LENNIE Johnrose spoke today of "the worst week of my professional career" as he faces up to joining hundreds of other players on the football scrapheap.

The combative midfielder knows he faces one of his toughest ever battles to get back into the game and he accepted: "I might have to look for a job outside of football. I just don't know what I will do now."

The 32-year-old has played 443 senior games, scoring 58 goals in a career that stretches back to his debut for Blackburn Rovers 15 seasons ago.

He admitted that not being offered a month long extension to his Burnley contract was a bigger blow than being released at the end of last season.

"I always knew when my contract was up it might not be renewed but I always hoped that something permanent might happen in the summer," he explained.

"But it is now almost October and I can't see what I will get now."

Johnrose is particularly upset at his departure from Burnley because earlier in the week he thought he was going to be staying.

But having had indications he would get another month on Monday he found out two days later that he was on his way out of the door at Turf Moor for the second time in a matter of months.

"I have phoned the PFA and let them know I am available now and I will take it from there," he explained.

"But I can't sit around and mope about it as I have got a wife and child. Ultimately I will have to go out and get a job.

"I have never had to work outside of football but other people manage it and it is just something I have to do.

"There are worse things happening in life and I just have to make the best of a very bad job."

But his former boss is backing him to do well as Stan Ternent said: "We go back a long way and have had a lot of success together.

"He has been going to university doing a sports science course and I think he will go far. He is a good sort."

A number of players in the same situation as Johnrose have remained at clubs on a non-contract basis but he admitted he would be loathe to do that.

"In the end you are just hanging around waiting to see if people get injured or the results go badly and the manager wants to change things," he said.

"I am not the kind of person that can wait hoping for bad stuff to happen."

The departure of Johnrose is the latest example of the harsh realities of life in the Football League in 2002.

Ternent re-signed him as an emergency measure before the game against Sheffield United and he has played his part in the club's recovery in recent weeks.

But with every pound being carefully spent it is clear the manager felt the time was right to let Johnrose go.

Whether it will free up any money for other additions to the squad remains to be seen.

As for Johnrose, like hundreds of others he is left not knowing whether he has kicked his last ball in League football and wondering just what lies around the corner.