Straight outta ISLINGTON
Aiden O’Brien talks knives, drugs and the life of crime he managed to avoid thanks to family, friends and football
‘YOU’D EITHER GET CHASED, BEAT UP OR STABBED IN SOME AREAS’
HOLLOWAY ROAD station is the agreed meeting point. By the time you’ve climbed the spiral staircase from the underground, it is just like any other English High Street. Walk a few yards to the right towards a junction leading to Hornsey Road, amid the rows of shops and part of London’s Metropolitan University Campus, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium is suddenly visible. Further up Holloway Road, towards St Mary Magdalene Church, there is a mix of the gentrified – The Movement Studio offers ballet, yoga and pilates – and the traditional – The Master Plaice chipper serving an all-day breakfast for a fiver.
There are far greater divisions in this corner of north London than those who prefer Downward Dog (a yoga pose) to a battered cod. Islington is, after all, a district of extreme division.
Alongside the multi-million-pound townhouses and discreet mansions belonging to the likes of Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and an ever-increasing number of Russian and Middle Eastern billionaires, there are the forgotten people of London who are not simply the working class, but the working poor.
Only a couple of years ago, local charity The Cripplegate Foundation reported that Islington had the lowest life expectancy in London. A third of its children, and over 40 per cent of the elderly, were living in poverty, and it had the highest number of serious mental health issues as well as the highest levels of depression in England.
That is the Holloway Aiden O’Brien knows all about. It is the one he was happy to return to this week, though.
The Millwall and Ireland striker, now 25, no longer lives in N7 (the postcode will take on a greater significance in this story), but it will always be a part of him. ‘My old estate is just behind us,’ he says as we make our introductions outside the Pret a Manger sandwich shop on Holloway Road.
‘Will we walk or get in the car? I’ll drive, saves on the parking,’ O’Brien laughs.
As he opens the door of his black Mercedes 4x4 which is parked just around the corner, it reveals a drinks container from McDonalds stuffed down the side. ‘A treat for after matches,’ O’Brien smiles. ‘Deserved it after Saturday.’
The limbs are still a bit weary from the weekend’s 3-2 FA Cup triumph over Everton but cancelling this interview scheduled for his day off never crossed his mind. ‘I’ve wanted to do something like this, to talk about where I am from. I hope it can give a bit of hope to some kids.’
He indicates and turns off Holloway Road, passes under a bridge just a few yards from the Arsenal club shop and heads down Citizen Drive to the Harvist Estate which is literally shadowed by the Gunners’ Emirates Stadium. A perfect illustration of the juxtaposition of wealth.
The Harvist Estate is a council complex made up of four 18-storey
tower blocks and four low rises. Right in the middle is a five-aside astro turf pitch with dark blue railings around it, and a sign promoting a joint initiative between Arsenal and Islington Council.
‘They’ve put a bit of money into it. It was all concrete before,’ O’Brien recalls.
He makes his way towards No.9, Hindley House, the home he shared with his mother Sandra O’Brien, father Dave Byrne and younger sister Lisa, who is four years his junior. He moved out when he signed professional terms with Millwall at 17, but the memories flood back.
‘Some good, some bad,’ he begins. ‘It was all gang-related when I lived here. The different post codes, you thought you were some sort of hero back in the day with your mates. We’re N7. Other estates are plotted all around here and they would come, there would be carnage. It was always fiery… really fiery.
‘A lot of people would drive through on motorbikes. No matter what day it was, after school there would be loads of us, boys, girls, just having a laugh. Get the ball and play five-a-side. Whether it’s p***ing down, snowing, we would all be together. We were a family. We played games of “olders v youngers” and that toughened you up. But the olders would take care of you and look out for you. I will never ever, ever forget these roots. They made me appreciate life because I could easily have lost my life here,’ O’Brien continues.
‘You had to look after yourself. Knife crime, man. Everyone had a knife. We’d be sitting here, we’d turn around and up there at the other end there would be 30 people coming towards us in hoodies, some on bikes. There would be dogs. You’ve got to make a run for it. There are certain times where you can’t just stand there and go “come on then” because they are just going to f***ing sort you out. It ain’t fists, you’re not thinking “I might get a few bruises here, but I’ll firm it and stand my ground”. It’s not that. It was “I could get stabbed. I could get killed here”. You’ve got be clever in what you do here.
‘If you walked around on your own in certain areas and another group saw you and said you were from here, you’d either get chased, beat up or stabbed. You couldn’t really walk around on your own, you had to stay in the proximity of your area. It was different estates that would be involved and the scary thing was it wasn’t fists. If you’re not running, you’re getting hurt.
‘My friends played a massive part in keeping me away from it. They knew I had football. There would be moments that would be a massive scare, your life would flash before you, you think “wow, this ain’t me”. I got caught up in a few things, but I knew I wasn’t built for it. Much as I’d like to feel I’m part of this thing, I’m not built for that life, I was built for football. My coaches at Millwall – Larry McEvoy and Scott Fitzgerald – I owe them so much because they persisted with me. They were getting calls about me, they knew my situation, but they persisted, and I’ve paid them back. They could have easily released me and my life could have been so different.’
