Few have experienced as much as Kieron Dyer, from childhood trauma and life-threatening health conditions to a colourful playing career full of controversy, drama and adulation.

There are so many starting points for an interview with the 47-year-old former England international, who has just taken on his first managerial role at Southend United.

It is just three years since a liver transplant saved his life and eight since he revealed, in an emotional and brave autobiography, that he had been sexually abused aged 11.

In the interest of disclosure, I have known Dyer for 35 years, since we were team-mates on the same football team at Westbourne High School in Ipswich. Reunited at Southend’s Smithers Chase training ground, we joke about receding hairlines and grey beards before entering the manager’s office, one of several steel containers that make up the rudimentary workspaces and changing rooms at the National League club.

Given he played in a World Cup for England and in the Champions League with Newcastle United, does Dyer know what he is most remembered for online?

“It’s me fighting Lee Bowyer isn’t it?” he replies with a laugh. “People still want to talk to me about that all the time.”

The incident in question occurred in April 2005 in a game against Aston Villa and is one of the most infamous moments in Premier League history. With Newcastle losing, the two friends and team-mates traded blows before eventually being pulled apart and each was shown a red card for violent conduct.

Bowyer and Dyer have remained in touch, so it is interesting to hear that their recollections are conflicting. “He was on Mick McCarthy and Tony Pulis’s podcast the other week,” Dyer explains. “They were talking about it. It’s just crazy that he has played in a Champions League semi-final for Leeds, I’ve played for England however many times and that’s all we are remembered for: a fight on the pitch.

“He said there had been tension building between us for a while because we were fighting for the same position. I can honestly say there was no tension from me. He’d never said that to me before.

“He thought I wasn’t passing him the ball deliberately in games. Look, in that particular game, he screamed something about that to me and I replied, ‘No, I’m not [passing] because you’re f------ s---’. Something along those lines anyway. Then bang, the red mist descended and he’s swinging punches at me and I swung back.

“It had obviously been building for far longer than I realised. He said I wasn’t passing to him because I didn’t want him to shine. I can’t change what he thought but I’ll be honest, I didn’t like hearing that because it wasn’t true. I still speak to him now so I’ll ask him about that when I next see him, but it was never like that for me. That didn’t sit right with me that he still thinks that now.

“I missed an FA Cup semi-final because I threw a punch right at the end. But that was self-defence… He mentioned it on the podcast, but he got fined, I didn’t get fined. They tried to appeal my red card, they didn’t appeal his. He was the fall guy. I get that. We made up straight after the game. I’ve got a lot of time for Lee, but it upset me a little hearing him say that.

“That’s the only fight I’ve ever had in football. I’ve not even had a fight on the training ground. But we did it in front of 52,000 people and television cameras. It was madness.”

It was, but it solidified a perception of Dyer that plagued him throughout his time at Newcastle. He was a visible and frequent presence on the city’s party scene, and there was a long list of scandals: a crashed Ferrari, regular stories of heavy drinking and girls…

Having signed for Ruud Gullit in the summer of 1999, Dyer thrived under his successor, Sir Bobby Robson. He was part of a young, vibrant, fearless group of players who qualified for the Champions League twice, glued together by the experience of Alan Shearer and Gary Speed. They were dubbed the “Brat Pack” and lived up to their name.

“The way I lived my life…” Dyer says ruefully. “Look, sports science was as prevalent as it is now, I didn’t refuel my body right. People don’t believe this: I didn’t break curfews going to bars and clubs. But if we had a Saturday game and weren’t playing again until the following Saturday there was a good chance I was out Saturday night, Sunday night, Monday night and Tuesday night.

“The 20-year-old Kieron Dyer was very different to 30-year-old Kieron Dyer and that’s very different to who I am today. I’m a grandad now… I’ve been a coach for more than a decade and now manager.

“I was very immature. I was a young lad from a small town who had come from nothing and all of a sudden I was playing for a big club, in a big city. I had loads of money. I was popular. I didn’t know how to handle all that. It does strange things to your head. You start to believe you’re a celebrity, not a footballer. I think that was the big issue for me. It was lifestyle first, football second. I was attracted to fast cars, jewellery, watches, girls, nightclubs. I look back at that time and I think, ‘F------ hell, what was I doing?’”

