seasons of playing with the elite, it was hard not to conclude that the veteran would struggle. But that was our conclusion. He scored 20 goals, won Championship player-of-the-year and the club was promoted.

“Our first game that season was away at Leicester,” he recalls. “It was a drab nil-nil on a baking hot day and I thought, ‘What a grind that was’. The second game was Reading at home – a warm night, but with dew on the pitch and the ball was zipping round.

We won 1-0; I scored and thought, ‘Yeah, what a great move. I’m really pleased I’ve done this’.”

He enjoyed Alan Pardew’s reign at West Ham and the buzz of reaching the FA Cup final on their return to the Premiership, but then complacency set it. “We thought we were going to have exactly the same season, but there wasn’t the same commitment. There was a lot of whingeing going on about not playing in the right position and little things like that and we got ourselves into a very sticky predicament.”

He did not see eye-to-eye with Pardew’s replacement, Alan Curbishley. “I don’t know what it was,” Sheringham says. “Maybe he had preconceived ideas about me. I asked him several times, ‘Why aren’t I playing? We’re losing games. Why am I not involved?’ And his response was, ‘Well, I’m trying different things and you’ll get your chance’.

“Pardew wanted to take me to Charlton just before the [winter transfer] deadline but he [Curbishley] wouldn’t let me go. He said, ‘If you go there and score the goals that keep them up and we go down, that won’t look good on me’. I said, ‘Well, if you are worried I will score goals, why don’t you play me?’ He said, ‘I want you to stay, you’re still part of my plans’. But there’s absolutely no way I was part of his plans.”

He left West Ham in June when his contract expired. The wheel had come full circle; it was the club he had supported in his youth, and if they were shooting the movie in Hollywood, this is where it would end. His friends were making holiday plans for the summer. “I can’t do July,” he said. “I’ve got to get back for preseason training.”

“Err, you don’t have a club, Teddy,” they argued. But he did.

The Colchester United preseason training camp was held at Limerick University in Ireland. He caught a flight from London to Shannon and was introduced to his teammates on Monday, July 16. “The first day at any new club is never easy,” he says. “I know what players are like. They smile or shake your hand and it’s, ‘All right, mate?’ But they’re thinking, ‘Yeah, go on then. Show us what you’ve got’.”

He began the warm-up and felt his calf muscle begin to tighten. He tried to jog it off, but was forced to stop. It was the worst possible start for a self-conscious veteran, and he knew exactly what the young guns were sniggering . . .

“Forget the Zimmer frame, Ted?” “It’s the birds, Ted.” “Taken your Viagra, mate?” He thought, “Stay tuned.” And a month later at Bramall Lane, on the opening day of the season, he showed them what he had.

“That first game at Sheffield is the reason I’m still playing,” he says. “English football isn’t all about producing glorious football. It’s about battling and digging in and looking after your mate. It’s about the satisfaction you feel in the changing room after a result and the bonding of digging deep for each other. ‘Well played, mate, you did great today’.”

Teddy at 41: he doesn’t do Hollywood. “Layer Road is not exactly Old Trafford,” I observe.

“No,” he agrees. “That doesn’t bother you?” “Not one bit. I’ve played at worse and trained at worse and understood that fully when I signed.”

“So the buzz is your love for the game rather than the trappings of success or what people might think,” I suggest.

“Yeah, it’s not about what people think,” he replies. “Life is not about what people think. People can think what they want and talk about your girl and your lifestyle, but if you’re not happy when you shut the front door, what does it matter? You’ve got to do what makes you happy because you only get one life.”

“And what if that life was eternal?” I ask. “Would you take it? And if you did, would you live it the same way?”

“Hmmm . . . now there’s a question. Could I stay at 28, or would I keep getting older?” he asks.

“You could stay at 28,” I reply. “Yeah, I’d take that,” he says. “Twenty-eight is a lovely age; you’re just coming into your prime as a footballer but still young enough to be outgoing. You’re not being looked at as over the hill; everything is right. I’m 13 years gone past that now, so if we could start going backwards, I’d be very grateful.”

“You’d take that, would you? Eternal life at 28?”

“Yeah, why not?” he muses. “No one likes getting old, do they? I don’t.”

