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Interview by Alec Fenn
For so long as I can keep in mind I’ve been hassle, which is unusual for a boy whose earliest reminiscences are going to church along with his mum as a toddler. In major college, I’d inform the lecturers to ‘go f**ok themselves’ and sometimes battle within the playground. Then in 12 months 6, I used to be completely excluded for hitting a instructor with a dinner tray and virtually breaking certainly one of her palms.
Like for a lot of youngsters, soccer was an outlet, but it surely wasn’t sufficient to maintain me on the straight and slim. Crystal Palace signed me once I was 10 and I performed in the identical workforce as Wilfried Zaha and John Bostock, however I lasted solely two years there earlier than they launched me due to my unhealthy behaviour in school. Individuals typically speak about road footballers who be taught their expertise on the concrete, however I discovered a unique commerce within the darkest corners of north London.
In 12 months 7, whereas the opposite youngsters performed soccer within the playground, I’d steal cell phones from the blazers getting used for goalposts. After college, I’d head straight to Finsbury Park and promote them to a gaggle of Albanian males I’d met by way of numerous acquaintances. Later, I’d roam the streets to steal telephones, and the cash would simply maintain rolling in. My mum gave me £2 a day for pocket cash, however I didn’t use it to purchase sweets – I went to the bookies. I’d spend hours in a trance watching my cousin enjoying on brightly-lit slot machines, after which give him my cash to gamble for me.
Once I was 13, the lecturers requested my mum to return to high school and sit in the back of the classroom to attempt to appropriate my behaviour. It didn’t work. In 12 months 9, I used to be kicked out for good after burning my classmates with a Bunsen burner. I enrolled at a particular college, The Octagon, for teenagers with studying difficulties or behavioural issues. It felt like a mini jail, with smaller lessons and extra workers to police the teachings and ensure we didn’t run riot. I used to be surrounded by unhealthy lads similar to me, and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than I used to be as much as my previous methods.
(Picture credit score: Ryan Inzana / FourFourTwo)
Soccer was my one hope of creating one thing from my life. I joined a semi-professional workforce referred to as Haringey Borough, the place there was a good commonplace of soccer and someplace to channel my pent-up power. At the very least, that’s what ought to have occurred. I used to be nonetheless mixing with the mistaken crowd, and one evening was amongst a gang of lads who robbed a close-by highschool. I used to be arrested, bailed for seven months and placed on curfew – however that also didn’t cease me. I repeatedly flouted the curfew to rob extra homes. Mum grassed on me to the police, and shortly I used to be arrested for one more theft. They fitted an digital tag on my ankle however I discovered a means of slipping it off utilizing some fairy liquid, so I might loot extra properties.
I joined one other semi-pro membership, Romford FC, the place I skilled through the week and scored targets at weekends, and in addition enrolled at a soccer academy run by [former QPR and Nigeria centre-back] Danny Shittu. The hours in between had been spent both robbing homes, playing or smoking weed, and it was inevitable that these worlds would collide. After one coaching session on the academy, I stole each cell phone within the dressing room and was caught purple handed with them in my bag. ‘How did these get in right here?’ Shittu requested me. I denied the whole lot, however he wasn’t silly and banned me from the academy. The following time we met, I used to be enjoying for Newcastle and he was at QPR.
It was one other self-inflicted f**k-up, however I loved a slice of luck after each of my earlier housebreaking expenses had been dropped. That ought to have been the second I turned my life round, however as an alternative I went on the rampage with my buddies. As soon as, all of us hopped on a bus and began robbing telephones by any means needed. After looting the highest deck we jumped off, boarded one other bus and carried out the identical assault. We had extra telephones than a name centre – but it surely wasn’t sufficient. We headed down a road and ripped telephones out of individuals’s palms. A number of seconds later, a police automobile got here flying across the nook. S**t. We legged it and chucked our haul into the bushes, however couldn’t get away fast sufficient.
