Britt was on £5 an hour at WH Smith — now he’s Boro’s £15m record buy
Assombalonga on his huge price, a horror injury...and pasties!
BRITT Assombalonga is remembering a time before he was a £15million footballer, when he thought the last stop on the Northern Line was as far as he would go.
There, after taking the Tube to Edgware in north London, he would indulge in a cheese and onion pasty for breakfast before starting his shift at WH Smith. He earned £5 per hour.
Today, the 24- year- old is Middlesbrough’s club- record signing. The fee is the highest ever paid for a Championship player.
‘Assomba-wonga!’ screamed the headlines last month on the newspaper stands he used to stack. There is, then, a sense of appreciation as he reflects on a journey which has taken him from the Congo to the five-a-side cages of Camden, via a newsagents and to the cusp of Premier League and international football.
Talking to Sportsmail ahead of Saturday’s Championship opener at title rivals Wolves, he is reminded that, even just five years ago, he was starting the new season at Southend in League Two. They were beaten 1-0 at home by Accrington Stanley.
‘Wow, really? Accrington? It just shows you,’ he says. ‘ That’s the beauty of coming through the lower leagues. You appreciate it more now. You know how hard you’ve worked to get here.
‘A few years before that I was working in WH Smith, stacking shelves when stocks ran low — newspapers, magazines, sweets, everything. I started at 9am and finished at 4pm. I went to Greggs every morning and then again when I finished — I loved those cheese and onion pasties!’
Assombalonga got a lucky break at 17 when Watford spotted him in a college game and he was offered a contract. After loan spells at Wealdstone, Braintree and Southend, he joined Peterborough for a club-record £1.5m.
Only 12 months and 33 goals later he was off to Nottingham Forest for another club-record £5.5m. He was still only 21.
‘I’ve always gone for record fees, I’m used to it,’ he says. ‘If someone is willing to pay that amount, then great. It comes with pressure, but that’s what football is about. It’s the goals, that’s what makes the price.’ Does he, then, believe he is worth it?
‘That is a good question, no one has ever asked me that,’ he says. ‘I guess so, why not? You have to embrace it. I don’t think that’s me being cocky, you just have to believe in your own ability. ’ It was the belief of Assombalonga’s parents — Fedor and Beatrice — that took the family from Kinshasa to Camden in 1993.
His father was a striker for the national team, but sacrificed his career for the future of his two sons and two daughters.
Assombalonga — who is yet to decide if his international allegiance lies with DR Congo or England — says: ‘ My mum and dad believed we had to move to give us a better life and a good education. There were things which used to happen in Congo, like the black magic. That is why they saved the money to move to London. They wanted to give us the chance they never had.’
Assombalonga left school with GCSE A grades in maths, IT and French. ‘Maths, yeah, so I know exactly how much £15m is,’ he says with a smile. ‘My parents spoke French at home so that was easy, I played football instead of those lessons.’
As for IT, well that comes in handy when he trawls the internet in search of his goals packages. There is one such collection on YouTube which has 20,000 views. How many of those clicks are his? ‘About 19,000,’ he laughs. ‘I used to watch Jermain Defoe and Ruud van Nistelrooy all the time, now I can watch my goals!’ And his best? ‘For Peterborough versus Bristol City — left foot, top corner, outside the box. I probably won’t do that ever again, I’m more a two-yard man now,’ he says. It was from two yards that Assombalonga scored what he considers his first ‘real goal’ aged 19 on his debut for Braintree. ‘It’s the 88th minute and it’s 2-2,’ he explains. ‘The ball hits the post and I was just there, a tapin, easy. It was my first real goal — with my name on my shirt — and it felt incredible.’ Lincoln equalised seconds later and so Assombalonga went after a winner. His brow furrows before he continues — this does not have a happy ending. ‘I went through on goal and around the keeper but he’s clipped me,’ he recalls. ‘I turned around and just thought, “Yeah, penalty”. Then the ref is over me and I’m thinking, “What? He’s got a red card in his hand!”. ‘ It was my second yellow, diving he said, and I was off. It was an open goal, why would I not tap it in to win the game? I’d never not want to score a goal. I still can’t believe it now.’ Assombalonga wants to be a lawyer when he retires — you get the impression the injustice of that dismissal would be the first case he’d revisit.
His post-career plans, however, were very nearly brought forward when he injured his knee playing for Forest in February 2015. Out for 14 months, he runs his finger down the 10-inch scar between his thigh and his upper shin.
‘It was at home to Wigan and I’d scored, I was on a roll so I tried a shot from outside the box — I never do that!’ he says.
‘My foot got stuck in the turf and it just ripped my kneecap off. I looked down and half of my knee was up here.’
With that he points to the midpoint of his thigh. ‘I thought, “That’s it, my career is done”,’ he admits. ‘I ruptured the patellar tendon as well. They had to take hamstring from my other leg to rebuild the knee. The recovery was long and I couldn’t do anything to start with — my mum had to help me get in the bath, she’s seen it all!
‘But I’ve had no problems since. I feel stronger, it has actually reinforced the area.’ With ‘time on his hands’, as Assombalonga puts it, he and girlfriend Laura decided to start a family. Daughter Amiyah was born one year ago.
‘She is a mini me, the double, just a lighter version,’ says the muscle-bound front man. A lot has happened for Assombalonga since those days at WH Smith.
There are, you feel, plenty of headlines to be written yet.
‘There was black magic in Congo... that’s why we left’