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Raheem Sterling’s mother encouraged her son to move to Liverpool to escape a hostile gang culture in London.
Raheem Sterling’s mother encouraged her son to move to Liverpool to escape a hostile gang culture in London. Photograph: Nike
Raheem Sterling’s mother encouraged her son to move to Liverpool to escape a hostile gang culture in London. Photograph: Nike

Raheem Sterling: the mother’s boy from Jamaica who became a man

This article is more than 5 years old
The England forward grew up in London, made his name in Liverpool and now faces another big test at the World Cup

Raheem Sterling once claimed his face was responsible for the criticism he has learned to dismiss during his years at Manchester City, Liverpool and England. “You know, when you see someone on TV and go, ‘I don’t like him’,” he explained. “Some people have that face, and I’ve got it.”

This week it was his right leg. The outcry over a tattoo of an M16 assault rifle prompted a revealing response from the 23-year-old on Instagram, however. “When I was 2 my father died from being gunned down to death I made a promise to myself I would never touch a gun in my life time,” he wrote. “I shoot with my right foot so it has a deeper meaning.”

Sterling never knew his father, who was killed in Jamaica, but says he has been inspired by him on the biggest occasions of his short career. It is his mother, Nadine, who he cites as the greatest influence, as well as his harshest critic.

They emigrated from Kingston to England four years after Sterling’s absent father was murdered, and settled in Neasden, north-west London, where the gifted youngster played football in the shadow of Wembley stadium and attracted scouts from Queens Park Rangers. A tattoo of a young boy holding a football and looking up at the Wembley arch is etched on Sterling’s forearm. That one passed without national debate.

Sterling was removed from mainstream education because of behavioural problems and spent three years at Vernon House special school, where his teacher, Chris Beschi, told him: “If you carry on the way you’re going, by the time you’re 17 you’ll either be playing for England or you’ll be in prison.” He was, Beschi said, “the kid in school who had a kind and innocent passion about him”.

The winger was recruited by QPR as a 10-year-old, but his mother, worried about the influence of gang culture, resolved that he should leave London when scouts from leading Premier League clubs began to call. Arsenal, Chelsea and Fulham were all keen to sign Sterling, but location counted against them. That enabled Liverpool to secure his services, beating City to a deal. The club’s offer to QPR of £450,000, rising to £2m depending on progress, was instrumental in the move north.

Frank McParland, former academy director at Liverpool, persuaded the Anfield club and then manager Rafael Benítez to sanction a sizeable outlay for an untested 15-year-old. Days after his arrival on Merseyside, Sterling made his debut for Liverpool in an under-18s game against local rivals Everton. Within minutes he was felled by a heavy challenge from the Everton left-back. McParland and Kenny Dalglish, watching from the sidelines, feared the worst for the slight teenager. Sterling rose to his feet, smiled at his larger opponent and clattered him back at the first opportunity.

Raheem Sterling, seen here scoring for Liverpool in an FA Youth Cup in 2011, is one of England’s most talented players. Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

McParland says: “Raheem is relentless. He loves playing football and he has always been like that. When we used to do the fitness tests, he used to be the quickest and the fittest. So he would run the longest in the bleep test and also be the fastest. He is the best kid I have ever had. He blocks everything out to concentrate on the game and, if something doesn’t work for him, he’ll go again. You never see him hiding.”

Sterling flourished at Liverpool. At 15 he appeared as a substitute in a pre-season friendly for Roy Hodgson’s team against Borussia Mönchengladbach. Dalglish, Hodgson’s replacement as manager, gave him three substitute appearances in the Premier League. At 17, and under another new manager, Brendan Rodgers, he made his full league debut at Anfield against Manchester City. A full England debut against Sweden followed three months later.

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Rodgers, a former youth academy coach at Chelsea and now Celtic manager, played an influential role in Sterling’s development, on and off the pitch. Alongside Luis Suárez and Daniel Sturridge, Sterling formed part of an exhilarating attack that almost took Liverpool to their first league title for 24 years in 2014.

Rodgers had kept Sterling on his original £2,000-a-week contract for as long as possible at Liverpool. “There is one common denominator when it comes to young players falling by the wayside – money. It distorts reality, it changes people. I’m always cautious of that. I had Raheem playing for England and a regular in the Liverpool first team on £2,000 per week,” he said. “I stretched it out as long as I could.”

The former Liverpool manager delivered an uncharacteristically public warning to the teenager when, having signed a new contract worth £35,000 a week, his form deteriorated. “He needs to stabilise his life, understand the remarkable opportunity he has at one of the biggest clubs in the world and focus everything on his career,” said Rodgers, after Sterling was cleared of assaulting a former girlfriend.

A charge of common assault had also been dropped against Sterling earlier in 2013, but two court cases in quick succession prompted Rodgers to intervene. The player took the advice and, not for the first time, sought stability in a new location, moving from Liverpool to Southport. His mother moved with him before returning to London.

Money and ambition were at the heart of Sterling’s divorce from Liverpool. He and his agent, Aidy Ward, rejected a £100,000-a-week contract at Anfield while denying claims of greed in an interview with the BBC. After 123 games and 29 goals for Liverpool he was sold to City in 2015 for a fee rising to £49m – making him the most expensive English footballer ever at the time. The 23-year-old earns about £200,000 a week in Manchester and talks have opened over a new deal.

Sterling is understandably wary of the media. “I can’t win,” he said, when reflecting on coverage of him eating a Greggs sausage roll while sitting in his limited edition Bentley – and public criticism has affected his performances for Liverpool, England and City. But he is open and articulate and extremely quick-witted when the guard comes down. He has a son, Thiago, with fiancée Paige Milian and a daughter, Melody Rose, from a previous relationship. The forward’s belief that his trophy cabinet would be enhanced at City has been vindicated. He lifted the League Cup at Liverpool’s expense in 2016 and this season, under the demanding guidance of Pep Guardiola, has produced the finest football of his career. Sterling scored 23 goals as City cruised to the Premier League title with a record 100 points. “He’s got bollocks,” said Hodgson, before the last World Cup in Brazil. The former England manager also cautioned Sterling that people “would stop looking for the benefits your game gives and start looking for the potential negatives”, words that ring true four years on.

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