Jonjo Shelvey puts the boot in | OneFootball

Jonjo Shelvey's use of the word "obviously" is telling. To him this is all perfectly normal knowledge, the sort of internal filing carousel everyone has. "I don’t know where it comes from," Shelvey continues, laughing.

"I'm just really good with football boots. It's a bit sad to be honest." We are all sad in our own way, Jonjo. "Yes, but this is how sad I am: I love watching my brother play. So, if I had a Sunday off, I'd transfer him some money to go and buy a pair of boots for his game and then get the train down to Essex for a half-ten kick off to watch him play Sunday League." Half the time his brother just kept the cash.

"I just love trying out new boots," Shelvey says. "I think you can tell a decent player if they've got a pair of decent boots on." What if they have the gear but little idea? "It sounds really weird, but you can just tell. It will be the way they've laced them.

"And you have to have clean boots. I always cleaned my boots the night before games growing up as a kid. At Newcastle, I would always warm up in a pair and then change before the match. I didn't want to be playing in wet boots, and I like them to be dead tight to my foot."

Shelvey's boot fetish meant he became close with United's long-serving kit manager Ray Thompson, and his assistants Greg McDermott and Neil Stoker, during his seven Tyneside years. "I was always in the boot room with them," he says. "If they had a new machine to soften boots up when they're brand new, I'd be the first to use it. They had this little hot machine, basically like a microwave where you put your boots in, that makes them soft. I'd be first one in, waiting for the ding to go off so I could use them in training. I take pride in my boots. They are the tools of your trade."

Shelvey is speaking from Dubai where he and his family now live. Having left Newcastle for Nottingham Forest in January 2023, he has landed in the UAE via a spell at Burnley last season. He gets little sympathy from newcastleunited.com when airing complaints of feeling a chill now that temperatures have dropped to 22 degrees.

Nowadays, Shelvey spends his weekday afternoons coaching youngsters, while come weekends he plays for Arabian Falcons in the UAE's third tier. But somewhere back on Tyneside is a storage unit containing most of his boot collection. "I'm not saying where it is, though - people will try and find it!"

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Shelvey was at Disneyland when his January 2016 United move was mooted. Out of favour at Swansea, he was messaged by then United goalkeeper, and former Charlton teammate, Rob Elliot. The enquiry was whether Shelvey would take a call from Steve McClaren. His answer was affirmative.

McClaren called immediately, Shelvey holding a conversation while browsing the Ralph Lauren outlet store. "I wanted to come straight away," Shelvey says. "There was something in the way he spoke. Then when I went up to sign, he had prepared a 30-minute video of all my clips, from when I first broke in at Charlton up to that date. At the end of the meeting he said, "do that for me and we'll be fine". I'd never had that before; I thought it was a nice touch."

McClaren may well have updated his reel following Shelvey's Newcastle debut. Having been involved in Ayoze Perez's early opener, a raking 60-yard pass found Daryl Janmaat dancing down the right, the subsequent cross finished by Gini Wijnaldum. West Ham pulled a goal back but were still beaten 2-1, United nipping out of the relegation places.

"It probably meant more because I grew up a West Ham fan," Shelvey recalls. "I needed to make a good impression straight away. It's harder for players to come in from abroad to settle straight away, but I was in the Premier League already so had to show them that I was ready. Everything just seemed to click into place. We won the game, but it didn't help because we got relegated."

It did indeed prove mere light relief. By mid-March McClaren had been sacked with United bottom but one, Rafa Benítez his replacement. There were signs of fight from some, but a distinct lack of it from others - as famously called out by then junior player Jamaal Lascelles. United were relegated.

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Shelvey was a child prodigy, always playing a few years up. He preferred Sunday League games to academy matches, though. "Academies were a bit rigid whereas Sunday League was just about expressing yourself," he says. "You could have a fight on the pitch or smash someone, whereas you couldn't do that in academy football! It was very structured. At a lot of academies, you get coaches' favourites - I was just fortunate enough that I was one of the favourites."

