Wigan-born Warren Aspinall, who was a Wigan Athletic trainee as a youngster and played 18 games for the first team as a loan signing during his career, will reveal in an interview with Radio 5 Live's Brian Alexander how he tried to end his own life.

Aspinall will explain how he sat in a drunken stupor on a railway line in a bid to take his own life last Christmas.

The driver of a rapidly approaching train saw the 40-year-old retired footballer and sounded his horn.

The former Everton, Aston Villa and Portsmouth midfielder, who gambled away £1m over an 18-year period and has struggled for years with alcohol addiction, came round and managed to throw himself to safety in the nick of time.

Since his suicide bid Aspinall has spent 10 weeks at the Sporting Chance Clinic in Hampshire, which was founded in 2000 by former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams, himself a recovered alcoholic. The clinic provides counselling and support for sports men and women who have fallen in to a destructive pattern of behaviour.

Similarities can be drawn between Aspinall's plight and that of another retired footballer, Paul Gascoigne, also 40, who is currently in hospital following a drunken bid to kill himself in an upmarket London hotel last week.

Gascoigne was sectioned under the Mental Health Act eight months ago
and is currently undergoing counselling for depression.

The former England, Tottenham and Glasgow Rangers star, perhaps best known for his tears after being booked in a World Cup semi-final match in 1990, was involved in a bizarre incident in which he threatened to drown himself in the bath.

Scorer of one of the most memorable goals of all time with a stunning volley during a first-round game against Scotland in Euro 96, Gascoigne, who had been drinking gin, allegedly asked hotel staff for a steak knife.

They denied his request and eventually called the police, who entered his room and found him in the hotel bath threatening to drown himself.
Gascoigne was taken to hospital where he remains under observation.

Other footballers including former Manchester United, Aston Villa and Ireland defender Paul McGrath and ex-Arsenal ace Paul Merson have struggled with addiction.

McGrath revealed the extent of his long struggle with alcoholism in his autobiography, while Merson fought a very public battle with drug and alcohol addiction during his early career.

To hear Warren Aspinall's story tune in to BBC Radio Five Live today at 8pm.