Former Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur star David Ginola has admitted that he struggled to handle the drinking culture when he first moved to the UK.

The Frenchman has recalled a memory from his time at St James' Park in the early 1990s when four of his teammates called him down to the city's Quayside bars at 4pm for a drinking session.

"By seven o'clock they were drunk, and I said, 'OK, let's go for dinner now'. 'What are you talking about?' they said. 'We don't eat'," Ginola told the Daily Mail. "So we went back to different pubs and drink and drink and drink.

"By 11.30 I was alone. I drink water and some wine. I have never in my life drunk three Budweisers in five minutes at 4.30 in the afternoon. But the next day at training they were amazing. It was like they never drank.

"This was when I understood the English mentality was different - work hard, play hard. I love that. I can't do that. If I did that I would need a week to recover."

Ginola signed for Newcastle from Paris Saint-Germain in 1995.