O’Brien is surrounded by memories on the Harvist Estate, and then one walks right up to him to say hello. Donovan, originally from Jamaica and now in his 40s, was one of the positive influences on him growing up.
‘You’re looking well,’ Donovan beams.
‘You look good,’ O’Brien replies. ‘It’s been ages, man. What’s it like here now then?’
‘Terrible. Last night, a boy up on Caledonian Road got killed. Stabbed by some other boys over something stupid,’ Donovan tells him.
‘No way! I didn’t hear that. Where did you hear that?’ O’Brien asks.
‘It’s going around,’ Donovan says, with that day’s edition of the London Evening Standard confirming a 17year-old was stabbed to death for his bike.
‘Drugs, weed, it has these kids crazy,’ he adds, before changing the subject.
‘Are you still doing your thing with the football?’
‘Yeah man, you should have watched the other night. It was on BBC. We beat Everton.’
They catch-up for the next few minutes, discussing mutual friends who have since passed away, others who are out of prison and, curiously, laughing together as they avoid the attention of the dozens of squirrels that seemingly run amok around this concrete estate.
They go their separate ways, O’Brien heading back to his car.
‘I’m glad you got to meet someone like Donovan because it shows that if you’ve got the right friends around you, and they say they’re your friend, they will help lead you down the right path because if they weren’t your friend they would tell you to do the wrong things.
‘There would be times when people tried to influence us to do something bad, or be involved in it. Drugs was an easy route to getting money. That was never my area. I knew loads who were doing it but I didn’t want to get myself involved. I was happy with that. My mates would never let me get involved,’ O’Brien says.
‘I’m saying it now because it was fine for me and my friends. Some people I knew went to prison, but we are lucky because we’ve lived to tell the tale. It’s good to talk about it all now because it definitely is important to know there is another way of going with your life when you come from a place like this.
‘You’ve got to tell yourself “nah, that’s not me”. You can’t be led by others. It happened to me as a young boy, you feel like you want to be part of it all. It feels like a blur to me now because I’ve got football, I own a property. I had to choose. I had to do that myself. I could have easily chosen the other route.
‘We’re driving here now and it’s mad. Look down there and there are houses worth millions, man, and
then right beside it there is another council estate. Growing up, I never had a clue about what else was out here.
‘Football opened my eyes but until I make it to the Premier League, I can’t buy my family a house yet. One day I want to take them out of the so-called “hood”, the “dumping ground” some people call it. Making things better for them is what drives me.’
Parked up at the side of the road, O’Brien calls his mother to arrange to see her at her flat later that evening. She lives alone, his father has a new partner and has relocated to the Isle of Sheppey 40 miles from central London. Younger sister Lisa and her boyfriend welcomed their son, Tommy, into the world recently while the grandparents who helped raise him, Teresa from Dublin and Patrick from Carrick-on-Suir, have both passed away.
‘Dad was the one who kept me in line and made sure I worked on my football,’ he adds. (He had a trial at Arsenal but was told he was too slow, before joining Millwall.)
‘I wouldn’t be allowed out with my friends until I had done 100, 200 or 300 kick-ups. He’d take me to the road at the back of the estate for half an hour doing sprints. I used to hate it. At the time I hated him but he saw something in me and pushed me hard. I needed that. Mam was a softie. She would do anything for us. Every day after school we went to nan and grandad’s. He was a bin man and had these huge hands. Him and my nan were proper nice, genuine people. They would do anything for you.
‘Nothing was ever forced on us in terms of being Irish. It was all natural. It was how we felt. My mum has four sisters and five brothers, I must have 40 cousins. When we went around the houses, it was all Irish orientated. That’s all we knew. I know I don’t talk with an Irish accent but I feel it in my heart.
‘When my grandparents passed away... I didn’t get to say goodbye to my nan – she went in her sleep. There was no pain, but my grandad was ill for ages. My mum was his carer for a couple of years before he went to the hospital. She changed him, washed him, fed him.
‘The day before he died, I was able to pay for a TV in his room so he could watch the darts and pool instead of staring at the wall. He was non-responsive, he probably didn’t know I was there but I felt good being able to make him a little bit more comfortable. He died the next day.
‘I swear, when I scored that goal against Poland, they were both watching. Nobody can tell me they weren’t.’
O’Brien’s back is covered in tattoos which illustrate his life. There is one of a boy with a football in his arms in a housing estate; the dates of his first Millwall and Ireland goals; the names of his close family and the street sign for Holloway, N7.
‘I can’t afford to not be in this job. I want to provide for my family for as long as they live. Mum, dad, my sister and her family. I want to make sure they never go without anything. I don’t want to throw this away. That will never be me.
‘I don’t want to go back to that place with nothing. If you get something, you make use of it. You don’t do stupid things with it because you’ll end up back in square one. Trust me.’
‘I CAN’T AFFORD NOT TO HAVE THIS JOB. I NEED TO PROVIDE FOR MY FAMILY’