J
D Sports plays a peculiar role
in the story of Michail
Antonio’s rise. It was at this
retail store that the West Ham
United striker was convinced
not to give up on a career in football
aged 17 by his older brother, John, a
highly influential figure who bought
him his first pair of authentic boots,
and the ones he would wear after
making the late and unlikely
breakthrough. But it was also where
Antonio was attacked as a child.
“I got rushed when I was 14, in
Tooting, by four guys for my phone,”
he tells The Times. “I was in JDs
trying to buy some boots. Boy
comes in, I’m on my phone
and he tries to grab it out
my hand. I put it in my
pocket, and him and his
friends jumped me.”
Antonio’s anecdote
is delivered without
emotion but acts as an
example. This man who
made the remarkable
journey from south
London, where he played in
non-League for Tooting &
Mitcham, to the European stage with
West Ham and international with
Jamaica, is attempting to describe
what it was like growing up.
“It was all about pride,” Antonio, 31,
says. “For everyone in London, it was
all about pride. Having too much
pride is what gets you in trouble.
“I should have seen that he had
four friends with him and I should
have just given him my phone. It’s
irrelevant: I have insurance to claim it
back. But, the fact is, I didn’t want
someone to be able to say that they
stole my phone off me. So I would
have rather taken a beating and lost
my phone than let anyone say I just
gave it to them. When you’re older,
you think, OK, that is actually silly.”
Was he hurt? “It wasn’t too bad to
be fair. I took a couple of hits,” hehome and told my brother and he told
me this: ‘You have friends in this gang
and you have friends in that gang.’”
Antonio was led to the conclusion it
would be unwise. Now, he describes
John as the most influential person in
his life. “He’s my confidante, the
person I go to when I need anything,
the reason why I didn’t give up
football,” he says. “When I turned 17 I
thought I was too old. But he took me
down to Swindon outlet stores and
bought me my first pair of real boots
from JDs. Before that, I used to buy
the plastic boots that probably last
three-quarters of a season and rip.That was the pair of boots I signed
my pro contract in.”
Reading signed Antonio aged 17. He
was loaned back to Tooting &
Mitcham but it was cut short when
word spread of the contract. “In the
last game I was basically playing
hurdles,” he says. “Every time I
knocked the ball someone would
come flying in five minutes later to
try and take me down. Reading called
me and said, ‘We’ve paid good money
for you and we don’t want to lose an
asset before we get to use him.’”
A wise move and one from which
West Ham have been a beneficiary.Antonio: My brother helped
me choose football over gang
6 1GSK1 Saturday December 4 2021 | the timesSport Football
says, before a pause. “I wasn’t the only
one who got hurt, put it that way.”
Antonio has a lot to be proud
about. This season, he became West
Ham’s record-holder for Premier
League goals despite only making his
debut in the division aged 25. He is
among the top scorers in the league,
level with Cristiano Ronaldo, and is
now a capped international after
representing and scoring for Jamaica.
He used to visit Kingston with his
mum, Cislyn, and returns regularly
now for holidays with his wife Debbie,
a solicitor, and their four children,
aged nine, six, five and one. Montego
Bay is a favourite for the family, a
long way from south London and the
childhood he experienced.
“My dream car growing up was a
Golf. My kids say, ‘When I’m older
I’m going to get a Lamborghini,’”
Antonio says, bursting into infectious
laughter. “I tell them, ‘You guys are
going to have to work extremely hard
to get that.’ It’s one of those things
where trying to keep them grounded
is so difficult because all they see is
the lifestyle I’m living, the players I’m
bringing around them. All they see is
these flash cars and areas they live in.”
It was at the family home in the
early hours of September 17 that
Antonio began to retrace his
steps. After a long trip
from Zagreb in Croatia,
where he had scored
on his debut in
European football, the
achievement hit him.
“I started
reminiscing, thinking
about the journey. I am
a journeyman, I’ve been
through nine different
clubs, played through the
leagues, so you can’t stop thinking of
the journey to get to where you are.”
He worked as a lifeguard while
playing for Tooting & Mitcham and
left Southfields School aspiring to be
a teacher, but describes a student who
narrowly escaped gang culture and
seems far from the affable character
on the other end of this Zoom call.
“When I was younger I was a bit of
a fighter. I fought a lot in school. I was
up there as one of the strongest in my
year, and in gangs you need fighters.
You need people who are strong to
help out. So I got approached by a
couple of crews asking me whether I
wanted to join.
