Football: Bankrupt David James holds online sale

David James of Portsmouth. Photo / Getty Images

David James has joined the Indian football revolution, playing for and coaching the Kerala Blasters in the Indian Super League and, by mid-December, will be back in English football looking for work.

By the time he returns, the auctioneers Hilco, working on behalf of his bankruptcy trustees, will have sold a remarkable inventory of the former England international's possessions, including 150 football shirts; extensive DJing equipment; 1800 records; a three-door Vauxhall Astra van and a chainsaw.

The 44-year-old's possessions will go on sale online, the trustees of his bankruptcy said in the hope they "will produce significant sums for creditors" and certainly the auction will not want for publicity after 236 lots were released.

The bankruptcy was announced in March, when James was a BT Sport pundit, but it was the minutiae of the items that caught the imagination, from his jersey from the 2010 FA Cup final to his Raleigh Chopper bike.

In his 2004 autobiography, Stan Collymore described his time lodging with James when they both played for Liverpool in 1995.

"If [James] had a new car and he pranged it, he would just go and buy a new car - so there were five cars parked in the drive. If he bought a new pair of shoes and he scuffed them, he wouldn't clean them. He would just chuck them in the spare room and buy a new pair. Too much disposable income, I suppose. Too easy just to bin stuff." But there's also another side to James, an affable footballer who was always one of the free spirits in an England era when the biggest players often found themselves dictated to by overbearing agents.

He earned his last cap in the defeat to Germany at the 2010 World Cup, one month short of his 40th birthday, having lost and won back the No1 jersey more times than he cared to remember.

James is in India because, friends say, he wanted to manage a team and, given a nice life as a BT Sport pundit, it was hardly the easy option. Kerala are seventh in an eight-team league and, once the competition finishes on December 9, his contract will be up.

Despite his status as a player, it has not been easy to find coaching work and James hopes to get his Uefa A licence with a view to a career in management. Informed sources say his salary peaked at 50,000 a week probably at Portsmouth during their ruinous spending spree under owner Sacha Gaydamak.

James was generous with his money and established his own foundation to sponsor projects in Malawi and is understood to have directed much of his personal earnings towards its work. His long-running column in The Observer newspaper was done in return for a charitable payment.

Those who knew James would never pretend he was good at managing money but none would claim he was ever greedy.

The details of his decline into bankruptcy are sketchy but his divorce from first wife Tanya was significant and there were other failed investments.

His career earnings are estimated at 20 million, gross.

Those who know him say he has taken his bankruptcy with the philosophical approach he has tackled the ups and downs that have characterised his career. UK Telegraph