| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc 09:30 - Apr 18 with 3065 views | YorkRanger |
Interesting piece in The Times today for anyone interested
The Wembley arch features heavily in the career of Raheem Sterling. Its construction began shortly after the future Liverpool forward arrived from Jamaica, aged five, to live nearby. It can be seen from the first pitch he trained on. It is tattooed on his arm. It is the first part of the stadium he will see when he travels to tomorrow’s FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa.
Sterling, now 20, is the player most likely to set the showpiece event alight and he is also the player with the most compelling story. As the man who discovered him says, it is too remarkable to make up. Sterling was an undersized boy convinced he could be a footballer, but who did not have a team. He was the only boy, once he found one, who would cry if he was losing in a training session.
At the age of nine, Sterling was at a special needs school and required a mentor. He was referred to Clive Ellington, a youth worker in Kilburn, northwest London. “I’m going to be a footballer,” he said, no matter how often Ellington talked about the importance of back-up plans.
“I took him to the park one day,” Ellington recalls, “and I thought, he’s got something about him, he was outshining all the others. “
Ellington asked him what he did at the weekend. “Nothing,” came the reply.” His mentor was astonished. “I said, ‘Don’t you play football?’ ‘No,’ Raheem said. ‘I just kick the ball outside my house.’ ”
Ellington introduced him to Alpha and Omega, a Sunday youth team attached to a Christian fellowship. Within five minutes a group of coaches gathered, their expressions the same; utter disbelief. “We all thought, ‘What have we uncovered here?’ ” Ellington says. As Ellington drove Sterling to and from games he would hold out a pen, pretending it was a microphone. “Raheem Sterling, how do you feel about making your debut for England at 16?” Ellington would ask. “And he would look at me like I was a nutter.”
Ellington was only a year out – Sterling made his senior debut for his country at 17 against Sweden in Stockholm, but his former mentor still texts him, when he has been in the news, to remind him of his early media training.
It was Ellington who helped Sterling to make the transition from Vernon House School to mainstream education. He says the boy should never have been at a special needs school and that he thrived at Oakington Manor.
It did not take long for the professional club scouts to find the boy with supreme pace and balletic balance. Peter Moring, then a scout for Queens Park Rangers, tipped off the club. Sterling trained with QPR aged ten, signed when 11 and was offered an extended schoolboy contract at 12.
“He was small, but good,” says Steve Gallen, Queens Park Rangers’ senior professional development coach. “We gave him the longest deal you can give a kid of that age. I became the under-16 manager and I dragged him into the under-16 team when he was 13. I was cautious, it wasn’t easy for him, people were kicking him or late with challenges because he was so quick, but he was good enough to be playing at their level.”
Sterling kept turning out on Sundays for Alpha and Omega, though. He was not supposed to and there was, for a few years, a bizarre stand-off in which he did not mention QPR to his Sunday team-mates and coaches, who knew perfectly well he had signed for club, and QPR pretended not to know what he was up to. The feeling was, according to Gallen, that he was better off playing football than hanging about on the rough St Raphael’s Estate, in Brent.
Still, Ellington went along to some of the QPR games and he recalls a youth match against Arsenal where none of the Arsenal substitutes wanted to get on the pitch, so fearful were they of Sterling’s speed. Eventually the referee told the QPR coaches to give Sterling a five-minute break so that the Arsenal players could be substituted.
At 14, Gallen took him into his under-18 side. Again the coach was cautious, the opposition were so much bigger, but “I had to bring him in because he was better than them. He was still tiny, but he was as good as anyone if not better than those three years older.”
At the same time, an agent had been in touch as Sterling was free to try out for other clubs and Tottenham Hotspur were at the front of the queue. Gallen had to think quickly. “I talked him out of it by saying he could become the youngest player in QPR’s history,” he says.
This would have meant Sterling being put in the first team before he was 15 years and nine months old, Frank Sibley’s age when he made his QPR debut in 1963, but Gallen believed that it was plausible; Sterling was impressed and signed again for QPR immediately.
“Tottenham would have paid him much more but he wanted to make history,” Gallen says. This is why Gallen believed Sterling when he said in a recent BBC interview about his stalled Liverpool contract talks that he is not motivated by money. “He just wants to win; I 100 per cent believe what he said in the TV interview. It’s not a ploy to get more out of Liverpool.”
As soon as Sterling played for the under -18s, though, “It opened the box”, according to Gallen. He was on public view and more scouts came to see him. Gallen says that he was tempted to hide him away, to keep him in teams with players his own age, but that would have made a mockery of his job.