When Dyer was coming through at Ipswich Town and in those first few years at Newcastle, he was one of the most exciting prospects in the country. He was close to signing for Manchester United at one point, but his reputation clouded judgments beyond his own. So are there regrets?

“What I do regret is I never reached my full potential,” he says. “But as the years have gone by I realise I played the whole of my career with liver disease. I shouldn’t even have had a football career.

“So did I underachieve when you compare my potential as a teenager and what people said I would go on to achieve? Of course. But I was diagnosed with liver disease when I was 22 and to still have the career I had and to overcome what I went through as a kid.

“If you had asked me 10 years ago I would say I underachieved. But now, having gone through it all, to have had anything like the career I’ve had is testimony to my strength of character.

“I started to grow up when I made the move to West Ham. I started to live my life right and met my wife. I was 28. By the time I was 30, clubs and alcohol weren’t for me any more. I hit a level of maturity where I knew what was important to me. The sad thing was I just couldn’t stay fit.”

Dyer, though, is also keen to point out that the Newcastle team he played for was a really good one. “People forget I was part of a really successful team at Newcastle,” he adds. “A Champions League team.

“There were so many stories coming out in that era and I was in a disproportionate amount of them because of that whole Brat Pack reputation. But it never affected us on the pitch. I can say that hand on heart. You look at the last three years of Bobby’s time at Newcastle we were in the top five in the Premier League.

“We were a far better side than people give us credit for, but when you are making the front pages as often as the back pages, you can’t say, ‘That’s unfair, I was hard done by’.

“It was my own fault for getting into those situations. I got lots of praise as well, I got plenty of adulation, but I was a party boy. That comes back and bites you. I got bitten more than most.”

That was then, this is now. Dyer has taken his time to move into management. He started his coaching career back in the academy at Ipswich before moving to Chesterfield with the former Town manager Paul Cook. His health problems delayed his move into management, but he is loving life at Southend and has embraced all the challenges it brings.

“I love management. I’ve got the buzz for sure,” he says. “It is so much better than being a player. I know people don’t often say that but I prefer it. I love the responsibility, I love the pressure.

“When I came in here we had eight players and in my first press conference I said I wanted promotion. When I do my courses for my pro license they say, ‘Undersell yourself, don’t oversell.’ We got 81 points last season. I could have said we’ve got a whole new squad, it will be amazing if we get to that again. But I said I want promotion.

“We don’t have top facilities, we are working on tight budgets for medical equipment and everything. It gives you humility.

“I’m glad I started at the academy at Ipswich, then went to the National League and on to League Two. Did I find my love for the game again? Maybe, yeah. I did fall out of love with all the injuries by the end. Coaching gave me a new appreciation for the game. Even when I took my first session with Ipswich Under-15s, the responsibility of trying to improve people as individuals, but also the team as well, I loved it. When you’re a player, you’re part of a team, but it is all about you really. Players are really selfish. I realise that now.

“A lot of managers and coaches go into this side of things and they forget what they were like as players. I treat my players like I wanted to be treated. I show them the respect the best managers gave me. I avoid doing the things that I used to despise as a player. If I’m making four changes to the team, I will explain to each and every one of them why I’m doing it.

“We have a lot of young players here and I know they are going to make a lot of mistakes. If they break the rules about a night out, we have a code of conduct and they will be punished in terms of a fine or whatever. But they are never going to be done with me because when you’re aged between 18 and 30 you are going to make plenty of mistakes. I’m the perfect example of that. If I come across a player like me, I’ll be good for that player because I lived it.”

So would Dyer the player have liked to have played for Dyer the manager? “For sure. I want to try to dominate the ball, I want to play attacking football. I’d always rather go flat out for a win. If we lose, so be it.

“There have been times this season when we have had every possible attacking player on the pitch. Maybe if I was a defender I wouldn’t enjoy playing for me, but the attackers, like I was, I’d be buzzing to play for me.

“Southend are a massive club at this level and I’ve loved every second of it, even the bad moments. Let’s see where we can take this brilliant club.”

It has taken Dyer longer than most, but he is different now. Older, wiser but still with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. It might just make him a good manager.