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February 27, 2011. England Under 17s are contesting the final game of the Algarve Tournament against Portugal and in their team is a Birmingham City winger.
The match kicks off at 11am and finishes in a 2-2 draw. England’s party dash to the airport but the young winger knows the flight back to the UK means he will have no chance to watch his boyhood team contest the League Cup final against Arsenal.
So he does his best to put all thoughts out of his mind until the plane touches down. Then he hears six words that will stay with him for the rest of his life: ‘Nathan, you’ve won the cup final!’
Even now, almost six years to the day, the story leaves Nathan Redmond shaking his head in wonder. We meet in a Winchester hotel to discuss Southampton’s quest to win the League Cup but before we go any further, he tells the tale of the events around Birmingham’s improbable triumph.
Redmond, who joined Southampton last summer, became Birmingham’s second youngest player, aged 16 years and 173 days, when he made his debut against Rochdale at the start of that League Cup campaign and played in round four against Brentford. Those appearances would prove hugely significant.
‘When we got back to the club, Alex McLeish had asked me to come to the stadium to be part of the celebrations, when we brought the cup out… unbelievable.
‘The next thing,’ says Redmond, ‘he calls me and Jordon Mutch over, as we had been part of the squad and he told us we were getting medals.
‘We were like, “This is crazy!” Where is the medal now? At home! Right next to the medal I got with Norwich when we won the Championship play-off final (in 2015). The big thing I thought to myself was, “Anything is possible”. It really is if you work to achieve it.’
And that is what Redmond has done: work. He might have always been a precocious talent — so much so that he sat on the bench for Birmingham in the Premier League before he had sat his GCSEs — but his has been an old-fashioned career, shaped with discipline, education and a willingness to graft.
Redmond turns 23 in a week’s time but he has already made 241 senior appearances, a figure few players of his age could think about achieving. It is clear from listening to him, though, that nothing was going to stand in his way. ‘The academy manager at Birmingham, Terry Westley, used to point to where the first team were training,’ Redmond recalls.
‘He would say, “Going over there? It isn’t nice!” He told us we would be sent back if we weren’t ready. My God, that team were tough!
‘There was Lee Bowyer, Roger Johnson, Barry Ferguson . . . I remember the first time Stephen Carr tackled me and the ball ended up on the other side of the pitch it was that hard! It taught me a lot, values. I’m a better person for it.’
He is also indebted to his mother, Michelle. She has been a constant and made it clear in the early days that, without the right application, his dreams would evaporate.
A measure of how much he thinks about her comes when he refuses to put his foot on a sofa for a picture in the accompanying shoot, saying: ‘Mum would kill me if she saw it!’
‘Everything I learned from her,’ says Redmond, who is highly regarded by England manager Gareth Southgate.
‘I know it would have been easy to go off the rails. When I was on the bench for Birmingham, Mum said, “If you don’t get grades, you aren’t going anywhere near the scholarship!”
‘When I left Birmingham (for Norwich in 2013) she taught me a few things in terms of how I could fend for myself. I went there and thought, “This is it”. I had three years on my own. My family would come up every now and again but I just had to learn how to do it by myself.’
Learning is a word that runs through this conversation. Redmond, whose goal in the first leg of the semi-final against Liverpool put Southampton on the way to Wembley, taps into as many people as he can to continue his development, one notable figure being Mark Cavendish.
Redmond was introduced to Cavendish by his adviser Simon Bayliff, and one key piece of advice the cyclist passed on was the importance of eating properly to ensure he had enough energy to be sprinting at the end of a game.
‘He’s a fantastic guy,’ says Redmond, who grew up idolising Thierry Henry. ‘I think you can look at anyone who is achieving big things in their sport, whether it is cycling or boxing or football, NFL, NBA, whatever. You can always learn off the best.
‘Jose Fonte was a massive influence here. He’s one of the healthiest and cleanest living people I’ve met. Everything is fuelled for the performance on Saturday and in training. He would say to us, “The information is out there — it’s up to you to go and get it and use it in the right way”.
‘But with me, the inspiration I get has to be relatable. It is about coming from a place where there are dreams, where it is borderline touchable. By that I mean, looking at someone like James Milner as a fantastic example.
‘He started off at Leeds. Then it was on to Newcastle, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool. He has always gone up and up and that is what I want to achieve. At the moment, I’m at the perfect club for this stage of my development. Who knows where it will lead?’
On Sunday it leads to Wembley. Southampton may be the outsiders in this particular race but preparations have gone smoothly and nothing about the occasion holds any terrors. If anything, this is exactly what Redmond has been working towards throughout his life.
‘I remember walking out with Norwich in 2015 and feeling the heat off the flames that shoot up when the teams emerge,’ he says.
‘I looked up and thought to myself, “Oh my God!” But once the game starts, it’s fine. It’s a different occasion but it’s still just a game of football, isn’t it?
‘You can tell it is special for the club, for the older members of staff. Around the training ground, around the stadium, they can’t stop talking about it when they see us. It should be a good day, shouldn’t it? It will be even better if we get some silverware.’
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