Mum’s ban finally works wonders for Antonio

WEST HAM are less than a year away from moving to the 54,000-seat Olympic Stadium but Michail Antonio can still remember playing in front of 25 fans. And even they had left by the end.

The winger, signed from Nottingham Forest for £7million on transfer-deadline day, has travelled the increasingly common route f rom non-League to Premier League.

It took only seven years, from turning out at Tooting & Mitcham’s Imperial Fields ground to being on the verge of appearing inside an arena that housed Olympic heroes not so long ago.

‘The smallest crowd I had was on a Tuesday night and it was like 25 people,’ Antonio said. ‘We lost and by the end of the game there was no-one there! There would be about 200 fans on average — if that. It was one of the bobbliest pitches you could play on. But it is my roots and I loved every minute there.’

Antonio’s route to the top could have started at the top, had his mother, Cislyn, not prevent ed him joining Tottenham when he was 14 years old. He had a successful trial but Cislyn deemed it too far to travel from their south-west London home.

‘She said education comes first,’ Antonio explained. ‘You can’t imagine how I felt. I was crying and all sorts.’

It was a difficult time, with some of his classmates joining top-flight academies and going on to make Premier League appearances. Craig Eastmond was at Arsenal and played four times for the first team, but is now at Conference side Sutton United. Matthew Briggs was on the books at Fulham, played 13 league matches but is with Colchester in League One.

‘ They went through the academy system and they’re working their way down,’ said Antonio, who 10 years on is only just reaping the benefits of his mother’s decision. ‘I’m working my way up.’

The 25-year-old has the air of someone who has lived a little, admittedly mainly in hotels. Reading were his first professional club but loans to Cheltenham, Southampton, Colchester and Sheffield Wednesday followed before a permanent move to Nottingham Forest.

‘Every time I have moved to a club I have been in a hotel for a good six or seven weeks before finally finding a place. When I was at Southampton I was in a hotel for five months.

‘It is not home, it is not a place you can say is yours. You can’t really get too comfortable but it is part and parcel of your job. You have just got to do it.’

A four-year contract with West Ham, who face Newcastle at home tonight, and a new home in the Olympic Stadium is finally allowing him to lay roots with his young family, new-born Miles, and three-year- old Michail Jnr. Cislyn is just around the corner — and she has let him join the team this time.