Shelvey's dad managed to balance pushing his son, while also instilling the confidence needed to make it in professional football and ensuring he never lost love for the game. Every post-school, homework was put aside and Shelvey had to complete 100 passes with each foot before dinner was plated. "I'm not going to go down that route with my son, but it definitely paid off," he explains.

The payoff came early: Shelvey became Charlton's youngest ever player when appearing aged 16 years and 59 days in April 2008. The way that he carried himself even back then - he once refused an instruction to make tea for a senior player on the team bus, replying that he would use the kettle once that player was better than him - proved his unwavering confidence.

In April 2010, Liverpool paid £1.7 million for him. "I was called into the manager's office at Charlton and he just said, 'who's your favourite player?' I said Steven Gerrard and they told me I would be playing with him the following season." Naturally, Shelvey was delighted, although the fact he missed Charlton’s ultimately unsuccessful League One play-off campaign frustrated him greatly.

By that October, Shelvey was playing in the Europa League, starting his Liverpool career by completing 90 minutes during a 0-0 draw at Napoli. "I probably didn't take that in enough," he recalls. "At 18, to play in that stadium, in front of all those passionate fans... it probably goes back to not being nervous."

Did you ever get nervous? "No, not really. There's never been a time where I've thought to myself, like, I'm up against it. I just think, look, do your best, and if it's not good enough, it's not good enough."

Shelvey's body language was something supporters and journalists raised every time he went through a sticky patch in his career. "I am quite a laid-back person," he says, fully aware that the narrative has followed him.

"My body language probably wasn't the best throughout my career. But that isn't me not caring: it's just the way I am as a person. Even the way I swing a golf club, I'm just so relaxed and chilled. It is hard to change that; do you know what I mean? Unless it's coming naturally to you. It probably has harmed my career in certain aspects, though."

What has not harmed Shelvey's career is the unique way he strikes a football. There is something different about it, something joyous about the sound, the trajectory. It looks so natural, like it was meant to be.

"I've never actually practiced long passes or anything like that," he admits. "I think you can always improve technically, but I think there's got to be something there at the start, and I've always been able to just strike the ball. I look at my five-year-old now, and he can't kick a ball properly and it frustrates me. But then I speak to the coaches and they're like, "he's normal the way he is"."

After 69 Liverpool appearances across three seasons at Anfield, plus a brief loan spell at Blackpool, Shelvey joined Swansea in July 2013.

In August 2016 United had a Championship to conquer. A strong start is expected but instead, with transfer wheels still spinning rapidly, the opening hand is a pair of defeats.

Wijnaldum, Gabriel Obertan, Sylvain Marveaux, Andros Townsend, Fabricio Coloccini, Papiss Cissé, Steven Taylor and Florian Thauvin all departed before a ball was kicked. Rémy Cabella, Janmaat, Moussa Sissoko, Siem de Jong, Emmanuel Rivière and Tim Krul followed soon after.

Incomings included Dwight Gayle, Matt Ritchie, Isaac Hayden, Grant Hanley, Ciaran Clark, Mo Diamé, the late Christian Atsu, DeAndre Yedlin and Daryl Murphy.

Shelvey flourished that season, playing 48 games in all competitions, often alongside Colback. "The closest person I've probably been to in football is Jack," Shelvey says. "We used to hate each other when he used to play for Sunderland and I was at Swansea.

"We used to kick lumps out of each other. I think I even headbutted him once on the pitch. But then when I came to the club, he was so welcoming. Ever since then, we've just been basically best mates off the pitch and on it."

Lascelles also thrived in the second tier as a youthful, near ever-present leader, his vocal outbursts the previous campaign counting for him. Having been sent off late in a 3-0 defeat at Goodison Park, cameras caught Lascelles mouthing: "Nobody gives a f***." Lascelles then spoke strongly but eloquently about how some in the dressing room lacked the required attention and care following a 3-1 loss at Southampton.

