Page 10 - 358264 LP231909 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 (Issue 257)
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THE EMBLETONS
Remember the pride you felt when one of your bairns turned out for the school team? Imagine how that pride would be multiplied if that bairn signed a professional contract and then actually played for a league team? Make that a local team, and it doesn’t get much better. As fans, we’d love to see
a Sunderland team packed with local talent, and this season we’ve got Dan Neil and Elliot Embleton as the regular heartbeat of the midfield. In order to get an idea of how it feels, we caught up with Elliot’s mam.
Was it always football with Elliot?
his dad did. We’ve got another two sons, and they were all at Sunderland at the same time, at the academy. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. One’s nineteen and the other’s sixteen now, and one
When he was four we took him to something in the village called Simply Soccer, for toddlers, then a year later a Sunderland scout came along and he must have thought he had something, but at the time they couldn’t take them into the academy at that age. As soon as he was six he was taken on by the academy, and from then
How did it progress for him? There was International recognition with England at junior levels
When he went on to play for England schoolboys, the under 17s, under 18s, 19s, 20s it was because he’d kept working hard and wanting to learn. Playing for England meant he was away a lot, and I didn’t get to see them but
got released when he was about eleven and so did the other. They could certainly play football but they didn’t have the same desire, the same application, as Elliot coming through the academy, and
on he moved to the U8s and so on. He was
just mad about football, and when he was little he loved Wayne Rooney. He had every strip of every team, every pair of football boots, he just loved it. I’m so proud of him, he’s worked so hard to get where he is, he would never miss training unless he was poorly and even then we really had to force him to him stay off.
10 ALOVESUPREME ISSUE257
Embo and his Bros, Kenzie and Jay
