How easy would it be to change your career in your 60s?

A man who retrained as a teacher after working for Arsenal Football Club for 30 years said it had been the "best career choice I ever made".

During the Covid pandemic Charles Allen, who was then 60 and working as the marketing director at the club, made the decision to switch professions.

With the help of a charity to retrain, he now works as a modern language teacher in Ipswich.

"I think I reflect on this as possibly the best career choice and best career change I made," he told BBC Radio Suffolk's Sarah Lilley.

"I certainly believe I made it at the right time in terms of my career, in terms of being able to take on this responsibility of inspiring the next generation of hopefully language speakers and people who go on to have a career using languages - just like I did."

Allen said he had got to a point in his career where he realised he enjoyed inspiring people and wanted to focus on this more, while also making use of his passion for speaking Spanish.

He first started learning the language in his youth as he thought it would help him succeed in life and he thought he needed a "superpower".

"I looked around and realised that superpowers were rare things and what people weren't doing back in the 70s and 80s when I was in school, and people weren't really focused on modern languages," he continued.

"So I thought I'd made that my superpower and that has always kept me ahead of the game and ahead of the pack."

Allen then left London for Suffolk and now works at Holbrook Academy near Ipswich teaching Spanish.

He said it was a "challenging" profession, but it was "the most rewarding job" he has ever had and he "strongly" encouraged others to consider teaching.

"To stand in front of a class and see learning break out because of what you're doing and know you're helping the kids develop life skills is the most rewarding thing," he added.

Graihagh Crawshaw-Sadler, the CEO of Now Teach, which helped Allen with his training, said they were working to ensure more people could bring their experiences and life skills to schools.

"I think at the moment people are choosing to and needing to work for longer and actually want to have a really purposeful next stage in their career," she explained.

"The teaching profession is very good at recruiting recent graduates, but when it comes to the older demographic... it's less of a well-travelled path and Now Teach wants to make that path better trodden so that more people can see themselves in that profession and thrive especially when they get there."

Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.