Ex-England footballer content to leave corner — that hurts (6)
I believe the answer is:
crouch
'ex-england footballer' is the definition.
(Peter Crouch played for England)
'content to leave corner that hurts' is the wordplay.
'content to leave' means to remove the middle letters (the contents of the word are removed).
'that hurts' becomes 'ouch'.
'corner' with its middle taken out is 'cr'.
'cr'+'ouch'='CROUCH'
(Other definitions for crouch that I've seen before include "Lower the body with bent knees as if about to spring" , "Get down low" , "Prepare to spring" , "Hunker down" , "Adopt a low static position -- Essex river" .)