WHILE THE 1995 version of Dean Windass was attempting to establish his credentials at Aberdeen, there was a distinct dichotomy in his life. The day-time was fine, the football no problem. Night-time, when he was full of beer and belligerence, was a different proposition. It terrified him.

On these occasions, the past came back to punish him and transport him to illogical outposts. How, after all, does a young man forget nature's ugly statistics, such as a father's infidelity and the inevitable demolition of his parents' marriage? How does he shelve the memory of seeing his mother cry every day for three years? Does he simply dismiss her attempted suicide as an inescapable vicissitude?

Maybe, as the song suggests, he should look on the bright side of life, but there is no bright side here in the Granite City while he is chasing the beer monster. The wife and kids are in bed - he would never consider harming them - but Windass is taking his anger out on the mortgage, punching holes in the walls and doors of his home. There is so much chaos. How can it be stopped?

God, these memories stink. The anger is a bile in his throat that threatens sickness. But how does he stop thinking about being turned out into the street by a surrogate stepfather? Or this desperate under-age drinking culture that began in his early teens?

And, don't forget the bed-wetting that accompanied the binges. It's still there. Sure, according to the voting register, he is a man, but he's a man who pees in his pyjamas after a night on the beer; how does he cope with that indignity?

There does not seem to be a dichotomy in the life of the 2007 version of Dean Windass. Admittedly, he looks tough enough to punch holes in not just one house but a whole estate (one of my former colleagues wrote that he was the epitome of how one imagined a press ganger to look). Not to worry. The 2007 version has effected a peace deal between himself and the hostile world. It's as if he's called in the UN and sanctions have been passed against the demons.

Whatever, night-time is no longer a call-centre for terror.

Windass has shut down on violence in the home. There are no imprints of his fist on walls or doors; no soiled bed clothes, either. Day-time? As ever, that's champion. He is 38 and still playing football to a high standard with Hull City in the Coca Cola Championship. Having served managerial masters such as Bryan Robson, Steve McClaren and Neil Warnock, and played for Bradford City, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United, he's still scoring goals. He's taken his coaching badges yet he insists he will play until he is 40.

He is portrayed as a character, and therefore provides a veritable dartboard for the arrows of the opposing fans. They call him, rather simply, a fat bastard. Provocative stuff, eh? Not when you have spent years in the stinking fox-hole of your own imagination. No, when insulted nowadays, Windass smiles and playfully shows his belly to his persecutors. Their scorn is more than music to his ears, it's a concerto. It means he is still important enough to figure in their calculations. He can hurt them. He's still a player.

Straight to the point, he asks how long the interview is going to take and seems somewhat exasperated on hearing it will be at least 20 minutes. I suspect it is inadvisable to exasperate Windass so will concentrate on less inflammatory matters for starters. Like the issue over his weight.

Words are not wasted. "It's got to the stage that when they stop calling me a fat bastard, I'll start worrying," he insists. "Then I'll know I can't be playing f****** well! To be honest, it just spurs me on some more. I have a laugh with the crowd.

"When you walk into the pub and meet someone you haven't seen for ages, the first thing they say is: You're not fat, are you?' No, I'm not, but television puts weight on. I'm 13 stone. I've always been chunky. Wayne Rooney's my sort of build. He's not fat, either. That's just the way you're built, you can't f****** help that. But I eat the right foods. I'm not the quickest, but I've always been up there with the runners pre-season.

"The thing about McClaren was that you had to be under 10% body fat, and I was. The trouble came when I put my kit on, I'd look a fat bastard. I couldn't do f****** owt about it. I've had loads of supporters come up to me and say: F****** hell, yeah, we hate you but we wish you played for our team.' That's the way I like it.

"No, the one thing that really pisses me off in this life is people talking about my weight. I probably look a bit lumpy on the pitch, but listen, when I'm naked in the bedroom and having sex with my wife, she says I've got the best body in the world!"

OK, that's broken the ice quicker than global warming. Let's make progress towards the jugular and talk about the past which used to come at Windass in remorseless waves. Let's talk about this cruel sea of remembrance and how he turned its tide. Let's talk about the book he has written - Deano. The anatomy of a disturbed childhood is there in plain and simple language in this rather remarkable book.

I start on a home life that started to fracture when he spotted his beloved father with another woman. The cosy, familial world fell apart when he was 13. As he lay in his bed alongside his dad, he was informed of an impending divorce. Predictably, he burst into tears. How did he cope with all that? He is brisk and matter of fact, and the impression given is that he has already taken the shovel out once to dig up his life and he may not be too keen on resorting to this form of manual labour again.

"Look," he says, "it happens to lots of people. There's thousands of kids whose parents have split up."

Not too many are able to write about it, or would want to write about it, in such graphic terms, though. "No, maybe not. But I didn't purposely go out to hurt anybody or upset anybody. I just got asked the questions and I answered them as honestly as I could.

"Hey, I had a decent upbringing as a kid, but then things started going a bit pear-shaped when me mum and dad split up. It wasn't very nice. Mentally, it hurt me a little bit. It affected my life. I could have gone either one way or the other. Fortunately, I went the right way."

