seen things I don’t think anyone else has seen in football,” Jermaine Pennant says on a late afternoon streaked with fading sunshine
Chris Chester Womens Jersey in Essex. We sit together on a small concrete bench behind an empty series of pitches which nurture the football dreams of boys at the West Ham Academy but, today, provides the training ground for Pennant’s unlikely new team. Billericay Town play in the Bostik Premier League, a regional division of semi-professional clubs which occupies the seventh tier of English football. Roberto Firmino stands tall for Liverpool amid familiar defensive frailties Read more Pennant has played for Arsenal and Liverpool, scored a hat-trick in his first full Premier League game and appeared in Champions League and FA Cup finals, but the 34-year-old has endured too many bruising experiences to think only of past glory. “I feel good here,” Pennant says. “It’s the next step and I’ve had a taste of everything football can throw at you … the highs, the lows, the in-betweens. I can bring everything I’ve learned to what I do here.” Billericay is different to everything else – from the bleak Meadows estate in Nottingham where he lost his mum to cancer at the age of three, to becoming the most expensive teenage footballer in Britain when he was bought for ?2m by Arsenal as a 15-year-old, to his dad being jailed for dealing crack and heroin, to Pennant himself ending up in prison, to facing Milan at the Olympic Stadium in Athens in the 2007 Champions League final, to playing for clubs in settings as diverse as Stoke, Singapore, India, Wigan and Bury. ‘Prison did change me. I’ve got to take credit for not letting it destroy
http://www.footballpanthershop.com/Daryl_Worley_Jersey_Cheapme’ Pennant stresses that Billericay is not a last resort for an ageing footballer often accused of squandering his talent by people who have never met him. “There were so many options,” he says after enjoying Edinburgh during his month-long trial at Hibernian in June. “It was not only Hibs. I could have gone to Turkey, Cyprus, back to India, Indonesia. This was definitely not the only deal on offer. People wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I went to the top division in Turkey or Cyprus but this is about the big picture. When I had the offer from Glenn Tamplin [Billericay’s millionaire owner and now manager] I couldn’t turn it down. There could be opportunities here to prepare for coaching or management.” Few people might imagine Pennant as a future football manager because, to many, he remains locked in an image that stems from his wayward days which culminated in him serving a third of his three-month jail sentence for a drink-driving offence in 2005. His ill-disciplined behaviour at Arsenal and on loan at Birmingham City was echoed by an unhappy spell in La Liga, at Real Zaragoza in 2009-10, when he was never picked again after being late for training three times in two weeks. Pennant’s private life, featuring relationships with various glamour models, was often splashed across the tabloidsHe now thinks about football and life with much more clarity and depth. “Definitely. I’m taking everything more seriously because you can’t play forever. You’ve got to grow up. You’ve got to be a man and take care of business and your family. Obviously, I made many mistakes. But I was young and it was exciting. You have a lot of money at such a young age – as well as the responsibilities and pleasures. You’re in the public eye
http://www.broncosfootballprosshop.com/Derek_Wolfe_Jersey_Cheapand I was just enjoying it and not realising I was also a role model. But I’m different now.” Advertisement His formative years were shaped by the death of his mother. “I was with my dad from the age of three. He moved on multiple times, with multiple women, always chopping and changing. I’m the oldest of four. It’s me, one brother and two sisters. They stayed with their mums. So it was just me and my dad and wherever he went, I went. I never had that mum figure and half of my problems came from that point. I also didn’t have a stable dad back then. There was a big gap in my early-to-mid-teens where I didn’t have either.” In the midst of such confusion, in 1999, Arsenal signed him from Notts County and his manager, Sam Allardyce, railed against the London club’s “underhand” tactics. A brittle and precocious teenager might have been rescued – but Arsène Wenger’s patience ran out. Years later Pennant praises Wenger before detailing how his Arsenal career unravelled. “Of all the managers I played under, Arsène had the most influence. That’s where I learned my tricks of the trade – through Arsène. “But he never quite gave me the opportunity. That was frustrating but Arsène is very strict and if your attitude is not right he won’t give you that chance. At the same time that was half the reason why my attitude wasn’t always right. I was spot-on for months. I was playing well for the reserves but it was like he’d lost faith in me. It seemed as if no matter what I did I wouldn’t get that chance. It was hard because we had a great team. The Invincibles. I was proud to train with that squad every dayYou remember that game where I scored the hat-trick for Arsenal? The 6-1 win against Southampton [in May 2003 when Pennant’s only goals for the club came during a dazzling 11-minute burst in the first half]? That was my first-ever [league] start for Arsenal, it was great.” Advertisement His hat-trick marked the first match in Arsenal’s famous 49-game unbeaten streak which would carry the Invincibles to the title the following season. Yet Pennant made only 12 appearances for Arsenal during the six years he was contracted to the club. “After the hat-trick I was on the bench the next game [a 4-0 win at Sunderland to finish the 2002-03 season]. I thought that was the start of it and I would just kick on at Arsenal. But it never happened and I got more and more frustrated and lost interest. I thought: ‘This is going nowhere.’” That frustration contributed to the loss of his driving licence nine months later and, in January 2005, the accident that resulted in his prison term. “Yeah, I went off the rails,” Pennant says, remembering how he smashed his Mercedes into a lamp-post while over the limit and still banned from driving. “My family wasn’t around and, being so young, you make wrong decisions. The next thing I was in prison.” He looks up and says: “Of course,” when I ask if he remembers his prison number. “MX7232. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Prison did change me. But not many people experience that and then play in a Champions League final. I’ve got to take some credit for
Curtis Martin Youth Jerseynot letting it destroy me.” Rafael Benítez and Liverpool signed him on a four-year contract in July 2006. He recalls how being doubted by Wenger’s assistant, Pat Rice, spurred him on. “I definitely used it. He told my agent: ‘He’s not going to make it.’ I don’t know if he had it in for me or if my personality was a bit rich. He’s old school, Pat, but I always believed I’d make it. At Liverpool I said to my agent after scoring against Chelsea and playing in the Champions League final: ‘I wonder if Pat watched the game tonight?’” Pennant laughs. “I saw Pat again when I played for Stoke against Arsenal a few times. It was kinda frosty between us at the Britannia. We won 3-1 and I scored and ran past the Arsenal fans to rub it in. That was a good moment. For Pat to say: ‘You’re not going to make it’ and then I play the Champions League final and score against his team was pretty sweet
