Читать книгу To Cap It All - Kenny Sansom - Страница 16

I was at that tricky pubescent stage of development when hormones are flying around and mood swings take you from laughing your head off at some funny joke one minute to becoming angry or miserable the next without really knowing why.

I was still football crazy and loved training as much as ever, but I was beginning to hate the long, laborious, one-hour-long Tube ride across London to Ruislip. I was never good at sitting alone with my own company and, as the draughty, smelly train rattled through the tunnels, I’d be sitting there wondering what everyone else was doing, thinking of all the things I imagined I was missing out on, such as going to the pictures with Elaine, or hanging out at youth clubs with my mates.

I was used to being surrounded by familiar faces, noise and often madness and mayhem. Being alone for hours on public transport faced with nothing but my thoughts for company makes me think about Alan Sillitoe’s story, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (and the film of the same name). Two hours a night may not seem much, but it got me down.

I know it sounds a bit daft, but it really disturbed me and I didn’t want to do it any more. So, one night, when my hump was notably bigger than usual, I announced to my mum that I was giving up football.

Mum didn’t seem particularly fazed, which was strange really, as she was my biggest fan and always told me how brilliant I was. All she said that night was, ‘All right, Kenny, if that’s what you want, it’s your life.’ And then she casually added, ‘But why don’t you go one more time, just to make sure you’re not making a mistake you might regret.’

The next day I picked up my pork chop (call me Homer Simpson) and munched on it for a while before heading off for the Tube station to begin the tedious trip to training. It was a freezing-cold night and I entertained myself by blowing hot breath into the cold night air. It relieved my boredom of having no one to talk to.

After training I sauntered out of the makeshift dressing room feeling down about my earlier decision. I didn’t really want to give up on my dream.

Then I heard a familiar voice me calling, ‘Hello, Kenny, I’ve come to take you home.’ I swung round to see my mum standing there in her red headscarf. She was shrugging her shoulders and wearing a woolly coat and a wide grin.

I still get a lump in my throat talking about it. At first I thought she had planned to collect me right from the moment she’d suggested I give it one last shot, but to this day she insists it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. According to her, she’d been standing by the kitchen sink when in a flash it popped into her head that it would be a good idea to jump on a train and come and meet me. How about that?

The very next week Arnie Warren came to our training ground and spotted me. Arnie was chief scout at Queens Park Rangers and was about to move to Crystal Palace. It seemed he wanted to take me with him and put me into the academy. As it turned out, Kenny Sansom was just the type of rough diamond they were looking to sign.

Scouts in those days really put themselves out to seek raw talent in the parks of England. They would tirelessly travel from John o’ Groats to Land’s End and were usually rewarded by finding talent. There were no ridiculous restrictions on how far a scout could travel outside his area in search of a new David Beckham.

The scouts knew (or used to know) how to keep an eye out for any boy who shone during his school years and, if I say so myself, I had definitely shone in the Dewar Shield tournament, where I played out of my skin. I can almost remember that important match, minute for minute. We beat a team called Hitchin by two goals to one. They scored first, but then we came back to level with them. The icing on the cake was that I scored the winner with a header. What an intoxicating feeling that was.

So, in a nutshell, I think it’s fair to say that if my mum hadn’t handled my teenage sulk and childlike insecurity like the trouper she was, it’s highly likely I would have missed out on my professional football career. You could say I got lucky again. It was a bloody good job I was at training that night when the scout turned up, and not hanging out on street corners with my mates.

But was I too young to be thrown into the pressurised world of competitive football? Or would it be a breeze?