Jon Walters is the kind of footballer who holds up an imaginary substitutes’ board when a referee goes down injured, who picks up a matchday programme hurled in his direction and has a flick through. During Stoke’s victory at Aston Villa last month, his reaction to referee Roger East’s attack of cramp was more comic than concerned. It was similar when an irate Newcastle fan chucked the makeshift missile as celebrations followed Peter Crouch’s equaliser. ‘A referee with cramp! Can you believe it?’ chuckles Walters. ‘He needed to come off, didn’t he? The programme was a good read. 10 out of 10. You’ve got to enjoy yourself. When need be, I’ll get stuck in but I play with a smile. Jon Walters spoke about many subjects, including his desire to play in Euro 2016, in a revealing interview . The Stoke City star takes his football seriously but also has a a fun side as his on-field antics show . The 31-year-old striker/winger claims he has mellowed since being involved in a ruck with Roy Keane . ‘It’s the best job in the world, if you don’t enjoy it there’s something wrong.’ That encapsulates Walters, one of the Premier League’s unlikely lads; tough yet funny, revelling in his fifth year as a Premier League player. He is delivering one-liners on the radio that amuse and slightly frighten, suggesting in the wake of the Jonny Evans-Papisse Cisse flare-up that any player who spat in his face will be ‘eating his supper through a straw’. He is laughing about his appearance in Roy Keane’s book during their final fraught days together at Ipswich — ‘a bust-up… effing and blinding’ — having buried the hatchet at Republic of Ireland camps. ‘I knew what was going to be written… it could have been worse,' he says. And he is pleased by having had such a good season after an inauspicious start. Walters became the first Stoke player to score a Premier League hat-trick with his right-foot, left-foot, header combination against Queens Park Rangers in January and was shortlisted for Ireland’s player of the year award. All this after losing his place at Stoke side last summer. His appearance in Ireland’s dramatic 1-1 draw in Germany in October meant he had completed more minutes for country than club: 180 to 139. ‘We were losing games and I wasn’t getting on, that made me worry more than anything,’ admits Walters, 31. ‘I was going away with Ireland asking a few of the lads how many games they’d played. The Championship lads were saying, “15, 20...”. I’d played two. Jesus! ‘Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane showed a lot of faith to play me. Then I came on (for Stoke) against Swansea when we were chasing the game and I scored. Since then I’ve stayed in the team.’ Walters flicks through a matchday programme thrown at him after Peter Crouch scored against Newcastle . The Potters joker found the funny side when referee Roger East was forced to withdraw with cramp . Walters carries the match ball after becoming the first Stoke player to score a Premier League hat-trick . Listening to soothing sounds has helped. ‘Before kick-off, I’ll have my earphones on and be tuning into some classical music,’ Walters says. He lists Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major and material by pianist Ludovico Einaudi as favourites. He should be listening to some strings before playing against Poland in a game Ireland need to win to further their Euro 2016 ambitions. His participation was in doubt after he suffered a fractured cheekbone a fortnight ago but surgery and a protective mask make him available. ‘It’s a massive game,’ he says. ‘It’s a difficult group but it’s in our hands. There will be ups and downs. Germany was a high, scoring in the last minute. The Scotland defeat was a low. Qualifying is the main thing, it doesn’t matter how.’ Walters’s career has been in the ascendancy since he left then League Two side Chester in 2007. He is Stoke’s top scorer in a season that could still lead to a record-breaking points total and Premier League finish. Impressive when you consider the reshaping done by manager Mark Hughes since succeeding Tony Pulis when Walters’s profile seemed not to quite fit. Whether operating up front or, more frequently, on the wing Walters has crafted his game to suit the passing style now employed under Hughes. ‘In terms of evolving I’ve done that my whole career, from youth at Blackburn, then Bolton, going down the leagues and coming back up,’ says Walters. ‘You have to change your game constantly. ‘There are going to be technically better players. You see some very gifted players down the leagues who just haven’t had the luck. ‘I’ll always work hard but I’m not just here on hard work. You have to have a certain amount of ability. I was taught as a striker, all my runs, my movement, getting in the box. I’ve only really taught myself to play as a winger.’ Walters has forced his way back into Martin O'Neill's thinking for the Republic of Ireland . The striker celebrates with John O'Shea after the captain scored a dramatic late equaliser against Germany . Walters gestures to former Arsenal striker Lukas Podolski (right) as he appeals for a penalty . Walters is listed as a midfielder in the Premier League’s fantasy football game. ‘You get the clean sheet bonus, don’t you?’ he quips. That flexibility has certainly aided Walters, who was bought by Pulis for £2.75million in 2010. He believes Stoke are like that, too, able to alter their game to suit situations in a way that Everton, his boyhood team, find tricky. ‘Mark Hughes came in with different ideas and from day one everyone bought into it,’ he says. ‘We play a slightly different way but still retaining that steely grit. ‘Certain teams we play against, sometimes we have to go a bit more direct. We can dig in. Having all those strings to your bow is massive in this league, teams can figure you out. We can change during a game, me included.’ Walters’s view on the game has been coloured by the health issues suffered by his eldest daughter Scarlett, who was born with gastroschisis, a condition in which the intestines protrude outside the abdomen. In 2005 he switched from Championship side Hull to League Two Wrexham so as to be closer to his family on the Wirral when Scarlett needed surgery. ‘I asked to leave to go back home with her as she was so ill,’ he said. ‘I was living in a hospital for three months. It was tough.’ Scarlett, 10, is better now, with a sister and brother aged six and four. Walters has picked himself up too, joining Ipswich in 2007 before Stoke came calling. That move was the reason for his fallout with Keane, who details in his autobiography how Walters did not believe him that no enquiry had been made. ‘There was a bit of shoving,’ writes Keane. ‘I got carried away and Jon got carried away.’ Walters' goal against Swansea City in October saw him cement a regular starting place in Mark Hughes' team . Walters has adjusted his game to make an impression both domestically and internationally this season . Walters had felt compelled to send in a photograph of his vomit to prove he was sick enough to miss an earlier League Cup game. Here, sitting in an armchair at Stoke’s training ground, he smiles knowingly. The pair shook hands after Keane became O’Neill’s assistant. ‘When he first came to Ireland we spoke about it and had a laugh. I get on really well with Roy. I know he can be hard but he’s pretty spot on in what he says.’ Walters tends not to mince words either, choosing that rather graphic turn of phrase to air his views on spitting. He knows though, with team-mate Stephen Ireland’s horrific leg wound in mind, more serious things happen on a pitch. ‘It’s an insult to spit,’ he says. ‘Anything that threatens a career, breaks bones, or seriously injures someone has to be worse.’ Feigning injury does infuriate him. ‘To see people rolling round when they get touched is poor. What annoys me is to think about if two people are going head to head in the street, would one fall over like they’ve been shot?’ Walters has made up with former Ipswich manager Roy Keane after the pair's infamous bust up . The Potters forward nets against Tottenham in November, he has 10 Premier League goals this term . Walters is made from stern stuff and hates it when players feign injury on the football pitch . One creeping concern is his contract, which expires in the summer of 2016. ‘It’s always at the back of your mind. We haven’t had any talks yet. I’m a realist. They’re always looking for someone to replace you. It’s been no different since I’ve been here. ‘The strikers we’ve had in: Eidur Gudjohnsen, Michael Owen, John Carew, Kenwyne Jones, Cameron Jerome, Crouchy is here, Mame Biram Diouf. If the club want to keep me, they will come to me.’ Walters is recently over a mystery knee injury that had troubled him for more than a year and believes he can play until he’s 38. ‘Fitness-wise I tend to do more running, more high-intensity sprints, more recoveries than anyone. We have heart-rate monitors every day. You have to look after yourself off the pitch through diet. I feel great. I have six, seven years, without a shadow of a doubt.’
Jon Walters is Stoke's leading scorer in the Premier League this season .
Forward is expected to play for Ireland in Euro 2016 qualifier vs Poland .
A bust up with Roy Keane was highlighted in the former Ipswich manager's autobiography but veteran forward claims to have calmed down now .
