There is a perception of footballers as being absurdly overpaid, with bumper pay packets affording them a lavish lifestyle as well as setting them up for life.

Perhaps that is true for those at the top of the English game, but for the majority of their counterparts in Scotland, it is most certainly a different story.

That’s why you’ll definitely not see Paul Pogba in a non-descript Coatbridge industrial estate of a weekday morning trying to learn new skills to serve him once his career comes to an end.

A good friend of his brother Mathias though, his Partick Thistle teammate Chris Erskine, was only too happy to be attending a PFA Scotland initiative that tries to get players thinking about their futures after football.

Erskine has joined several other current professionals in undertaking a six-week course in tiling, and as a relative late-comer to the professional game, he is more aware than most of the harsh reality of the real world.

“It’s something we don’t think about enough to be honest,” Erskine said.

“It’s not until you’re coming to the end of your career and you know that it’s coming to an end that you actually think about it.

“A lot of the younger ones think it’s going to last forever, and it’s definitely not going to last forever unless you get a move to the English Premier League and you’re on ridiculous money.

“Everyone else will have to do something at the end of their career.

“The perception is that footballers are all loaded, but that’s definitely not the case.

“It’s just a job like every other job. We’ve obviously got good conditions and it’s brilliant to play football for a living, but there will come a time where we have to go back to what we did before or try something new if you’ve been in the game from when you left school.

“I don’t have a rich brother like Mathias, so it’s just one of those things I have to think about!

“I never signed for Thistle until I was 22, so I did a trade before. I was a pipe-fitter and a welder.

“It definitely makes you appreciate it more. Turning up to training at the times we do and when we get away and the job we do is great.”

One man who has stayed in the game after his playing career ended is Thistle manager, Alan Archibald. Erskine feels that his boss’s job prospects are more than secure, and improving all the time.

“I think he’s definitely matured as a manager, that’s for sure,” he said.

“When Jackie (McNamara) left and he got the job he was kind of thrust into it whether he wanted it or not, and he wasn’t given it permanently right away when I was here.

“He’s obviously got a presence about him from when he was playing, and you can tell from being on the training pitch with him that he’s definitely going to be a top manager.

“He’s doing things the right way, and he’s obviously taking the club in the right direction.

“I love it at Firhill and they play a style I like to play in. The fans know me and obviously the manager does too.

“The manager likes us to try to be rigid at the back, but up towards the top end of the pitch he wants you to express yourself, and that’s what I like.”