8 2GS Saturday September 12 2020 | the times
Aston Villa have plenty to be proud about. Well
motivated by their head coach Dean Smith, they
fought hard to stay up. Villa’s captain, Jack
Grealish, has made his long-craved England
debut. They have bought shrewdly, bringing in
Championship talent such as Ollie Watkins and
Matty Cash. And in Tyrone Mings, Villa have a
centre back in the form of his life, pivotal to
their defensive defiance with his blocking and
leadership that helped ensure their Premier
League status, as well as being a widely praised,
socially aware role model.
Mings works with Prince William,
campaigning on mental health issues. He runs
the Tyrone Mings Academy in Birmingham,
providing A-licensed coaching for children. He’s
helping the FA devise a diversity code. He’s
involved with fellow England internationals
Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling in using
their profile and social media to lobby for social
change. “We’re a fearless generation,” Mings
says.
He’s more than a football player. “I’d describe
myself as a deep-thinker, quite caring, quite
aware, very loving but I’m very driven and I’m
very cold at times. I’m not necessarily here to
make friends. I’m here to win. I’m here to be the
best I can be. I understand my role in society,
which is trying to help, so that’s where the
empathy comes from.
“My parents were a huge influence on me
when I was growing up. I took different
characteristics from the two of them.
“My dad is a lot more cold and calculated. My
mother is unconditional love and showering
emotions on you.”
Now 27, Mings’s back story reveals a man with
an understanding of the harshness of life outside
the football bubble, living for almost a year in a
homeless shelter with his mother and three
sisters, football scholarship to Millfield School,
rejected by Bristol Rovers, Swindon Town,
Portsmouth, released from Southampton’s
academy. He worked as a mortgage adviser,
playing non-League with Yate Town and
Chippenham Town before Ipswich Town gave
him a trial. He moved on to Bournemouth and
now Villa.
He has life in perspective. “The fact that I can
identify myself with someone who works in an
Sport Football
‘Any time that destiny isn’t in my
office, a bar, a restaurant, everyday jobs, means I
don’t see myself as Tyrone Mings, the Aston
Villa and England player,” he says. “I’ve seen life
on the other side. I know what people will be
feeling, the stresses other people are under. I
have had them myself.”
He’s been on the edge. A knee injury suffered
at Bournemouth tipped him towards inner
turmoil. “Any time that destiny isn’t in my
control is really mentally unstabling. At the start
of my knee injury I drank a lot, which was
obviously detrimental to me getting my knee fit.
I was low enough that I didn’t want to go to
training. I didn’t want to speak about my
problems, I didn’t want to do any rehab.”
It is why he campaigns on mental health.
“There are tell-tale signs if it creeps up on you.
It usually derives from stress but everybody’s
different. Whenever I’m not in control it’s a
really unstable place to be. I speak to Héctor
Bellerín [of Arsenal] quite a lot about it.
“It’s really annoying people label you as a
footballer and you should only be that [immune
to mental health issues] because it’s such an
unstable industry whether it’s coming to an end
of contract or even week to week: you have a
good game and you’re a hero and then go to
have a bad game and being the worst player the
club has ever signed.
“It’s such an unstable place to be that things
you can do outside of work to maintain a level
of happiness or sanity really adds to you as a
person and as a player. I like reading. I’m really
into self-help or business books, trying to learn
more about myself. I go for a few bike rides
along the canals.”
Those inner-city waterways weave close by
Villa Park, where Mings has become such an
important defender for Smith’s side. He doesn’t
tackle too frequently, preferring to usher
opponents away from goal or as the last line of
defence, he’s throwing in blocks. “I’m not in the
middle of the pitch nailing someone. I don’t
think Virgil van Dijk made
many tackles. I’m in
esteemed company!” He’s
not comparing himself to
the Liverpool move-reader,
just talking about different
styles of defending.
“Growing up, Rio
Ferdinand was a good
one for me, a well
rounded centre back
that I would have
modelled my game
on, even being left
back, just the way heanticipated what’s going to happen rather than
diving into tackles.
“I’m quite leggy and athletic and Rio stepped
out with the ball quite a lot. I like the leadership
of Thiago Silva and Sergio Ramos.”
He looks and learns from Smith’s assistant,
John Terry. “He’s a huge help. A lot of
weaknesses in my game were perhaps strengths
of John Terry. He was very aggressive in his
defending but the best thing I can take from him
is probably his mindset to train to the top level
every day.”
He studies opponents. “I quite like playing
against direct strikers, a willing runner like
Jamie Vardy, the best example of someone who
loves playing on the shoulder and loves getting
into foot races. That’s one of my biggest
strengths. That coupled with my anticipation
means I back myself in foot races.
“Players that play the game between the ears I
find a lot more difficult. Roberto Firmino drifts
off you, into midfield. Sergio Agüero spends the
majority of the time offside and you don’t really
know where he is until [Kevin] De Bruyne cocks
his leg back to play the pass and he’s all of a
sudden onside. Agüero has given me more of a
problem than anyone else in my career.
“Manchester United are a bit like the
Liverpool front three. They interchange like the
Red Arrows.”
Such has been the quality of Mings’s
performances that he has become hugely
admired by the Villa faithful. He will run out for
today’s friendly against United at Villa Park,
again missing the fans. “The Holte End is just
such a special place,” he says. “It’s a real shame
they are not here. That’s a huge part of the
game and sometimes all it needs is a bit of a lift
from the crowd. We miss them dearly.”
Mings has been impressed with Watkins,
Villa’s new £28 million striker, in training. “He’s
really sharp. He’s getting used to us, we’re
getting used to him. Matty Cash will
be great for us too. In an ideal world
we’d have got more players in sooner
because it’s never easy asking people
to hit the ground running in the
Premier League, let alone when
you sign them ten days
before the season starts.
We have to be
understanding.
Everybody’s still
holding out for pre-
Covid prices and the
buying club is of
course asking for
post-Covid
prices.”
He studies
footballIn a candid interview, England
defender Tyrone Mings
tells Henry Winter
about his own mental
health battles
It’s tokenism
that they’ve
put ‘no room
for racism’. It’s
why we wanted
‘Black Lives
Matter’ to
remain on the
shirtsMings says he enjoys
playing for Southgate Mings, who was prominent in the idea of players’