Jon Walters is the kind of footballer who holds up an imaginary substitutes’ board when a referee goes down injured, who picks up a matchday programme hurled in his direction and has a flick through. During Stoke’s victory at Aston Villa last month, his reaction to referee Roger East’s attack of cramp was more comic than concerned. It was similar when an irate Newcastle fan chucked the makeshift missile as celebrations followed Peter Crouch’s equaliser. ‘A referee with cramp! Can you believe it?’ chuckles Walters. ‘He needed to come off, didn’t he? The programme was a good read. 10 out of 10. You’ve got to enjoy yourself. When need be, I’ll get stuck in but I play with a smile. Jon Walters spoke about many subjects, including his desire to play in Euro 2016, in a revealing interview . The Stoke City star takes his football seriously but also has a a fun side as his on-field antics show . The 31-year-old striker/winger claims he has mellowed since being involved in a ruck with Roy Keane . ‘It’s the best job in the world, if you don’t enjoy it there’s something wrong.’ That encapsulates Walters, one of the Premier League’s unlikely lads; tough yet funny, revelling in his fifth year as a Premier League player. He is delivering one-liners on the radio that amuse and slightly frighten, suggesting in the wake of the Jonny Evans-Papisse Cisse flare-up that any player who spat in his face will be ‘eating his supper through a straw’. He is laughing about his appearance in Roy Keane’s book during their final fraught days together at Ipswich — ‘a bust-up… effing and blinding’ — having buried the hatchet at Republic of Ireland camps. ‘I knew what was going to be written… it could have been worse,' he says. And he is pleased by having had such a good season after an inauspicious start. Walters became the first Stoke player to score a Premier League hat-trick with his right-foot, left-foot, header combination against Queens Park Rangers in January and was shortlisted for Ireland’s player of the year award. All this after losing his place at Stoke side last summer. His appearance in Ireland’s dramatic 1-1 draw in Germany in October meant he had completed more minutes for country than club: 180 to 139. ‘We were losing games and I wasn’t getting on, that made me worry more than anything,’ admits Walters, 31. ‘I was going away with Ireland asking a few of the lads how many games they’d played. The Championship lads were saying, “15, 20...”. I’d played two. Jesus! ‘Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane showed a lot of faith to play me. Then I came on (for Stoke) against Swansea when we were chasing the game and I scored. Since then I’ve stayed in the team.’ Walters flicks through a matchday programme thrown at him after Peter Crouch scored against Newcastle . The Potters joker found the funny side when referee Roger East was forced to withdraw with cramp . Walters carries the match ball after becoming the first Stoke player to score a Premier League hat-trick . Listening to soothing sounds has helped. ‘Before kick-off, I’ll have my earphones on and be tuning into some classical music,’ Walters says. He lists Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major and material by pianist Ludovico Einaudi as favourites. He should be listening to some strings before playing against Poland in a game Ireland need to win to further their Euro 2016 ambitions. His participation was in doubt after he suffered a fractured cheekbone a fortnight ago but surgery and a protective mask make him available. ‘It’s a massive game,’ he says. ‘It’s a difficult group but it’s in our hands. There will be ups and downs. Germany was a high, scoring in the last minute. The Scotland defeat was a low. Qualifying is the main thing, it doesn’t matter how.’ Walters’s career has been in the ascendancy since he left then League Two side Chester in 2007. He is Stoke’s top scorer in a season that could still lead to a record-breaking points total and Premier League finish. Impressive when you consider the reshaping done by manager Mark Hughes since succeeding Tony Pulis when Walters’s profile seemed not to quite fit. Whether operating up front or, more frequently, on the wing Walters has crafted his game to suit the passing style now employed under Hughes. ‘In terms of evolving I’ve done that my whole career, from youth at Blackburn, then Bolton, going down the leagues and coming back up,’ says Walters. ‘You have to change your game constantly. ‘There are going to be technically better players. You see some very gifted players down the leagues who just haven’t had the luck. ‘I’ll always work hard but I’m not just here on hard work. You have to have a certain amount of ability. I was taught as a striker, all my runs, my movement, getting in the box. I’ve only really taught myself to play as a winger.’ Walters has forced his way back into Martin O'Neill's thinking for the Republic of Ireland . The striker celebrates with John O'Shea after the captain scored a dramatic late equaliser against Germany . Walters gestures to former Arsenal striker Lukas Podolski (right) as he appeals for a penalty . Walters is listed as a midfielder in the Premier League’s fantasy football game. ‘You get the clean sheet bonus, don’t you?’ he quips. That flexibility has certainly aided Walters, who was bought by Pulis for £2.75million in 2010. He believes Stoke are like that, too, able to alter their game to suit situations in a way that Everton, his boyhood team, find tricky. ‘Mark Hughes came in with different ideas and from day one everyone bought into it,’ he says. ‘We play a slightly different way but still retaining that steely grit. ‘Certain teams we play against, sometimes we have to go a bit more direct. We can dig in. Having all those strings to your bow is massive in this league, teams can figure you out. We can change during a game, me included.’ Walters’s view on the game has been coloured by the health issues suffered by his eldest daughter Scarlett, who was born with gastroschisis, a condition in which the intestines protrude outside the abdomen. In 2005 he switched from Championship side Hull to League Two Wrexham so as to be closer to his family on the Wirral when Scarlett needed surgery. ‘I asked to leave to go back home with her as she was so ill,’ he said. ‘I was living in a hospital for three months. It was tough.’ Scarlett, 10, is better now, with a sister and brother aged six and four. Walters has picked himself up too, joining Ipswich in 2007 before Stoke came calling. That move was the reason for his fallout with Keane, who details in his autobiography how Walters did not believe him that no enquiry had been made. ‘There was a bit of shoving,’ writes Keane. ‘I got carried away and Jon got carried away.’ Walters' goal against Swansea City in October saw him cement a regular starting place in Mark Hughes' team . Walters has adjusted his game to make an impression both domestically and internationally this season . Walters had felt compelled to send in a photograph of his vomit to prove he was sick enough to miss an earlier League Cup game. Here, sitting in an armchair at Stoke’s training ground, he smiles knowingly. The pair shook hands after Keane became O’Neill’s assistant. ‘When he first came to Ireland we spoke about it and had a laugh. I get on really well with Roy. I know he can be hard but he’s pretty spot on in what he says.’ Walters tends not to mince words either, choosing that rather graphic turn of phrase to air his views on spitting. He knows though, with team-mate Stephen Ireland’s horrific leg wound in mind, more serious things happen on a pitch. ‘It’s an insult to spit,’ he says. ‘Anything that threatens a career, breaks bones, or seriously injures someone has to be worse.’ Feigning injury does infuriate him. ‘To see people rolling round when they get touched is poor. What annoys me is to think about if two people are going head to head in the street, would one fall over like they’ve been shot?’ Walters has made up with former Ipswich manager Roy Keane after the pair's infamous bust up . The Potters forward nets against Tottenham in November, he has 10 Premier League goals this term . Walters is made from stern stuff and hates it when players feign injury on the football pitch . One creeping concern is his contract, which expires in the summer of 2016. ‘It’s always at the back of your mind. We haven’t had any talks yet. I’m a realist. They’re always looking for someone to replace you. It’s been no different since I’ve been here. ‘The strikers we’ve had in: Eidur Gudjohnsen, Michael Owen, John Carew, Kenwyne Jones, Cameron Jerome, Crouchy is here, Mame Biram Diouf. If the club want to keep me, they will come to me.’ Walters is recently over a mystery knee injury that had troubled him for more than a year and believes he can play until he’s 38. ‘Fitness-wise I tend to do more running, more high-intensity sprints, more recoveries than anyone. We have heart-rate monitors every day. You have to look after yourself off the pitch through diet. I feel great. I have six, seven years, without a shadow of a doubt.’
including his desire to play in Euro 2016, in a involved in a ruck with Roy Keane . ‘It’s the is Stoke’s top scorer in a season that could midfielder in the Premier League’s fantasy been shot?’ Walters has made up with former infamous bust up . The Potters forward nets League goals this term . Walters is made from