“He would have been devastated,” he says. “I pushed hard to get him into the England set-up at under-16 level. After that it went crazy and eventually Liverpool bought him. We were going off to the England games together, we were working on plans to keep him at QPR. His mum didn’t want him to leave London. I was very, very, upset when he left because I liked the kid so much, and I knew my job was to get the best players and keep them.”
Ellington agrees that when Sterling says he is not motivated by money, he is telling the truth. “If someone had new boots, he wasn’t fazed,” he says. “He never discussed money, or cars. He’s as humble as they come.”
When Ellington talks to Sterling or texts him, he does not discuss the most recent game or tactics but reminds his protégé to stay humble. “It was never about the trimmings, it was about the football,” he says. “He was one of the nicest boys I’ve ever mentored.”
In the end, the Alpha coaches had to tell Sterling to stop turning up for Sunday games. He was on the verge of greatness, they said, he could not risk an injury.
In February 2010, Liverpool paid £500,000 to take Sterling from QPR. There is a 20 per cent sell-on clause (rising to 22 per cent if he moves abroad), so the London club may yet reap the financial dividend of nurturing his talent. He was 15 and very close to making the history that Gallen had promised. Gallen gave Sterling his reserve-team debut when he was 14. Jim Magilton had been sacked as QPR manager and Gallen was temporarily in charge, but still went to Sterling’s school to pick him up so he could play.
“I’d have loved to have made him the youngest player,” he says. “For him, for the glory. I wasn’t getting paid extra or anything. Raheem was all over it. That was his ambition as well.
“It’s encouraging that he hasn’t reached his peak yet. I hope he gets sold. Liverpool fans won’t like me saying it, but I want everyone to recognise he’s done so well. If we ended up with, say, £10 milllion, then that is justified.” |  | | |  |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 11:41 - Apr 18 with 2928 views | TacticalR |
Thanks YorkRanger. It's interesting that both Ellington and Gallen believe him when Sterling says he isn't in it for the money. That's probably more galling for Liverpool as it means he's saying they aren't going to win anything. |  |
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| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 13:55 - Apr 18 with 2779 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
Great article.
Another 15 of him going for £10m and we've cleared our debt : ( |  | | |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 10:13 - Apr 19 with 2449 views | SpiritofGregory |
Chelsea planning a £25m bid for Sterling. |  | | |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 11:24 - Apr 19 with 2375 views | PunteR |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 10:13 - Apr 19 by SpiritofGregory |
Chelsea planning a £25m bid for Sterling. |
So £5,000,000 to us then. Nice. |  |
| Occasional providers of half decent House music. |
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| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 15:34 - Apr 20 with 2083 views | JordanFoster |
When he was going to leave QPR, a game was arranged for scouts to come and watch at Spurs' training ground. It was the Spurs U15 side against a Brent U15 side.
Sterling did very well, really well in fact and impressed a lot of scouts. At the end of the game the coaching staff at Spurs came together to discuss his performance and if he was worth going in for. They were all split so the 'head coach' had the final say, which was a no. Sterling was "too small" to ever really make an impact at a top club.
The coach in question? Tim Sherwood. [Post edited 20 Apr 2015 15:48]
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| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 15:46 - Apr 20 with 2052 views | TacticalR |
It sounds like he couldn't see beyond the end of his own gilet. | |
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| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 16:10 - Apr 20 with 2022 views | whittocksRs |
SELL SELL SELL. | | | |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 21:17 - Apr 20 with 1923 views | YorkRanger |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 15:34 - Apr 20 by JordanFoster |
When he was going to leave QPR, a game was arranged for scouts to come and watch at Spurs' training ground. It was the Spurs U15 side against a Brent U15 side.
Sterling did very well, really well in fact and impressed a lot of scouts. At the end of the game the coaching staff at Spurs came together to discuss his performance and if he was worth going in for. They were all split so the 'head coach' had the final say, which was a no. Sterling was "too small" to ever really make an impact at a top club.
The coach in question? Tim Sherwood. [Post edited 20 Apr 2015 15:48]
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clearly hadnt developed his tactical prowess then... | | | |
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| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 08:43 - Apr 21 with 1787 views | simmo |
Really sounds like the little hood rat people paint him as doesn't he. |  |
| ask Beavis I get nothing Butthead |
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| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 09:02 - Apr 21 with 1751 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 08:43 - Apr 21 by simmo |
Really sounds like the little hood rat people paint him as doesn't he. |
Young black lad from Harlesden.
Some people have filled in the gaps with their own Daily Mail style bilge . | | | |
| Sterling, the early years, Steve Gallen, sell on provision etc on 10:27 - Apr 21 with 1681 views | TacticalR |
Is this something to do with iron bars? And does Raheem vote Conservative? | |
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