“Obviously they had things I
wanted — not gonna lie. They had
money, they had girls — girls loved a
bad guy — so it was appealing. I wentThirteen years later, Antonio is
talking to The Times on the evening
after victory in Vienna put West Ham
through to the Europa League’s last-
16 as group winners. Progress had
already been secured, so manager
David Moyes left Antonio behind to
protect him for the Premier League.
Today’s meeting with European
champions Chelsea at the London
Stadium is a contest between teams in
the top four. West Ham are ahead of
Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and
Manchester United in the table. As
Antonio attempts to explain how such
success has come about, it involves an
environment that fosters unity — and
a new word for the dictionary.
“The banter is amazing and it’s one
of those things where everyone enjoys
coming into training every single day.
“Everyone’s got great character. We
come in and the banter is non-stop.
The gaffer’s involved. If one person
comes in wearing a terrible jumper
he’s getting ripped to smithereens. If
someone has done something terrible
in the press we are eggyboffing him.”
Eggy-what? “Eggyboff. It’s where
you ignore the person. You’re not
allowed to talk to them. First person
who does pays a fine or does a forfeit.
The boys eggyboffed Declan Rice for
his Vanilla Ice song.”
Twenty-four hours earlier, Rice
performed a version of the 1990s hit
Ice Ice Baby on social media with his
own name included. “The boys didn’t
speak to him until they got on the
plane,” Antonio says, laughing again.
It’s been a recipe for success. West
Ham have recorded statement
victories against Liverpool, Leicester
City, Manchester United and
Tottenham this season, but Antonio
sees the progress in consistency.
“Even when we were fighting against
relegation we would always play well
against the big teams,” he says. “Now
we have become more consistent.
We’re playing well against top-six
clubs and doing well against clubs we
feel we should do well against.”
His ambitions go further than this
season. “The World Cup!” Antonio
says. “Jamaica has not been in the
World Cup for over 20 years now, so
to help them get there would be a
massive achievement.”
From JD Sports to competing in
Qatar, the journeyman would have a
story even the most ardent eggyboff
enforcer would not want to silence.
6 All three episodes of South of the
River are available to watch via the BT
Sport app and will be shown on BT
Sport 3 on December 28 from 9.30amWest Ham striker tells
Tom Roddy life could
have been very
different had
he taken the
wrong path
as teenager
West Ham v
ChelseaToday, 12.30pm
TV: BT Sport 1
Radio: talkSPORTAntonio, West Ham’s record goalscorer in the Premier League having only made
his debut aged 25, is level with Cristiano Ronaldo on six league goals this seasonIAN MACNICOL/GETTY IMAGESWhen Aston Villa host Leicester City
tomorrow it will be a reunion between
two men with a shared history. There is
mutual respect between Steven
Gerrard and Brendan Rodgers but the
initial warmth has cooled over
conflicting interests. If they meet for a
post-match drink they would have
more baggage than Heathrow.
Rodgers accelerated the end of
Gerrard’s Liverpool career. As managerRodgers sped up Gerrard’s
departure from LiverpoolManagerial rivalry that has more baggage than Heathrow
and captain they had three seasons
together. It was all sunshine at first
when the then 39-year-old Rodgers
arrived in the summer of 2012. He even
moved into a house in Formby that he
bought from Gerrard.
Rodgers was “a very good man with
whom I’ve never exchanged a single
cross word”, Gerrard wrote in a 2015
autobiography. He played for Rodgers
126 times over three seasons, scoring 37
goals. In 2013-14 they had one hand on
the Premier League trophy until
Gerrard’s slip against Chelsea.Manchester City caught up
with them and time caught
up with Gerrard. Soon
Rodgers pulled him aside
to say he would start
managing his appear-
ances. “It pushed me
into making a decision
to move on,” he later
said. Their last working
day as colleagues was inMay 2015 (Stoke City 6,
Liverpool 1), and then
Gerrard left for
California. Rodgers was
sacked five months
later and three years
passed before they
came together again as
managers in Glasgow.
“He is one of many
managers I watch closely
and, in my position, when
you are starting out and
trying to gain that experiencethen they are the type of people you try
to learn from,” Gerrard said yesterday.
Rodgers had a two-year, six-trophy
start having arrived at Celtic in 2016
before Gerrard came to Rangers in- They went head-to-head for nine
months and in only two derbies before
Rodgers left.
If Villa win tomorrow they will climb
above Leicester in the table. There will
be handshakes but the closeness of the
early days has been lost.
Aston Villa v Leicester City
Sky Sports Premier League, 4.30pm
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