‘A few times he tried to put his hands down my pants’

NEIL KERTON’S own son is 13 years old, a talented footballer like he was, and training with the Portsmouth FC academy but so far he has forbidden him from going on trips abroad with the team.

It is his nature to be cautious about letting a young teenager become overly involved with a professional football club too early.

But in the last fortnight, as footballers have spoken up in numbers about sexual abuse suffered at clubs nationwide in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Kerton has had to confront the possibility that memories from his own childhood have weighed heavy in his decision making. Kerton was 13 when he signed schoolboy forms for Southampton.

For three years he trained under a development manager at the club who groomed him and, when Kerton rejected his advances, he suspects the older man set about trying to ruin his football career.

‘I first came into contact with him when I was 11,’ says Kerton. ‘I went to a residential football camp in Deal in Kent. Two coach loads of kids aged from 10 to 14 stayed in a dilapidated army camp and trained every day.

‘One evening we were all told to queue up outside this hut with just towels around us and each of us went in and had a soapy water massage with no clothes on.

‘There were four coaches there and we were told: “This was what professional footballers do for recovery after matches and it’s all part of getting the muscles to relax”.

‘As an 11 year old, if there’s another 30 kids doing it and accepting it then you just go along with it. I signed schoolboy forms with Southampton at 13 and the man and his wife became very friendly with my mum and dad and would see them socially.

‘He’d say, “I want Neil to do some extra training on a Saturday” and we’d be training on a Friday so he’d say, “it makes sense for him to come back and stay at mine and I’m coming back down to Southampton and can bring him back”.

‘In the eyes of my mum and dad that was brilliant because it saved them driving up the country. That’s when it got a bit odd.

‘I’d be in his car and we were driving along and there wasn’t a massive amount of conversation and next thing you know he’d get you to put your head in his lap.

‘I’d be in the passenger seat laying across and I’m in a frozen state and I’m pretty sure he’s half playing with himself, trying to slide his hands down your back.

‘That would happen on a regular basis. A couple of times he tried putting his hands down my pants but I’d just sit bolt upright.

‘There would be situations at his house where he’d be watching TV and be lolloping over you on the sofa with his leg over you.

‘He was in charge of my destiny. I think I was as good as anyone at that club at the time but at 16 I got the call to tell me I was being released. I don’t know whether it was a case of me not doing what he wanted to do because within three days I’d signed for Portsmouth.’

For three years Kerton bottled up the detail of the sexual abuse until he could no longer hide it from his parents.

He said: ‘They felt so guilty about it and were absolutely devastated.’