“How does your lifestyle compare now to when you were 28? I don’t imagine it has changed that much.”

“Not really, no.” “You still look great, you are still playing football and you are still dating beautiful women.”

“Yeah.” “Did you watch that recent edition of The Weakest Link?”

“Yeah.” “Did that exchange between Danielle and Anne Robinson irritate you?”

“I laughed. She’s quite funny, she’s got a cockiness about her.”

“Danielle or Anne Robinson?”. “Danielle . . . I think she was just having a dig, but like I say, you only get one life. There’s always someone sniping when you are in the limelight. They write stuff in the papers . . . ‘He’s getting old’, or ‘His life is fantastic’, and you read it and think, ‘How can they say that? They don’t know’. Maybe my life is fantastic, but maybe I cry my eyes out each night when I close the door.”

“Do you?” “No, I have a great life – that’s why I’m still doing what I do. I don’t think I’d change anything.”

“You’ve never married?” “No.” “Does that mean you never will?” “No.” “You haven’t met the right person?” “I’ve just started seeing a girlfriend. We’ve been going out for about three months and I like her a lot, so . . .”

“So never say never?” “No, never say never.” “And just to clarify, it’s not Anne Robinson?”

(Smiles). “No, it’s not Anne Robinson.”

Teddy at 41: forever young. HIS MOBILE phone hums in a distant room to the tune of Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl. We have abandoned Hell’s Kitchen and the soft-leather furnishings of his living room for a guided tour of the games room and perhaps the finest trophy cabinet I have seen. He is an FA Cup winner, a Premier League winner, a Champions League winner, a PFA Player of the Year, a Football Writers’ Player of the Year, a Sir Matt Busby Manchester United Player of the Year, a Hammer of the Year. And there’s more.

“What if you had to choose one?” I ask. He considers his reply. “The European Cup winner’s medal,” he says. “It’s funny, but I was going to say that [he points to the 2001 PFA Player of the Year Trophy] because it’s voted by all of the players in your profession, but it’s all about winning things as a team. Football is not a single-minded game, it’s a team game and I was part of a fantastic team that won the European Cup.” “What about the rest of that team?” I ask.

“Well, they were all young lads, weren’t they? And they’re all still playing, but they’re being described as experienced players now! Someone said to me the other day that Scholes is 32 now, but I still think of him as 22.”

“Solskjaer has retired,” I observe. “Yeah, that was a shame because you can tell in every interview he does that all he wants to do is play football. You know how he did his knee, don’t you?” he asks.

“No.” “Do you remember when he slid on his knees after scoring the winning goal in the European final? Well, that’s when he felt it. I remember him coming in after the game when everyone was celebrating and saying, ‘I think I’ve hurt my knee’. And since then he’s had a problem. It’s a shame. He’s a fantastic lad and probably the best all-round finisher I ever played with.

“Now people will look at that and say, ‘What? Better than Shearer? Better than Klinsmann?’ But in terms of right foot, left foot and heading, he knew exactly where the goal was. He would put the ball through people’s legs and in the corners. Brilliant.”

“Yorke and Cole are at Sunderland,” I point out.

“Yeah.” “How do you think Roy Keane has done as a manager?”

“I think he’s done great; I’ve been really impressed by him. He has that manner about him; he just looks like a manager, doesn’t he? He stands there and looks like he has been doing it for years.”

“He hasn’t called you?” “No,” he says. “You’re probably the only one he hasn’t called.”

“Well, he did want to sign me,” he reveals.

“He did?” “Yeah, it was quite weird. It was that conversation I had with Curbishley . . . I said, ‘Well, if you won’t let me go to Charlton, where will you let me go?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ve had no phone calls about you . . . I had one phone call when I first got the job and I told them you weren’t available’. I said, ‘Who was that, if you don’t mind me asking?’ He said, ‘Well, Keaney was asking about you going up to Sunderland’. I said, ‘Really? Bloody hell!’

He shakes his head and smiles at the memory.

“Okay, so you know what the obvious question is?”

“Would I have gone?” “Yeah.” “It’s hard to say, isn’t it?” “Come on!” I exclaim. “No sitting on the fence.”

