Former England football star Ian Wright fought back tears on national television last night as he once again publically praised his primary school teacher Sydney Pigden.

Currently a contestant on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Mr Wright told fellow contestants that Mr Pigden “was the first man who showed me love”.

While they were sitting around the campfire, he said: “I was quite disruptive and I was always put outside the classroom, but then he put me in the library room and he started to talk to me about behaving myself.

“And he was somebody that I could talk to all the time and tell him about what was going on at home, and then once he realised that I could play football that’s when it really kicked in.”

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Pigden, who died last year aged 95, was a teacher at Turnham Primary School in Brockley, South London, when Wright joined as an eight-year-old.

The clip of Wright talking about Mr Pigden has been liked on Twitter more than 2,600 times.

In the footage, he says: “I couldn’t put a price on what Mr Pigden has done for me. He’s the first man in my life that showed me love. As a teacher, he gave me that little bit extra bit of tutorship that I needed. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be where I am.”

The relationship has already been documented in Tes and in Wright’s autobiography.

Nearly 2 million people have watched the video of Ian Wright being reunited with Mr Pigden in 2010.