Reece and Lauren ... from back-garden dreams to Chelsea and England
Hthe James siblings, reunited at Stamford Bridge, recall a youthful competitiveness as the driving factor in their success
On the morning before Reece James won the Champions League final with Chelsea, his sister, Lauren, posted a photograph on Instagram. It showed the two of them playing for the same team, Kingstonian, when they were younger.
“You inspire me every day and seeing you win the Champions League means I have to now do it too!” Lauren wrote the next day.
“Maybe I was eight?” Reece says, as he recalls the photograph.
“You were eight and I was six,” Lauren confirms as they discuss their childhood, football careers and the future over a Zoom call.
“We have come a long way,” Reece says. “But this is only the start of it and I hope we can both fulfil our dreams.”
Those dreams were first encouraged on a patch of grass behind the James’s family home in Mortlake, south-west London, along with brother Joshua – two years Reece’s senior – who also wanted to be a professional footballer and was on the books at Fulham and Reading.
“We used to play at the back, big games with our friends and used to do crazy tackles which were quite funny at the time. Two-foots!” Lauren recalls, laughing. “They were very dangerous. We just did it to get each other a bit annoyed. Maybe at the time with the group of friends we had we played better when we had a little anger. So we kind of just did it to get on each other’s nerves.”
Reece chuckles, saying: “And we trained together all the time.”
They were encouraged by their father, Nigel, a former defender at Aldershot Town who had trials at Southampton before an ankle injury ended his career. After moving into coaching, Nigel spent countless hours helping his children hone their technique – setting them challenges in the garden with a 20p reward if they did well.
“Kick-ups and around-theworlds,” Lauren explains.
“It was tough,” Reece says. “All three of us wanted to win!”
So who got the most money? “Probably Reece,” Lauren concedes.
“Because I was better!” he says, laughing, before adding: “We all wanted to play football and grew up loving it and were focused on trying to get to the top. Our brother doesn’t play anymore, but he also helped us a lot. It was always competitive. Lauren was four years younger than our brother and two years younger than me, but always wanted to win.”
“There were no concessions,” Lauren says. “They never let me win; they were physically stronger than me but it helped me a lot throughout growing up.
“Playing with them also made me tougher. I wanted to be on the ball.” Reece interjects: “She’s an absolute machine! The way she plays is very powerful and direct.”
The same can be said of Reece. “We are built the same but we are two completely different players,” he replies, before Lauren adds: “I think we run the same way. It is just the way we are built.”
Not that they over-analyse each other’s game – although it helps that they are both professional footballers. “No, we just leave each other to it,” Lauren says. “We know we are there for each other, for support, if we need it. If it was not a good day we tend to leave each other alone. For example, when he got the red card [against Liverpool] I didn’t speak to him about it. I didn’t need to.”
Reece, a defender, is 21, and a full England international as well as being a Champions League winner, although that medal was one of those stolen from his house while he was playing against Zenit St Petersburg on Tuesday. He has appealed for their return.
Reece is very close to Lauren, who turns 20 later this month. A rising star, she is a striker who joined Reece at Chelsea from Manchester United in the summer for a record fee between two Barclays Women’s Super League clubs. Her debut has been delayed by injury, but coach Emma Hayes has described Lauren as an “exciting young talent” and
there is a buzz about her return.
“She can achieve whatever she wants,” Reece says. “I really don’t think there are many girls who are better than her. She just needs to keep working hard to get herself right [physically]. There is so much more to come.”
When Cristiano Ronaldo returned to United, Bruno Fernandes wrote on Twitter about being an “agent” in his role in bringing him back. So did Reece perform a similar function with Lauren, who was at the Chelsea academy before joining Arsenal at 13?
“No, no,” Reece says, laughing. “She knew that one day she wanted to come to Chelsea because it’s home. The time was just right.
“When she was at United it was difficult, we didn’t really see each other, and now she’s at Chelsea… the blue kit is a lot better also! We are both now at Cobham [the training ground] and it’s pretty hard to interact with different bubbles, but hopefully when the world goes back to normal we will see a lot more of each other.” Reece follows the women’s game and there is an acknowledgement of the step up in media exposure this season with bigger broadcast deals kicking in. “It’s everywhere nowadays,” Reece says. “So there is no excuse for not watching it.”
The pair are expected to be the first brother and sister to represent England at senior level. Reece has eight caps and Lauren earned her first call-up for a training camp last November – but has been hampered by injury since. She says she had “goosebumps” when Reece first played for England, adding. “Everyone gets excited, you are in that atmosphere…but then he’s my actual brother.”
It was similar in that Champions League final in May, travelling to Porto to watch him in the 1-0 win over Manchester City and going on the pitch at the end. “That night was crazy,” Lauren says. “It was just full of emotions. I just hope I can do the same one day.”
And, with that, Reece simply replies: “You will.”