AT 37 years of age, Burnley’s Graham Alexander has played more minutes this season than any other player in English football. It is an achievement driven by fear.

Alexander has been running scared for a total of 4,249 minutes during the 2008/09 campaign - a season that started 228 days ago and still could have three months to run.

The former Preston, Luton and Scunthorpe player is yet to miss a single minute of Burnley’s 45 matches and, not content with that, he has appeared four times for Scotland for good measure.

Given that only Manchester United have played as many games as Burnley this season and not a single member of their squad has started more than 35 matches, Alexander is out in front in terms of minutes played in club football.

Brian Jensen is next, having missed only 90 minutes of the Clarets’ campaign.

Alexander’s workload would have been a severe test for even the youngest of footballers, but the veteran is still some way short of the 57 games he played for Preston nine seasons ago.

With all the modesty of a true professional, he does not want praise for playing on in his advancing years - just to be considered the same as everyone else.

And his motivation to keep going is simple.

“I’m probably a little bit scared of the day I have to stop,” he said. “That’s probably what has drove me on, because I know my life won’t be as much fun without playing football.

“You can have managers who can start writing you off as soon as you hit 30 and start resting you.

“I think if you let your mind start to rest and you start to think you’re tired, you can go downhilll quite fast, so I’ve always fought against being rested.

“I think I can get my rest on my days off and when I’m away from training like everyone else.

“I want to train every single day and obviously the manager has helped me with that because he has never said anything about my age since he’s been here.

“He’s just took me as I am in training and in games. That’s all I can ask for really.

“I don’t feel 37. I just think it’s a number to be honest. I think sometimes other people think about my age more than I do.

“People started talking about my age when I’d just turned 30, which I found ridiculous at the time.

“No-one knows how long you can go on. Teddy Sheringham and people like that have gone into their 40s. I played with Tony Ford who played into his 40s, too.”

Ford, who Alexander linked up with at Scunthorpe, is currently the only English-based outfield player to have made 1,000 professional appearances.

It is a feat that former Burnley manager Steve Cotterill recently backed Alexander - already past the 900 mark - to emulate.

The Scot refuses to set his sights on such a target, for fear of falling short, but is living proof that the modern methods of self-preservation in football really do work.

“You need a little bit of luck with injuries and I’ve tried to look after myself a little bit better than I used to in my younger days because of my age,” he said.

“I concentrate on my stretches and warming up properly, eating the right foods during the week and getting good sleep at night, not staying up all night watching television.

“We eat plenty of pasta and I eat a lot more fruit and vegetables than I used to.

“Then there’s ice baths - just general things, they’re not secrets. If you ask any physio they’ll give you similar sort of advice.

“I’ve just had to follow it really to the letter because I wanted to carry on playing.

“If I’d carried on like I was 15 years ago, I wouldn’t be playing now.

“That game has gone really and has been left behind, but it was okay back then because everyone was doing the same.Everyone was having a few pints and eating what they wanted.

“I think it was just when the foreign invasion came along, with their good habits and diets, that the British players had to take on or you’d get left behind.

“It’s definitely helped me maintain my fitness over the years.”

And Alexander, who is enjoying his football more than ever in a season that has seen him regularly switch between right back and a role as a holding midfielder, has no plans to set a retirement date any time soon.

Asked how long he plans to play on, he said: “As long as I can.

"Until someone tells me I’m not allowed to or no-one offers me a contract.

“There’s no point putting a date on it. It’s something that can be taken out of your hands when you’re 22, never mind when you’re 37.

“I’ll just play in the next game and hopefully do enough to stay in the team for the next one.

“When I finish, I want to stay in football and take my coaching badges.

"I want to be at least a coach or a manager, or something like that.

"I want to stay in football because it’s my life.

“But hopefully that’s in a few years’ time and not just around the corner.”