The fateful meeting which set the star player of this Euro 2020 tournament on his path and provided the foundational building blocks for Raheem Sterling’s life was initially inauspicious.
Clive Ellington, who had worked in the motor trade, rising from technician to manager, liked his job but figured there must be more to life and had begun to volunteer as a mentor to young boys in Brent.
The eight-year-old he was due to meet had been assigned to him because his father had died early, a tragic, violent death. At the time the boy in question had been moved to a school with reduced class sizes and specialist help for children with specific emotional needs.
It was Clive Ellington who first took Raheem Sterling to training on Saturday afternoons
Ellington surveyed the cheeky youngster before him and asked: ‘What are we going we do to make you happy?’
Ellington recalls: ‘He was a young child who always smiled. But when he played football he absolutely beamed. The way to connect with him was to understand his love. He wasn’t playing for a club so I said: “What do you do on Saturdays?”
‘Nothing.’
‘Well, you are from now on because you’re coming training with me….’
So Sterling came to sign for his first club, Alpha and Omega FC, the team connected to the church fellowship in Kingsbury.
Sterling signed for his first club, Alpha and Omega FC, and his first session change his life
However, he later joined the QPR academy at just 11 years old (above) and went on from there
Every Saturday, without fail, Sterling would be waiting for Ellington to pick him up from outside his house on Neeld Crescent, in the shadow of Wembley Stadium. ‘No matter how early I got there, he was outside waiting,’ says Ellington.
And a life-changing relationship was born.
‘Clive asking me that simple question was a turning point in my life,’ Sterling has said. ‘People like Clive are massive. A lot of people knew when I was younger I was a menace, I had troubles at school, and he’s a person who helped me with that side and helped me to do something I love. A role model like Clive just helped me to focus on something and it gave me a massive push at that stage in life and gave me the push to help me get to where I wanted.’
Of course, football was central to Sterling’s journey and that first training session was a revelation.
Ellington, who coached an older age group, left Sterling with the Under 9s coach ‘The coach asked: “Who is this young man?” I said: “He’s one of my mentees. He’s very good.” And the coach said: “Yeah,
