Jim Beglin joined Off The Ball on Sunday to discuss, among other things, the painful and sudden end to his football career.

The former Liverpool and Republic of Ireland left-back was involved in a tackle with Everton's Gary Stevens, which left Beglin with a broken left leg and a career in the balance.

"I don't like to talk about it much and I am certainly not going to criticise and go down that route - it's gone and I had to bury a lot of that just to get on with things," said Beglin.

"I can remember after it happened that word came to me that Gary Stevens wanted to come and see me.

"Kenny Dalglish came to visit me in the hospital and said to me: "Don't do it."

"I said to him: "Gaffer, if I had done that to somebody, I would want to go and tell them that I didn't mean to do that [...] maybe he wants to do that to me."

"He said "I'm telling you now, all he wants to do is put himself in a better light and move on. It is going to be a PR thing for him if he does it."

The always-excellent @jimbeglin on his career-ending injury, working with Giles and Dunphy and being an optimist ⬇️ | #LFC @paddypower https://t.co/JKtyuTYUNv

— Off The Ball (@offtheball) May 3, 2020

Ignoring Dalglish's advice, Beglin allowed Stevens to come and visit him during his recuperation.

"I immediately regretted him coming to see me, because I'm all drugged up and I'm in a lot of pain.

"He came in and he just sat there. Clive Tyldesley, who was at Radio City in Liverpool at the time, came as a mutual friend. Not to be part of anything, or to report on anything.

"He sat on the chair beside my bed, and Clive sat in the corner. He said nothing. I'm sitting there thinking: 'What's the point?'

"I said to him: "Did you no you had broken it?" and he said 'no, I didn't - I went into the tackle, got up and got on with it.'

"I just immediately switched off. It was very abrupt after that; very short.

"I hadn't taken Kenny's advice. I was wrong."

Jim Beglin on end of his career

"He went straight to Matt D'Arcy, an Evertonian who was working at, I believe, the Daily Star at the time. The back page headline the next morning was: 'I Don't Blame Gary'.

"I had fallen into the trap that was set - that Kenny had alerted me to and I ignored."

Dalglish came to see Beglin in hospital to let him know that his squad position needed to be filled, given the circumstances facing both club and player.

"I was very respectful of that, that he came in to tell me. As he left the room, and I won't mention the exact phrase as there was an expletive or two in there, he told me 'You should have listened to me.' I regretted that."

However, Beglin stresses that a positive outlook in life has helped him get over the untimely end to his career.

"There was a lot of self-pity - 'why me?' - and I went through every emotion in the book. But you get to the point where life is just going on without you.

"For example, I used to come into the dressing room before home matches, shake the players' hands and wish them all the best.

"But I knew after a while that I wasn't one of them anymore. It wasn't the same and it was going on without me now.

"I thought it was something that I had dealt with well, but - looking back - I didn't and I could have done with some assistance.

"It's all mental health these days and I probably suffered at that time, but the whole culture at the time was: be a man, shut up, get on with it and behave.

"I did. I bottled it all up and tried to find my own little route towards better things."