So, regarding the intolerable behaviour in Aberdeen, what saved him from taking the cinder track? "Well, one day you wake up and know you can't carry on like this. First and foremost, you have to consider your wife and kids. You've taken on the responsibility for having them, now you've got to face up to that responsibility. My football was going very well at Aberdeen, and I was scoring a lot of goals.

"Away from the park, though, I didn't know how to do it, but I wanted to punish people for what had happened in my earlier life. Strange. I was never aggressive towards anybody. I was never in nightclubs, wanting to punch somebody because they looked at me funny. The only time I got that way was when I got home and seethed about things by myself. Having had those few extra pints, it was then that I sat and thought. I was punishing my wife and myself, really."

Help, however, was so close it wasn't even around the corner.

Windass' wife, Helen, an athlete, trained every day with the Aberdeen fitness coach, Stewart Hogg. She mentioned her husband's extraordinary behaviour to him and he suggested a meeting with an Edinburgh psychologist called Richard Cox. Windass, initially, was not keen on opening a file marked private and confidential.

"It's hard when you have got to go and tell a total stranger how much your personal life is affecting you, but it was the best decision I'd ever taken in my life. At first, I suppose I got a bit paranoid by thinking: Do I have to go and see a shrink?' But it wasn't like I imagined. Richard just sat me down in front of him and said: Tell me what you think your problem is.' I opened up to him and shed a few tears. It was the best thing I ever did.

"The problem was I lived a strange existence because I had never opened up to anybody. I wasn't telling anybody about things that had gone on. When I was going out having a drink with the lads or my wife, this thing was always in the back of my mind. After I had expressed all these feelings properly to Richard, everything was fine after that.

"This was early doors at Aberdeen, but I had the problem when I was a young kid and had started drinking heavily. I was punching walls at Hull when I was a kid. But I didn't have the back-up until I went to Aberdeen. By then, I was sort of questioning myself: and wondering: Am I going mad?' Sometimes you wondered why you needed to go and see this man. But Stewart said: Nobody will know about it. Whatever you say to him will be confidential.' Even Stewart didn't know what I said to Richard. He didn't ask me and I never told him.

"Eventually, the solution was simple. I didn't even need to stop drinking. Richard told me I didn't have a problem with the beer, but advised me just to tone it down a bit. And that's what I did. I haven't had that problem since. The anger is gone. I still go out, have a laugh with the lads and a few drinks, but my wife doesn't worry about me going out any more, like she used to at Aberdeen. The bed weeing is also a thing of the past. Touch wood, I haven't wet the bed for 12 years. So what Richard said to me worked."

It seems that Windass wants this strand of the interview to end. That's implicit in what he next says. He says he has never read the book. Obviously, he knew what he had put in it, but he'd never actually picked it up and read it. "And I never would now. I've put it to bed. That's my past. I don't want to go back there no more.

"I've got through it, I've moved on and I've done well. And now I want to go on and progress even further, play as long as I can, and then hopefully go into coaching and management. And, after this interview with you, I'll never speak about it again. People will read it, so what's the point of asking me about it? As I say, that's the end of that life and I move on."

So, Windass being Windass, I do as he suggests and explore the other territories in his existence. His proclivity for battle, for instance. On consulting his record - on one memorable occasion for the Dons he picked up three red cards against Dundee United - it appears that he doesn't exactly scatter at the sound of gunfire.

The reward is a smile that is so small that it is under-nourished. "Listen, it's not big and it's not clever to fight, is it? I'm a family man, but when I go to work I do my job and do it to the best of my ability. I've never walked away from anything. I received death threats when I got sent off against Bournemouth last season. Now that was genuinely worrying. But the one thing you learn from life is that you don't let people affect you.

"Everybody don't like Dean Windass; there's a lot of people who do and a lot who don't. But those who don't like me don't bother me. I like having the satisfaction about having f****** proved them wrong. If people walk up to me and call me a twat then fair enough, I'm a twat. I ain't bothered. I don't go around calling people. If I've got a problem to say to anyone, I'll do it to their face."

Had the football experience at Aberdeen been good for him? "Yeah, it was the best move I made in me life. I needed to get away from Hull and further my career. It was a massive move at the time. I never wanted to leave Aberdeen. It was circumstances, with the man who bought me, Roy Aitken, getting sacked and Alex Miller coming in and not really fancying me.

"But I tell you it was the best two-and-a-half years of my life. I enjoyed my football, my wife liked living in Aberdeen, I had loads of friends outside football and we still keep in touch. I still go up every year and have a drink with me mates. Every summer. I really enjoyed the place, loved living there. I just didn't want to go, but it was time to go."

And what about those three red cards? "Hey, it wasn't really three reds. I got one, then I got done for swearing at the referee and punching the corner flag. I got a massive ban for it. It's not something I am proud of. I let Roy down. I knew he was under pressure. I was too fired up for it and paid the price. That probably cost me my Aberdeen career. But you do silly things in your life and I'll probably do more silly things."

The 2007 version of Dean Windass has given not 20 but 32 minutes of his time. Considering what went on in his past life and the fact that he has a lot of catching up to do, it is very precious time.

Deano - From Gipsyville To The Premiership. £16.99. Hardback copies, signed by Dean Windass, available at £18.99 (inc post and packing) from Great Northern Books, PO Box 213, Ilkley, West Yorkshire LS29 9WS. www.greatnorthernbooks.co.uk Tel: 01274 735056.