WHEN you think of footballers, more specifically those at the top end of the footballing pyramid, you don’t tend to think of them wearing aprons, cracking eggs and baking cakes on a day off – and enjoying it. Ryan Shotton and George Friend are not your ordinary footballers though.

The two Middlesbrough defenders, key members of the Boro backline under Tony Pulis, have lives and plans away from the training ground and out of the public glare. They already have one eye on the future and beyond the beautiful game.

For Shotton, after winning a Great British Bake-Off style challenge against his team-mate at Rockliffe Hall this week, it could be he ends up in a kitchen more regularly – after impressing Rockliffe’s head chef Aaron Craig with his own version of a Victoria sponge.

The 29-year-old is regularly seen in a pub when he’s not playing, and Pulis doesn't have to worry. Shotton co-owns the Black Lion in Cheddleton, Staffordshire.

“I’ve done no cooking but I fully work there,” said Shotton. “I sent them (the staff) on holiday in the summer when I was off. I said, ‘Go on holiday’ and I moved in and I half ran the pub with the assistant manager. It was brilliant. I loved it. It’s different.

“I bought it whilst I was still at Derby. I’ve had it two years now. My family are from there and basically the father-in-law used to go from when he was 18, he was a big fan and it got refurbished.

“A guy bought it and said ‘I can’t manage it, I’ll sell it to you two (me and David)’ and I said, ‘Why not?’ It’s a brilliant little boozer, proper little country pub, two fires. It’s a community pub and it’s brilliant.

“Deliveries come in at half six and I’m up then. Lads drop the barrels off and one will have a Carling, because he doesn’t need to drive, and the other will have a coffee. Carling at half 6 in the morning! I was like, ‘Nah, I’ll just stick to my cup of tea’. I go back every time I’m back in Stoke, I go in and have a drink.”

The expressions on Shotton’s face as he spoke about the Black Lion highlighted how much he enjoys the role of landlord. It is a direction he will continue in.

“In football every day you know what you’re going to do,” he said. “To know you have something on the side, when I retire, I can possibly do that and get into the pub trade and who knows.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that. It never entered my mind until the opportunity came. I thought it would be brilliant.

“I’ve always seen myself as grounded as possible. My mum made sure of that when I was growing up. I just think getting back into reality, they care you’re doing well but really, I get more pints bought for me than I buy them, you’re just seen as a normal person, which I love.”

Finding a life away from football and the fanfare that goes with it can be hard. Yet, as Shotton and Friend decorated the cakes they had baked from scratch at Rockliffe after being set the challenge from Coral bookmakers, the pair couldn’t have been more down to earth.

While Shotton – taunted by his team-mate for making the “better” sponge – is still relatively new to the Teesside scene after joining last August, Friend has embraced the area, despite a completely different upbringing in Devon where dealing with eggs was the norm.

He said: "My dad was a chicken farmer, he had 125,000 chickens at one point on the farm. I used to help feed them. Free Range Organics, one of the finest from Devon. I don't need to plug it because he doesn't do it anymore!

"I try to go back in the summer, my parents come up for every home game. It's a six and a half hour train journey direct to Darlington, so it works out quite well. I would like to go back more.

"It's a nice nostalgic feeling. It's like nowhere else in the country because of the rolling hills. Where I am from there is not a neighbour for a mile or so. I loved that side of it. I can switch off there.

"There's two sides to it because if you are a young professional there's not that many opportunities as it is all agricultural but at the same time it's lovely to go back, no-one really cares about football so it's nice.”

While knocking up a cake or two was never on the agenda then, he still had plenty to do during his childhood. He said: "When I was playing for Exeter I used to feed animals before I went to training. My rent was doing the jobs on the farm in the morning.

"I remember when I signed for Wolves and my dad brought some eggs up for Mick McCarthy. When I was doing my medical downstairs, my dad was upstairs sliding eggs across the table to the chief executive and the chairman. It was quite a unique signing on session ... he might have got me a couple of hundred quid extra for that!"

Friend’s knowledge of dairy products led to him joking about the quality of the ingredients being responsible for his cake not being quite up to the high standards he would have wanted.

The left-back, 30, said: "I’d have expected one of the best kitchens in the area to have had some of the best ingredients, and being from farming stock I'd have wanted better eggs! I’ve just remembered who owns this place (Steve Gibson) … it's all been good, what a fantastic hotel (smiles).

“It's been different! We are probably two different characters. Shotts is probably laid back and doesn't care how his cake turned out, I wanted an amazing, beautiful Mary Berry cake. But it’s all been good fun.”