"He's just a leader of men," Shelvey says of Lascelles. "Then you had Matt Ritchie, a big character and an annoying voice. He just didn't shut up. But you knew anything he said was coming from a good place."

Gayle was also a strong presence both in the dressing room and in the opposition penalty area. By the time his hamstring popped during a victory at Brentford's old Griffin Park in January 2017, Gayle had 22 Championship goals in 24 games.

During the first half of that season Gayle and Shelvey developed a near telepathic understanding. "That was probably the best partnership I had with a centre forward," Shelvey says. "I didn't even have to look. I'd just put the ball somewhere and he would be there."

Full backs are also important to Shelvey. He had enjoyed playing with Janmaat and did likewise with Yedlin - "a speedboat with no driver".

Shelvey's biggest grin of an hour-long chat, though, was saved for the mention of Paul Dummett. "I love Dummy. Dummy is top. I'd always wind him up by shouting, "it's not a bomb, don't panic" whenever he had the ball. He'd try and play a channel ball, but he'd kick it into row Z. But I wouldn't like to take a tackle off him. He would take one for the team, he'd smash people, and he was just a good lad."

United returned to the Premier League immediately, beating Brighton to the title by a point. "We had a good core. The dressing room was so French orientated the year before, but we went back to that English spine, with people who knew what it took to get out of that league. I think that was so important. The club definitely got it right in terms of who they brought in that year."

Shelvey flourished under Benítez the following season. Talk of a spot in England's 2018 World Cup squad was not unfounded, but it ultimately did not happen. Shelvey believes it was the best six months of his career.

After Benítez left, Shelvey was a regular under Steve Bruce. Then came the takeover and, soon after, Eddie Howe in November 2021. "I think he's brilliant," Shelvey said. "He improves you as a player whereas often at our level, at that stage, you don't get that. Everything is more or less geared towards getting three points. The coaching side often goes out of the window.

"I played quite a lot under Eddie for that first six months before I got injured, but even if you weren't starting or on the bench, you still got something out of training. You still felt part of it and were learning."

Shelvey earned six England caps between 2012 and 2015. Does he think he would have had more had he worked under Howe earlier? "I don't know whether I'd have played for England, more because of who was in charge of England, but I do think that I'd have had a longer career at the top level if I'd have met Eddie sooner."

Shelvey speaks highly of Jason Tindall too, explaining that he and Howe are like "chalk and cheese" and therefore combine perfectly. Whereas Tindall is close with the players, Howe "keeps his distance, but then he knows your family's names, your kids' names, just everything about you. He's always asking after them but then as soon as he goes over that white line, he's strict. He's on you. I think having that switch that you can just turn on and off is really good.

"You knew that if he raised his voice, you'd have to raise your intensity levels. But we got to a point where we just raised our intensity levels anyway because we didn't want that voice being raised."

Shelvey cites the Championship promotion and his debut as the highlights of a United career spanning eight seasons and 202 appearances. But for many supporters, his legacy contribution will be the winner at Elland Road in January 2022.

Following a fortnight during which United had lost at home to Cambridge in the FA Cup and then conceded a late equaliser against relegation rivals Watford a week later, Shelvey's second half-free kick earned United just their second victory of the season. Safety was a mere point away.

"The keeper should have saved that goal! I scuffed a shot and I was lucky that Clarky probably put the goalkeeper off. It gave us a massive lift, and it kick-started a run that we desperately needed.

"I personally never ever thought we were in danger of getting relegated. I thought we had too much quality with the players we had, but the fans were worried. I'd be in Tesco and people would be like, "what's going on? Why are we not performing?""

Shelvey loved the intimacy of Newcastle life. Even after he left for Nottingham Forest in January 2023, his wife and children remained in the area. For now at least, his favourite footwear gives him a reason to still visit.