“They adore him. Everyone around here adores him. What he’s done, it’s absolutely ridiculous,” says 26-year-old football fan Kyle Jackson.
It’s nearly an hour before the kick-off in England’s final group game against Slovenia on Tuesday evening and the benches of the Green Duck Brewery in Stourbridge are already packed – and Jude Bellingham is the player everyone is waiting to watch.
“He’s got the world at his feet. It makes people proud, him being from around here,” says Jackson. “You can hear everyone chanting, ‘He’s one of our own’.”
Bellingham was born in Stourbridge, a West Midlands market town about 10 miles outside Birmingham, and people there are fiercely proud of the local lad who, at 20 years old, is already ranked as one of the best football players in the world.
The excitement around Bellingham has reached fever pitch in the town, and the Green Duck has decided to give away a free pint to everyone in its taproom at every game where he scores.
He did so in the 13th minute of England’s first game of the tournament, leading to more than 100 free drinks tokens being distributed through the crowd.
“It was a really good atmosphere. We were just thinking of something we could do, and we thought let’s give away a bit of beer,” says Alex Hill, the brewery’s director.
“It was 100% worth it, and we stuck to our word. It’s a bit of fun, and it gives something back to our customers. And there’s such a sense of pride for him here. Everyone around here tries to find a link to him. We have the mural of him, I see people with flags, Jude’s face, it’s fantastic.”
Tuesday was a night of exasperated cries, hands on heads and fists thumping on tables at frustration that England failed to get any goals in its 90 minutes against Slovenia.
It wasn’t Bellingham’s best performance, most fans agreed, and the England side has been lacklustre since the start of the tournament people said. “But we’re England fans, we live in hope,” said one supporter in the crowd.
Sporting a Bellingham football shirt, Holly Miller-Manly, 39, says everyone in the town has an “affinity for him”.
“Seeing all the Stourbridge flags on TV at the games, it feels like he’s putting Stourbridge on the map,” she says. “He’s such a great role model for kids. He recently came to my daughter’s school and did training with them. And this was just six months ago, so he was already massive.”
Many of the fans in the room have followed Bellingham through his career, from his early days at Birmingham City where he was the youngest first-team player in the club’s history in 2019.
“I’m a Blues fan, so I can remember watching him play. I can remember him scoring his first goal – we won 2-1, he scored the winner,” says Matt Owen, a 30-year-old Stourbridge local.
“When he was playing senior football at 16 you couldn’t tell he was going to be the best in the world, but you could tell he was going to be very good.”
He says the atmosphere in Stourbridge when Bellingham scores for England is particularly special. “There’s not that many famous people from Stourbridge, especially for sport, so having someone who’s possibly a future England captain to be from here is quite mental really,” he says.
“It’s not just in Stourbridge and the Midlands though,” says his friend, Alex Jeavons, 31. “He’s really really popular generally, the way he carries himself, conducts himself, the way he speaks – you wouldn’t think he’s 20 years old. People warm to him because of that.
“It’s just generally quite surreal that he could legitimately be the best footballer in the world, and he’s from here.”
