Doherty swaps music for football

Doherty said Winehouse has played him new songs she had recorded

Pete Doherty swapped his guitar for a pair of football boots at the weekend to play in a tournament to raise money for the Samaritans.

Speaking at the Soccer Six event at Millwall FC, the Babyshambles singer - recently released from prison - praised the charity's work with inmates.

His Babyshambles team were beaten 3-1 in the final by dance act Faithless.

Doherty has also been working with Amy Winehouse, and said she was "recording loads of new stuff".

The 29-year-old singer said Winehouse was "great at the moment".

"I kind of took a bit of a back seat," he told reporters. "She said: 'Listen to this new song, listen to this new song, record this, record this'.

"I've got a truckload of some of her stuff and I'm going through it."

At the weekend, a bizarre two-minute clip of Doherty and Winehouse making rambling comments and playing with a litter of tiny mice was posted on YouTube.

Doherty played down the video, saying: "One of the mice gave birth didn't it? I think it was Jennifer.

"She [Winehouse] was really fond of them."

Doherty returned to the stage with Babyshambles last week

Winehouse was last week told she would not face charges over a video that purported to show her smoking a crack cocaine pipe.

Doherty was released from Wormwood Scrubs a fortnight ago after serving less than half of his 14-week sentence stemming from drug and driving offences.

Other teams taking part in the football event included McFly and a reality TV team featuring former Big Brother contestants.

Doherty said: "Samaritans provide a service called The Listeners where they train inmates so if you're struggling any time during the night you've got someone you can spill your heart out to."

The singer, who returned to the stage with Babyshambles at a north London gig last week, said he had originally planned to take a break from performing after his release.

"I thought I was going to have a bit of time doing nothing at all. That was the plan but I was straight back into things."

He added that he had "really missed it".

Doherty was sent to jail in April after missing appointments with his probation officers.

He had previously been given a suspended sentence after he was caught driving with no MoT, no insurance and in possession of various class A drugs including heroin and crack cocaine in October.

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