Former England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has opened up about the way his friendship with former West Ham and England colleague Frank Lampard has blossomed again after drifting apart after leaving West Ham in the early noughties.  

The QPR centre-back was speaking to Off The Ball's Ger Gilroy about his new autobiography and it was one of the subjects up for discussion. 

Ferdinand also spoke about the writing of #2Sides which veers away from the typical footballer's autobiography.

Listen back to the full interview via the podcast

One example was his relationship with former West Ham and England team-mate Frank Lampard, which is detailed in a chapter which he sent to his childhood friend.

"Me and Frank were best buddies as kids growing up in West Ham. Anyone who saw Frank, they saw me. Anyone who saw me, saw Frank. We were shadows. When we trained, we pushed each other. When he done sprints, I'd have to do sprints because I thought 'he ain't getting away from me,'" he explained.

"When I went to Manchester United and he went to Chelsea, then we became rivals. We didn't talk about it, never mentioned it at all. We kind of distanced ourselves from each other, never really spoke much about being in and out of each other's pocket - just not speaking at all really until we went to England and had coffee here or there but even then it was guarded because I didn't want to give him an edge when he went back to Chelsea."

Ferdinand also revealed the contents of Lampard's text message back, having read the chapter, and how their relationship has "blossomed a bit more" since then. He also had much the same to say about another England colleague, Steven Gerrard, saying how they speak more now than they ever did while playing together for the Three Lions.

He also had an anecdote about former Man United team-mate Ben Foster not understanding why the club's players did not celebrate a League Cup win, and detailed how Alex Ferguson kept tabs on his players.

Ferdinand also went into depth about the survival instinct needed to thrive at Man United and how Fergie aided that process.

But he also recalls a blazing row with the former United manager over tactics when Fergie went "bananas".

Ferdinand also spoke about the issue of racism and football's role in it, in the context of being mixed race.