The next step: David McGurk

As the globe's elite footballers prepare for the World Cup in Brazil this summer and with multi-million pound transfer deals being discussed at the highest level of the game, spare a thought for the players further down the pyramid.

McGurk called time on his professional career in the wake of York City's Sky Bet League 2 play-off semi-final defeat at the hands of Fleetwood in May, a loss which denied the Middlesbrough-born defender the chance of a third outing at the home of football. With the impact of surgery on a serious knee injury three years ago meaning his training schedule had to be carefully managed, McGurk found himself struggling with a back problem in the latter stages of this term which made him reassess his personal and professional priorities, particularly with his 15-month-old son to look after. He explained: "I had a knee operation around three years ago and afterwards the surgeon said to carry on at the level I am, I was looking at another three to four years. "Fortunately Nigel Worthington (York manager) understood that and he slowed my training down a little bit, but what I found was I was picking up little niggles because I wasn't training as much. "I was going into games where I would have liked a lot more training under my belt, but when I was over-training I was picking up worse injuries. "It got to the point where I got together with the physio and we had a plan where it was working fine and I had been fit and available for over 40 games this season, but towards the end of the season I started getting trouble with my back. "I was getting through training, taking painkillers, but I was coming home and really struggling with my little boy. Your priorities change when you've got family that comes along - he is my main priority now. "Since Christmas, my back has been into spasm about three or four times. It was getting to a weekend and I was managing to play, but it was really affecting my life at home. "It wasn't fair on my boy when I'm spending my days off with him and he just had to sit on the floor because I can't even pick him up. "It wasn't fair on the football club. The gaffer was making provisions for me. I would be due to play on Saturday, but after training on Friday I would need a fitness test on Saturday because of problems with my back or something else. "The gaffer would have to drop another player on Friday, who would then have to play on Saturday after already being dropped. It wasn't fair on my team-mates and the manager to put them in that position." McGurk already has his future mapped out, though. A move into the part-time game means his playing career will continue at a lower level, while he is working towards gaining his coaching qualifications having set up an academy for young players in Wakefield. He said: "Coaching definitely interests me, management I'm not so sure of because I feel it can take over your life a little bit. "I'm on my way with my badges; it's something I would like to go back into in a professional capacity. But I want to go away and get the full set and that takes three to four years. I started from the bottom two years ago and I don't think there are any short-cuts you can take in coaching. "I went and worked with the York City Under-14s last season and I enjoyed it. You get great satisfaction in seeing kids developing in the training York are giving them. "Me and my team-mate John McCombe have set up a little academy in Wakefield - it's called Pro-Player Football Academy - looking to improve kids in the area and send them on to professional clubs. "We're hoping that local teams will bring their players along, hopefully we can improve the players and we've got contacts at professional academies where we can send them along to." There is also gambling website betsofmates.com which McGurk set up with some friends and is now looking to 'take to the next level' via the increasingly popular method of gaining additional support via crowd funding, with the general public being offered the opportunity to invest in the business via crowdcube.com. He explained: "At the time it was just an idea, I approached a couple of friends and from then on it just snowballed. Pretty much everything you see we have funded ourselves. Now we feel like we can take it to the next level. "Anyone from the public can buy shares in our company. It's only been on crowdcube.com for 11 days and so far we've raised almost £33,000, so fingers crossed we can move towards our £200,000 target, but it's a bit of a Dragons' Den scenario."