‘I’ll give my kids more than I had...’
IT IS 2pm on Tuesday in a geography classroom at Glenmoor and Winton Academy in Bournemouth and this is one lesson which 40 pupils are not in a hurry to end.
There is hush as the supply teacher talks, though on this occasion the ‘supply teacher’ is every child’s dream. How often does the word Eden Hazard get mentioned in a room where posters about regeneration, biodiversity, percolation and anticyclone adorn the walls?
All eyes are on ‘sir’ at the front…he is none other than Bournemouth striker Callum Wilson.
Questions fly in. Who is the best Bournemouth player at nutmegs? – “The manager does not like megging in training but it is probably me” – Who are your best friends at the club? – “We are a team but I do play FIFA with Harry Arter”– Which player would you like to see most at the club? “Probably Hazard as he can set me up for more goals”.
Not that Wilson is doing too badly with the supply chain just a few miles away at the Vitality Stadium.
Last Saturday, when Bournemouth beat Huddersfield 4-0, Wilson became the first Englishman to score a hat-trick in the Premier League this season. A glorious feat in itself, an extraordinary one when it is dissected more.
At 25, he has just returned to the first team after rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. When he suffered the injury on February 1, he had been back less than a year having incredibly sustained the same injury in his right knee in the autumn of 2015.
But from adversity has come triumph and the fact he is then asked if he knows any Russian is an indication of where this season could end up. “No I don’t,” he says in the now-empty classroom.
If he repeats the type of performances of last Saturday he might have to start learning because, with England manager Gareth Southgate not guaranteeing any of his current squad a place at the World Cup finals, it is open season.
Wilson’s two caps for the Under-21 team came under Southgate but he is taking it all in his stride. He might be the star of this afternoon as he supports the ESFA PlayStation Schools’ Cup visit to the academy but there is not an inch of star status about him. His upbringing probably ensured that. He talks about “not having a lot” when he was growing up in Coventry.
“I had five brothers and sisters, mum was single and that brings not being able to have the things you want,” says Wilson. “I’m so humble. Premier League players can earn ‘X’ amount but I still make sure everything is tucked away and saved for my kids to not give them the life I had growing up. That is my plan, that is how I think.”
His footballing career began in what he calls the ‘cages’. “It was a bit of AstroTurf – with fences around. This bit was like concrete, broken down garages. There were loads of us round there together and we made the best of what we had,” he says. “I went to the local Saturday camp, which got the kids off the streets and a guy said you are too good to be playing here.
“When I was about nine I joined a Sunday League team called Christ the King and there were Coventry scouts coming all the time.” Coventry were keen to take him on but there was a problem. “I didn’t have anyone to take me to training,” he recalls. “I said the only way I could join is if somebody picks me up and takes me home from training.
“That was not until I was 15 when they eventually got someone to do it. Everyone takes different routes. It is about the choices you make in life. Thankfully I made the right ones.” A father of two – Oritse is five and his daughter Orlagh is four months – he has shown his son where it all began for him. “I have taken him there to where I used to hang around, to give him an insight to his dad’s life,” says Wilson. “Over the years they have built it up and it is a lot better now. There is a lot less glass flying around.” When he reflects on his injuries, he can only now see the positives as Bournemouth face Swansea today where a victory could see them into the top half of the table. “It has probably been a blessing in disguise. When I came back from the first injury, I wanted to get fit and there was six or seven months of the season left and it was our first in the Premier League,” says Wilson.
“I didn’t cut corners but did not give myself the time I needed and my body to heal. I got injured again and thought this is the time to do everything I did not do properly right and that is what I did differently.”
CALLUM WILSON was supporting the biggest grassroots football tournament in the country – the PlayStation Schools’ Cup. Since its launch, more than 200,000 players have been involved. Visit www. playstationschoolscup.com.