The officers found the stash. I used to be arrested and brought right down to a station, the place I spent three days within the cells. Police quizzed me however I had one reply for each query: ‘No remark’. They charged me with armed theft and I used to be bailed once more, pending a date for a trial. This time it was critical. Whereas I waited for a letter to reach within the put up, I continued to interrupt my curfew. On one profitable afternoon I got here away with a laptop computer price £700, however was then caught in possession of a stolen iPod and arrested once more.
I used to be 15 and my mum was contemplating chucking me out. I begged her to offer me yet another probability, so in 2007 she despatched me to a soccer academy at Southgate School – they supply academy-level coaching and have hyperlinks with professional golf equipment. We performed a pre-season match towards Southampton’s kids and I got here off the bench, scored twice and gained us the sport. Weeks later my coach acquired a name from Southampton, who wished to take a more in-depth have a look at me. I skilled with the youth workforce and was supplied a two-year scholarship inside days.
Southampton was a contemporary begin away from the temptations of north London. They paid me £110 per week and put me up in a lodge with the remainder of the academy gamers, the place I turned good mates with Bradley Wright-Phillips, Nathan Dyer and David McGoldrick. I used to be quickly scoring targets for enjoyable and having enjoyable off the pitch, too. At evening, I sneaked out of the lodge and jumped into McGoldrick’s automobile with Wright-Phillips and Dyer, earlier than heading to nightclubs. Ultimately, my landlady grew smart to my disappearing act and informed the membership, which led to a high quality.
Southampton didn’t know something about my chequered previous, and the academy director acquired a shock when the membership obtained a letter from the Crown Prosecution Service ordering me to face trial over armed theft. In courtroom, the membership informed the choose about my expertise and the way I’d begun to fix my methods, however the injury was performed. I used to be sentenced to 4 months in a Younger Offender Establishment. My legs turned to jelly within the dock, and I cried as I heard my aunt sobbing within the gallery. Her son and my cousin, Michael, can be becoming a member of me behind bars. We had been locked up for 23 hours a day, though I attempted to remain sharp by enjoying for the jail soccer workforce.
I used to be launched after two months of my sentence and went again to Southampton, the place the membership moved me right into a flat with my mum so she might keep watch over me. I began scoring targets once more, however hit the self-destruct button once I pinched a hoard of trainers, coaching equipment and even a workers member’s field of candies. I hid them in a bush and was planning to go to London, however a coach discovered them. It didn’t take lengthy to search out the perpetrator, and regardless of begging first-team supervisor Nigel Pearson, Southampton confirmed me the door.
Brokers didn’t appear bothered about that. My cellphone saved ringing with presents and I used to be rapidly on trial at Swindon. I scored an overhead kick and so they supplied me £250 per week, however earlier than I might settle for, my agent referred to as and requested me to satisfy him at a close-by Burger King. There was a two-year contract on the desk from Newcastle price thrice as a lot, plus a £20,000 signing-on payment. On paper it was a no brainer, however I used to be in two minds about dwelling so distant from residence. It took a number of chats with [executive director] Dennis Sensible to get me to signal.
(Picture credit score: PA Pictures)
THE LONE RANGER’S JOURNEY
Newcastle – 2009-2013
Barnsley (mortgage) – 2011
Sheffield Wednesday (mortgage) – 2012
Swindon – 2013-2014
Blackpool 2014-2016
Southend –2016-2018
Spalding – 2020-2021
Southend – 2021
I stayed in digs with two different youth-team gamers and had a very strict landlord referred to as Glenn, who insisted that all of us ate on the dinner desk each evening and went to mattress at sure instances. The routine helped me, and I quickly began scoring targets for the under-18s and reserves. Kevin Keegan referred to as me as much as practice with the senior workforce. The primary time I ever met him, I didn’t know what to say and ended up blurting out, ‘All proper, Keegan!’ He bent over double laughing, however warned me that I used to be to name him ‘gaffer’ from then on.
