AN ITALIAN ADVENTURE WITH CHARLTON

Just before I left school, I got the chance to join up with Inter Milan. Charlton had formed a link with the Italian club and I was told me and another boy, Alex Martin, who was a year older than me, were going out to do an apprenticeship in Italy. I was 15 when I went over there and played for their Under-19s and went to school in Milan. We even had season passes for the San Siro, which was fantastic. We trained with the first team a couple of times which was a massive learning curve. It was an unbelievable experience. Robbie Keane was at Inter at the time and we caught up with him once at the training ground. We even had a friendly with the first team. They had [Christian] Vieri up front. We got battered in the game and he scored about six. Recoba, a brilliant player, played alongside him. Javier Zanetti and Clarence Seedorf were in the team too, it was amazing.

Initially we were supposed to be in Italy for a year but we only ended up staying for five or six months and I think we were there long enough really. We missed home a little bit and I had missed the start of my apprenticeship with Charlton, so I wanted to get back to that and get in with all the lads. Reserve team football was the most important thing for me at the time. Looking back now it would have been nice to stay there for the whole year but six months at the time was about right.

It was a lot different over there. All the lads went to school in the morning and me and Alex were trying to learn Italian. It was a bit of a shambles to be honest, the teacher didn´t always turn up and we used to mess about a bit. The other lads would come back for lunch and we´d train in the afternoon about 3pm. Then we´d all go back to the hostel with all the boys from different parts of Italy and the world. We had a Nigerian boy, Clarence Seedorf´s brother Chedric and a few more from overseas. It was exciting at the time and I couldn´t wait to tell my mates. They were thrilled for me and the experience as a whole helped my career.

Charlton was the first time I´d been a footballer full-time in the youth team so I got back to doing all the jobs and other bits and pieces a young player has to do when he´s starting out in the game. I was in the youth team ´til I was about 18, when I signed my first pro contract. Then at 19 I went on loan to Leyton Orient for my first professional games. I played about seven times and scored a goal so it was a good learning curve. It was the first time I´d played League football and obviously it was a bit different from youth team and reserve team football. It was a bit of a shock at first, it was the first time I´d played in front of a crowd on a Saturday afternoon and it was all a bit surreal. The following season I was back at Charlton, in the first team squad and travelling everywhere with them. I made the bench about five times but never got on. I was disappointed but it was just one of those things.