The International Stars Who Drifted Down the Divisions

What do non-league sides Boston United and Worksop Town have in common, besides being crushingly depressing places to play football? Believe it or not they have both seen fully capped England internationals turn out for them, with stone-cold legends of the game like Chris Waddle and Paul Gascoigne braving this inhospitable wilderness.

But how did it get to that point? How did someone with the technical wizardry of Gazza allow themselves to end up on a short-term deal in China, then turning out for League Two Boston? How can the talent that lit up Euro 96 find himself plying his trade in front of the Co-Operative York Street stand at the Jakemans Stadium?

There are many reasons a footballer may carry on playing and playing beyond their wonder years. A casual observer might think it's all 'keep going at Manchester United until you're 40, shag your brother's wife then retire in glory, becoming assistant manager to overlook one of the most boring playing style's in your club's history' – but it's not always that simple.

The first issue, as with pretty much everything in the whole universe, is money. Although most stare slack-jawed at footballing salaries, with their annual incomes containing more money than Scrooge McDuck could fit in his swimming pool of gold coins, it's not always been this way. Until the dawn of the Premier League, your average footballer still needed to work after his career was over – which sometimes meant prolonging it way past its prime.

Back in the sepia-toned days of 2006, the PFA scrapped a long-running pension scheme called the Players' Non-Contributory Cash Benefit Scheme. Before 2006, every player was automatically entered into a scheme that gave them 3/80ths of their final capped salary for each year of contracted employment, paid at normal retirement age – so not a footballing 35, but a beer-bellied 65.

For someone like Gascoigne – used to the salary of teams like Tottenham, Lazio and Rangers – that would be a lot of money, but even when his football career was effectively over he'd need to wait another 30 years for it. Plus he had an absolutely terrific thirst for an alcoholic beverage, meaning the temptation to keep playing down the divisions, even at ever-lower salaries, would be that much greater.

And what else was there for him in the disparate world of civilian life? A nice cushy job in punditry? No chance. The bar may be set low for pundits these days, but Gazza can barely string a sentence together, let alone compete with the incredibly boring yet somehow sexy analysis of Thierry Henry. Not everyone can reel off inane robotic platitudes with the same panache as Jamie Redknapp. And few can get everything so wrong that it becomes a weekly treat in the manner that Chris Kamara does, Jeff.

Instead, Gazza did the only thing he knew: play football. He kept playing with ever diminishing power until he'd reached Boston United, looking forlornly up at the English league towering above him. Was it sad to see? Maybe. But you could also argue that it was far sadder to hear about him snorting 14 lines of coke and believing Raoul Moat was his brother.

But for players less inclined to snort 14 lines of coke and then literally think a spree killer is their sibling, there could be other factors at play. How players are motivated – especially in the British game – could be a big part of their inability to give up. How many times have you heard the phrases 'suck it up', 'walk it off' and 'just bloody well get on with it' from commentators, pundits, teammates or coaches – usually in the thickest northern accent imaginable. There hasn't been a single game of football played on the British Isles since the Cretaceous period in which someone wasn't at some point told to 'get on with it'.

Maybe this pressure to play when injured, ill or just plain physically broken has caused players with the international pedigree of Chris Waddle to go limping down the English leagues until he reached Worksop Town. Yes, he was a shadow of the Chris Waddle we'd seen 15 years or so before, but the mulleted midfield maestro was brought up essentially ignoring his own physical limitations, and 'playing through the pain'. Besides, something as physically creeping as age would take a long time to register for someone unable to pronounce the word 'penalty'.

Ultimately, football was and still is Gazza and Waddle's life. But it's not just these select few in the British game. Francis 'Arsene Wenger actually spent £10m on me' Jeffers, The Human Seal Neville Southall, and Michael 'Dubes' Duberry have all played at the highest level and yet have found their late careers toppling down toward ignominy. Why not just quit and go out on a high?

For many, life in the game begins very early. Players are scouted sometimes as young as six years old. Football is all they've known; it's how they've defined themselves as children, teenagers and adults. In a similar way to how most British people define themselves by drinking and then complaining about what drinking is doing to them, footballers were born and bred into a life of training, camaraderie, and being told what to do and when to do it. When a life without that security, encouragement, challenge and occasional glory hangs insidiously over your horizon, it's no wonder footballers choose to keep playing, regardless of the level.

Because what could ever replace that in civilian life? Even if you're Neville Southall flopping over a ball in the muddy pit of a Dagenham & Redbridge goalmouth, you still mean something to quite a considerable amount of people.

That is another thing about the British game that may have kept so many of our legends going. Unlike the Spanish or German lower leagues – which are used by the elite clubs as developmental playgrounds for their reserve sides – every team in our footballing league has a rich history, complete with archaic pitches and kits that could only have been conceived in the gin-riddled minds of the late 1800s. We treat our lower leagues with the respect they deserve – after all, they're home to some of the oldest and most storied clubs in the world. Without wishing to sound too nationalistic, we did invent the game. It's something to be mildly proud of, even if we do have to watch Wayne Rooney huff around the pitch like an overweight thumb.

As teams like Bournemouth have shown, you could be on the edge of extinction at the very fringes of the English game, only for a loyal support base (and some Russian money) to essentially propel you to the highest peak. Is there really any shame in playing for some of these clubs? Worksop were originally founded in 1861. They've been going longer than Barcelona (1899), Bayern Munich (1900) and Real Madrid (1902). Who's to say that a Chris Waddle or a Paul Gascoigne couldn't help these clubs reach the peak again? It's possible – and maybe that's enough.

So yes, although it is sometimes (nearly always) hilarious to see these once graceful players trudge around in the sloppy mud of the lower leagues as their powers decline, they have good reason. I for one salute them for it.

@williamwasteman