Months earlier I’d been in jail – now I used to be getting modified subsequent to Alan Shearer and Michael Owen. It was mad. I saved my head down, and inside a couple of weeks was named on the bench for a Premier League sport towards Arsenal on the Emirates Stadium. We travelled down on a non-public jet, and I keep in mind Owen and Nicky Butt shaking palms on a £500 guess for whose bag would seem out of the bags carousel first. It was a unique world. We misplaced 3-0 and Keegan resigned weeks later, however I stayed across the first workforce whereas scoring 15 targets for the U18s and 7 for the reserves in 2008-09.
I used to be rewarded with a brand new three-and-a-half 12 months deal. The contract was price £10,000 per week and included a string of bonuses if I scored targets and made a sure variety of appearances. I used to be nonetheless solely 18 and hadn’t made my first-team debut. That modified in August 2009, although, once I got here on within the 89th minute of a Championship sport at West Bromwich Albion. It took me till December to attain my first aim, away at Coventry, however I added a second in a January victory over Crystal Palace at St James’ Park. I made 30 appearances that season as we gained promotion to the Premier League on the first time of asking, however that didn’t paint the complete image.
Off the pitch I’d been in hassle with supervisor Chris Hughton, who’d been appointed at the start of the 2009-10 season. I turned up late for coaching greater than as soon as after growing a style for midweek nights out, and was additionally spending far an excessive amount of free time in casinos.
I gambled £30,000 in a two-month interval and borrowed £70,000 from Hatem Ben Arfa, Steven Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini to pay my money owed. The membership discovered and immediately banned me from each on line casino in Newcastle, whereas Coloccini sat me down and warned me concerning the risks of playing. Mark Viduka was a constructive affect too, typically advising younger gamers to save lots of their cash. Alan Smith was one other good function mannequin who drove a battered previous automobile regardless of his large earnings. I nonetheless didn’t hear.
A £96,000 promotion bonus landed in my checking account and I spent a piece of it on a model new Vary Rover. It quickly caught the gaffer’s eye. Andy Carroll then acquired maintain of my automobile keys at coaching and parked it in Hughton’s house. The gaffer warned me to spend my cash properly and never let it go to my head, but it surely went in a single ear and out the opposite. I used to be nonetheless doing my bit on the pitch, and scored in a 4-3 League Cup win at Chelsea in September 2010. After the sport, I used to be pulled apart by a membership official and informed that a number of tabloid newspapers had been going to print {a photograph} of me holding a gun the subsequent day. My WhatsApp profile image was me posing with a BB gun, and somebody had despatched a screenshot to a journalist. The membership fined me two weeks’ wages, however that was unfastened change in comparison with the brand new five-year contract I used to be given simply three months later.
Newcastle had proven me loyalty however I solely repaid them with problem. After one other midweek evening out, I drove residence with my girlfriend within the passenger seat. Police stopped and breathalysed me – I used to be over the restrict and locked in a cell till the morning, handed a £3,000 high quality and banned from driving for a 12 months. Alan Pardew succeeded Hughton, who had been sacked in December 2010, and grew bored with my poor timekeeping, making me practice with the academy youngsters as punishment. To make issues even worse, I ended up in courtroom after hitting two males who had racially abused after which tried to assault me within the metropolis centre. When officers tried to arrest me, I panicked and shoved them away – so acquired charged with assaulting the lads and the policemen. I pleaded responsible and fortunately CCTV footage supported my story, which means I used to be given a 12-month conditional cost.
I spent 2011-12 on mortgage at Barnsley after which Sheffield Wednesday [scoring on the last day of the season to help the Owls win promotion to the Championship], which meant I at the very least performed a little bit of soccer, however profitable my place again at Newcastle appeared unattainable. I used to be rising pissed off, and lashed out at followers on Twitter for criticising the workforce throughout a disappointing run of kind. They turned on me, and after that there was no means again. I used to be arrested once more in January 2013 on suspicion of rape after sleeping with a woman on an evening out. That was not more than a one-night stand, however the police determined to cost me and it was sufficient for Newcastle to cancel my contract. F**ok.
