I was wandering up Stourbridge High Street, in the West Midlands, on a grey Monday morning this week when I spied a TV crew walking towards me. Not a common sight in these parts. I raised a comradely eyebrow. “We’re on Bellingham watch,” explained the reporter. You see, Jude Bellingham, English football’s wunderkind – and apparently a lovely chap to boot – is from these parts. It wasn’t clear to me, or perhaps even the crew, what being on Bellingham watch entailed. What were we looking out for? Had word got out that he had popped home?
Like a meerkat, I peered into Pound Bazaar to see if he was in there, but no joy. Neither was he in Greggs. The news editor who had dispatched the crew had plainly concluded that on the morning after a brilliant performance the night before, there was nowhere else to be but on the kid’s home patch. Anxious to be of assistance, I pointed them in the direction of the nice chap in Timpson I’d been chatting to, who I knew at that moment was busy cutting some keys for me, thinking happily about Bellingham and England as he worked.
Civic pride is a precious thing, whatever the driver. Everyone gets a little lift. A rising local star raises all craft; I swear the narrowboats are sitting a little higher on the Stourbridge canal. And I’m walking a centimetre or so taller because Jude went to the same primary school as me in nearby Hagley. OK, this was 35 years after I was there, but I don’t mind telling you that my school friend’s twin sons, my godchildren, with whom I watched England on Sunday night, have an elder sister who was in the year below Bellingham, and the twins played football with him, or perhaps it was with his brother, who may turn out to be an even better footballer than Jude. Or something like that. OK, my link to the lad is tenuous, but it’s working for me.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
