football firsts
Lloyd Kelly – The Bristol City full-back talks us through his football memories
First match? Wow, that’s going back a bit now. Funnily enough, the first game I went to was probably a Bristol Rovers game. I can’t remember who it was against – and this was a while back now – but yeah, that was probably the first game that I went to. That was just a random game that I went to with my mate’s family. I can remember the derby – Bristol Rovers v Bristol City (in 2013). This was when I was in the academy and I was a ball boy. I can clearly remember Joe Bryan scoring the winner as City beat Rovers 2-1. First hero? It would probably be Lionel Messi – I really looked up to him a lot. Just what he was achieving, really, and he was just such an exciting player to watch. This was when he was quite established. He was in his prime in terms of scoring. I think he scored 50 goals in a season that year, or something like that. At the time, I was playing left-midfield and right-midfield in the academy, so I was a kind of similar position, really. First boots? Yeah, they were Adidas F50 Tunits – that’s a throwback. I didn’t have the kit that came with them. I think I had the electric blue ones – they weren’t bad. I think it was kind of the trend, getting the new release colours, things like that, because you wanted to stand out a little bit. First kit? My first shirt was a Tottenham shirt. It had my name on the back, actually – it had Kelly on the back. I was a Tottenham fan growing up. I was about 14 or 15 when I got it and Gareth Bale must have been coming on the scene then – he was scoring for fun. First game? At senior level, I came on as a substitute last year against Plymouth Argyle in the Carabao Cup first round. I came on after about 70 minutes – that was my debut. We won 5-0 and it was 3-0 when I came on, so it was a good game to make my debut in. First goal? That was against Reading on Boxing Day last year. Funnily enough, we were 1-0 up with about five minutes to go and the gaffer (Lee Johnson) brought me on to kind of double up on the left hand side. But he has brought me on left wing and I’ve just managed to venture forward. It’s dropped to me and I’ve just hit it, and it’s gone in! I was only on the pitch for about two minutes. He (the manager) just started laughing. He brought me on to just lock things out – I did the opposite. First red card? I don’t think I’ve ever had one, no – at any level. Do you know what, I can’t really even think of any bookings! At senior level, I haven’t been booked. No, I can’t think of a scenario when I’ve got a yellow card yet. It’s an impressive
record.