(Picture credit score: PA Pictures)
Groups didn’t wish to come close to me. I had a rap sheet longer than a purchasing listing and a rape cost hanging over me, however after spending 5 months as a free agent I signed a 12-month cope with Swindon on £4,000 per week. By this level you’d assume I’d have discovered my lesson – you’d be mistaken. I scored eight targets in 23 League One video games, however was dropped a number of instances for turning up late to coaching or not turning up in any respect. There was some excellent news once I was cleared of rape in March 2014, however I used to be arrested once more for hitting a feminine good friend within the face after ingesting three bottles of Hennessy Cognac. Fortuitously she didn’t press expenses, however I used to be fined £3,000 for prison injury after kicking in my door on the finish of that evening having misplaced my keys. Unsurprisingly, Swindon terminated my contract in Might.
Given my love for a guess and evening out, becoming a member of Blackpool three months later wasn’t an ideal determination – however I used to be determined and so they knew it.
I used to be given a deal price £150 per week and £3,000 a sport if I performed. I scored two targets in 14 Championship appearances between August and November, however I wasn’t blissful. I used to be dwelling in a lodge hooked up to the stadium, and my girlfriend left me after discovering out I’d cheated on her in Blackpool. She drove again to London, and I sped after her down the motorway for about half-hour earlier than the police pulled me over. I went again up north, however after being not noted of the squad for a house match towards Birmingham in early December, I returned to London and stayed there for the subsequent six months.
The membership fined me each time I missed a coaching session, however I didn’t care any extra. I solely had a 12-month deal and figured they wouldn’t lengthen it on the finish of the season. Unusually, they then activated the one-year choice in my contract and informed me to return for pre-season. I turned up 4 weeks late, by which level they’d already performed 4 friendlies. I used to be made to coach by myself, working up and down sand dunes on the seashore, however couldn’t get wherever close to Neil McDonald’s first workforce regardless of issuing a public apology about my behaviour. I used to be ultimately launched in February 2016.
I didn’t play once more till August – my first sport since November 2014 – after signing a one-year cope with Southend. My contract was price peanuts, however after scoring two targets at Bury and one other at Oldham, Phil Brown gave me a brand new three-year contract on £3,000 per week. He in all probability regretted it once I was charged with on-line financial institution fraud a couple of weeks later. With one other courtroom case hanging over me I ploughed on, scoring in 4 successive league video games from mid-March to early April. However the pleasure was short-lived.
In Might, quickly after the season had completed, I used to be sentenced to eight months in jail after admitting conspiracy to defraud. I spent 10 weeks in Pentonville jail earlier than being launched for good behaviour, however needed to put on a tag on my ankle for 5 weeks and was given a 7pm curfew which meant I couldn’t play in any midweek night video games. Southend confirmed nice loyalty in the direction of me and I performed 21 instances through the first half of 2017-18, however my contract was terminated in January after they lastly ran out of endurance with my lateness.
Since then, the sport has just about washed its palms of me. I’m handled because the Osama bin Laden of soccer. I went to coach with Oxford for a number of weeks in 2018, however rejected a contract there as a result of I felt the phrases weren’t ok. Rochdale supplied me £1,000 per week final season after a short trial, however I turned it down as a result of they wished me to reside in an condominium with a brand new team-mate and his girlfriend to ensure I didn’t slip again into my previous methods. In hindsight, they had been each actually silly choices.
After leaving Southend, I moved again residence with my mum and performed five-a-side a few instances per week simply to remain match – but it surely’s a world away from skilled soccer.
I’ve had two lengthy years to mirror on the whole lot I’ve performed mistaken and the folks I’ve damage alongside the best way. I can’t blame anybody else – it’s all been self-inflicted and I’ve had greater than my fair proportion of probabilities to alter. I turned 29 in April and know I don’t have time to waste.
I hope and pray I’ll get one final probability. If I do, I’m able to seize it with each palms.
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