Sharing with Andy Murray the gnawing doubts over the right time to retire

He is 36, got a few million in the bank, and slugging it around the tennis circuit for probably the final time. Me, I’m 60, my bank balance has a wheen fewer zeroes on the end of it, I’ve got gout, the first signs of arthritis, and I ache in the places that I used to play, to borrow the immortal words of Leonard Cohen.

We’re also both Scottish and, I guess, a bit grumpy and mumble too much, but, beyond that, our retirement paths will have nothing in common, because what that landmark means to us ordinary folk is completely different to pro sportsmen and women.

We spend our working lives in an office, a shop or factory and eventually get to that stage where, either we reckon we are done, or the next restructure suddenly throws up our number as one it can do without; a bit like winning the lottery only with a pay-off that seems pretty underwhelming in return for more than 40 years graft. It makes you almost pine for the days of a carriage clock and lunch with the company secretary. Almost ...

Pretty much all my circle have retired or walked away from their desks, and gone and done something completely different, and everyone I know who has left our company may miss the buzz of the newsroom we once had, but they are all happier and healthier away from grindstone.

Retirement used to trouble me. What happens next? What would the day look like? What will give me my personal validation? But, now that day is coming, it is no longer the biggie it once was. The transition from 55-hour weeks, deadlines and writing story after story after story to potentially nothing is more than feasible - maybe this year, maybe next, but when it comes, I won’t have ‘the fear’ I once had.

For Murray, it is a different scenario, and it has nothing to do with his age or wealth. Sportsmen do what the rest of us can only dream of. I’ve spent four decades in dressing-rooms and remain fascinated by how much they mean to the guys in them, and why stepping away from them is so difficult.

Its a place where they forge bonds that are lifelong and often global, a place they can chill out and goof around, and then switch to serious game mode when the buzz is completely different. It is also a sanctuary when times are tough, whether that is sidelined by injury or troubled professionally or personally. When that door closes, no-one - absolutely no-one - gets in. No office can compare.

I know players who regret walking away too soon, because, once on the outside the view changes and there is a sees every bond re-aligned. it just isn’t the same. Murray has devoted his life to tennis and a regime of training, playing, recovery, and travelling.

The single-mindedness he displays is mirrored in almost every sportsmen I know, the cameraderie he enjoys is universally understood by those who spend more time in dressing-rooms than they do at home. To play sport at pro or elite level is a privilege - and when it stops they too face the same unknown. What next?