West Ham star Michail Antonio has paid tribute to the good advice given to him by his mum…which meant he didn’t end up a Tottenham player!
The attacker chose Mother’s Day to lift the lid on her wise words that lead to a career in the professional game; and saw him in a Hammers shirt rather than a Spurs top.
Jet-heeled winger Antonio has told how his mum made sure that as an aspiring teenage footballer he listened to her advice that he complete his education before trying to make it as a player.
Antonio will be key to Slavan Bilic’s side’s bid for victory when they travel to Humberside next Saturday for a Premier League encounter with Hull City. They do so on the back on a five-game winless streak and sitting 12th in the top flight table.
And he has revealed how was set to join the White Hart Lane outfit at 14 but was told he couldn’t because of the travelling and late nights impacting negatively on his education.
Antonio told the club’s website: “I was going to go to uni. At that moment I was in college doing a BTEC and I actually got into Southampton University to do Sports Science. So in the following September I would have gone to uni, but I managed to get signed by Reading in 2008. I was thinking of becoming a PE teacher, so I’ve had other plans, but there was only one thing in my heart and that was football.
“At 14, the manager of my school also coached at Tottenham and he got a scout to come down. Me and my friend both got scouted and he scored an unbelievable overhead kick from outside the box! So, he went and my Mum said ‘No’ because, to be honest, I lived in south London and would have had to travel to north London every day.
“I also had to do college, so I’d have got home at eleven o’clock at night and then had to get up to go to school. My Mum said ‘football isn’t a guarantee, but education is’ and ‘education comes first’, and I think it’s one of the best things she could have ever done for me, to be honest, because I’ve now got my education and I’ve also got my football.”