“I really don’t know,” he says. “There was talk at one point that Mark Hughes was interested in me going to Blackburn, but I thought, ‘Do I want to be travelling up and down again?’ I don’t know.”

“So when Keane rants about Wags and the clothes shops and trying to get players to Sunderland, is he making a valid point?”

“Of course it’s a valid point. It’s a fantastic point. The question he is asking is: what do they want to do with their life? Do they want to be footballers or coast along? Do they want to play for a fantastic football club like Sunderland? Or do they want to wait round for a club in London so they can go shopping on days off?”

“So what’s your defence?” I ask. “You turned Mark Hughes down.”

“My defence is I’ve been there and done it and don’t want to do it again at this stage of my life. We are talking about ambition here; I’d had four years at Man United and they had offered me a fifth, but I decided to come back to Tottenham. Now there’s no way you would sign for Tottenham before Man United if you were on the way Teddy at 41: where does his heart truly lie? THEY say age is just a number. His numbers are extraordinary. Almost a quarter of a century has passed since he made his Football League debut for Millwall. He has played more games than Sir Stanley Matthews and formed some of the finest strike-partnerships the game has seen: Sheringham and Cascarino; Sheringham and Klinsmann; Sheringham and Shearer; Sheringham and Solskjaer. Sheringham. Still standing.

The interview is drawing to a close and I’ve asked where his heart truly lies: Upton Park, White Hart Lane or Old Trafford? “My heart lies where I am playing at the moment,” he says, “because I’m a professional, and if my heart was anywhere else, I don’t think I would be the player that I am. You’ve got to be committed to whatever you are doing and I know I’m not ready for management yet.

“It’s a 24-hour job and if you are going to get into that, you’ve got to be completely committed. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll be ready for that, but at the moment I’m committed to being a professional footballer with Colchester and that’s where my heart lies.”

“So when should I schedule the next interview for?” I ask. “Where will you be playing in five years’ time?”

“Don’t be surprised if I am,” he says, smiling. “Maybe not in this country; maybe in warmer climes.”

“You’d go away?”

“Yeah.” Teddy at 41: Dreaming of Sunset Boulevard.

No stopping Teddy: Sheringham’s glittering career just goes on and on

- Sheringham joined Millwall in 1982 and remained at the club for nine years, playing 220 games – mostly outside the top flight – and scoring 93 goals

- He then had a season at Nottingham Forest before joining Tottenham in 1992. He spent five years at White Hart Lane, scoring 76 goals in 166 games

- Sir Alex Ferguson signed Sheringham for Manchester United in 1997 following Eric Cantona’s decision to retire. Sheringham was already 31 years old and had never won a major trophy

- Never the quickest player, Sheringham’s football brain has always been razor-sharp and he enjoyed tremendous success at Old Trafford. He became a United legend after coming on as a late substitute in the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich in Barcelona. Munich were 1-0 up but Sheringham scored United’s equaliser before setting up the winner for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in stoppage time. Winning the European Cup wrapped up a remarkable season for Sheringham, who also collected winner’s medals in the Premier League and the FA Cup. He was named man of the match in the FA Cup final after coming on as an eighth-minute substitute and scoring the first goal in a 2-0 victory over Newcastle

- He collected two more Premier League medals in 2000 and 2001. In 2000-01 he finished as United’s top scorer and was voted player of the year by his fellow professionals and the football writers

- At the end of that season he rejected an offer of a one-year contract from United and returned to Tottenham, where he played a further 70 games and scored 22 goals. Ferguson, United’s manager, later expressed regret that he let Sheringham go too early

- There were further moves to Portsmouth and then to West Ham – he celebrated his 40th birthday while at Upton Park, becoming the oldest outfield player to play in the Premier League. He left West Ham in the summer of 2007 and joined Championship side Colchester

- Sheringham won 51 England caps and scored 11 goals. He won his first cap at the age of 27 and became renowned as one half of the famous SAS (Shearer and Sheringham striking partnership), left. His final England appearance was as a substitute in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal defeat by Brazil in Japan at the age of 36

- His 19-year-old son, Charlie, who is also a striker, is on Crystal Palace’s books. Sheringham has said his final ambition as a player is to share a pitch with Charlie

- Sheringham’s service to football was recognised in June this year when he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)