The waiting game paid off for new boy Patrick
PATRICK BAMFORD once felt it would be ‘unfair’ to accept a Republic of Ireland call-up, and yesterday spoke of his pride that his patience in waiting for a chance with England was finally rewarded.
The Leeds striker was named in the Three Lions squad for the first time last week for the World Cup qualifiers against Hungary, Andorra and Poland.
However, with an Irish grandparent, Bamford was offered an earlier route into international football by then Ireland boss Mick McCarthy, who ended his pursuit of the 27-year-old two years ago.
The forward was the second-highest English goalscorer in his first Premier League season with 17 – six behind the man he will understudy in England’s forthcoming three games, Harry Kane.
His belief he would one day be called up by the country of his birth has paid off, despite missing out on this summer’s Euros, and Bamford revealed: ‘There was a point in my first season at Leeds where he (McCarthy) did get in touch.
‘Because I had always dreamt of playing for England, I felt it would have been wrong to go and play for Ireland just because they’d asked me and in order to play international football. I might be keeping someone else out of that team whose dream and heart was with Ireland. I didn’t think that would be fair.
‘If I took that slot just because I felt the England one might never come and that might be the easy option, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do and I always believed I’d get to the England stage.’
Bamford – who could have taken a scholarship at Harvard University in the US as a teenager – admitted he was made aware of his maiden England call by Leeds’ technical director Victor Orta at training on Thursday after forgetting national team boss Gareth Southgate was naming his squad that day.
‘I got a FaceTime call and wondered “what’s that”. I got another one straight away and thought I’d better answer and he ( Orta) was showing me the email from England,’ he added, ahead of tomorrow’s game in Budapest.
Bamford, who attended fee-paying Nottingham High School, admitted there is a ‘stigma’ in football towards former public schoolboys, but believes he is overcoming the perceptions of him.
‘You can’t just judge someone on the way they’ve been brought up,’ he said. ‘You have to let them show their stuff.’