In the centre of a housing estate in Gipsy Hill is a concrete five-a-side football and basketball pitch. It is surrounded by low-standing walls and, rising above the bricks, is a high metal fence. The contrast with the lush surroundings of Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford is stark and it would provide what remains not just of Trevoh Chalobah’s first childhood memory but, ahead of Sunday’s visit of Manchester United, the foundation for so much that has followed.
South London has a rich history of producing football talent but – from Jadon Sancho, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Aaron Wan-Bissaka to Declan Rice, Ryan Sessegnon and Emile Smith Rowe – this generation is perhaps the best yet. Comparisons are already being drawn with the suburbs of Paris, which produced more than a third of France’s World Cup-winning squad, including Kylian Mbappe, Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kante.
Andrew Martin, a former professional footballer at Crystal Palace and now the football coach at Whitgift School in Croydon, where players such as Hudson-Odoi and Jamal Musiala are among the alumni, thinks that several factors are at work. Yes, he agrees that informal football in confined playing areas can be invaluable but he also highlights a transformation in coaching time and ethos. “I believe it’s the raw athleticism along with street football skills and, when combined with superior coaching, it makes for a special talent,” he says.
“There are a lot of hard-court and cage areas around, as they can be played on all year. They do enhance your close-quarter skills, but I still believe it’s the better quality coaching and the amount of contact time the boys get with coaches nowadays. A lot of these boys have been in academies since the age of eight, nine and 10, training three to four times a week.”
In an interview last year for the Gaffer website, Chalobah highlighted the chance to compete daily against older boys. “South London is special for the passion; the love of the game,” he said. “People were always coming together … every day of the week. My very first memory of being here [in Gipsy Hill] was seeing this cage. This is where our dream began. There was something special about it. I was that kid always playing with older people. It’s all about skills.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/11/28/trevoh-chalobahs-rise-south-londons-concrete-cages-chelseas/
