You never forget your first. That is the premise of the brand new BBC podcast hosted by Jermain Defoe and Troy Deeney.
Over 12 weekly episodes, Defoe & Deeney Football Firsts features the two former strikers recalling the initial time they experienced something in the game, how these encounters shaped their respective careers and who they are as people.
Episode one is released on 17 August and focuses on a subject the pair are well qualified to cover – strike partnerships.
Here, BBC Sport brings you a taste of some of the stories and thoughts they had on the subject, which will be available in full on BBC Sounds.
Who were their first strike partners?
Troy: I had two. I came to football quite late. I was a builder so when I started I was 19.
First of all, it was Tommy Mooney – old-school legend. I was at Walsall and I wasn’t really signed because I was on trial, and we had Wycombe away.
They made me travel and the manager at the time, Richard Money, said to me “write this report on this striker”. So I watched the other team’s striker, which was Tommy.
He was 38 at this time and I was 19. So I write that he runs in the channels well, but he’s slow and looks to be carrying a bit of weight. I’m being brutally honest. I’m thinking “there’s no way this manager is going to hammer me after”.
Fast forward two months and we sign him. First day in the office, I get called in. I go in and Tommy is already there. I’d forgotten all about the report. I get told “Tommy is going to be your mentor, but first of all can you just read this to him”, and he slid me this piece of paper that I had written.
I’m like: “He’s fat, doesn’t really run around”. Tommy takes it all in good jest but says “Oh, I’m fat, let me show you how to do it then”. From that day, he is the person on me and if I miss the target it is two push-ups, stay out after the session and do all these different things. I’d never been in any academy system, I’d gone from bricklaying to this, and he taught me how to be a professional.
Michael Ricketts is the other. He came in six months later. He had come from playing for England, Bolton, Middlesbrough, Leeds.
He would say to me: “Why are you running so much? Stay here, relax.” He played old-school two-touch with me, flicking it here, hammering the ball at you. Deal with it. For five months he battered me on two-touch and I lost every day. And then I started winning. He was like “you’re here now”.
I always say that Tommy taught me how to be a professional, but Ricko taught me how to be a footballer.
Jermain: Paolo di Canio and Freddie Kanoute were my first two big ones [at first club West Ham].
I learned so much from Paolo. I used to ask him “why is your kit so tight?” because everyone else had baggy kits in those days. But he pretty much wore kids’ sizes. He’d say to me “so nobody can pull my shirt”. So simple. I was in the youth team and I asked the kit man for a small kit.
I would watch him in training in possession. Tight, never gave it away. Finishing was top, receiving the ball anywhere. That was the standard.
We played Ipswich away and I was on the bench. Paolo got a knock, maybe five or six minutes to go, so he came off and I went on. He was captain so normally he would take the armband off and give it to me and I’d give it to Trevor Sinclair, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick. Instead of putting it in my hand, he put it on me. I don’t know why he did it, maybe to give me a bit of confidence. I was young and I thought “I’m keeping it on”.
Soon after, a long ball, one-on-one with the goalkeeper and I scored and he came up to me after the game, all Italian and kissing me and happy. That’s brilliant, for a senior player to do that for a young player.
But Di Canio wasn’t always so positive…
Jermain: Oh, poor Eddie [Gilham], the kit man at West Ham!
There was a pre-season game, so just normal shirts, no name on or anything.
I walk in the changing room and Paolo must wear a medium. He puts it on and turns to Harry Redknapp and says “boss, it’s too big”.
So the lads are thinking he must be joking. No, he says he won’t play. He is going mad. “I can’t play, the shorts are too big” and all this.
So the kit man had to drive to a sports shop to get a small shirt and shorts and come back, otherwise he wouldn’t play.
I remember sitting there thinking “wow, this is mad”. But everyone knew what he was like and Harry was just “yeah, go get him the kit”. Eddie, the kit man, what a guy!
How would the hosts have got on as strike partners?
Jermain: I think we would have done all right you know. Little and large. It’d have been interesting. You’d have bullied some defenders. I’d run in behind, you’d come to feet.
Troy: I think it would have worked. I’d have looked after you. You’re little, you’re nippy, you’re getting smashed about. You need big security like me.
Jermain: If I played with you, I’d have had a lot more mouth. When I played with Les Ferdinand at the back end of his career, I felt I could say anything to anyone. I was smashing people and if they smashed back, Les would look after me.
When I played with Crouchy [Peter Crouch at Portsmouth and Tottenham], it’s not the same. He’s just chilled and lanky.
To hear more about their favourite strike partners, when David Nugent “nicked” Jermain’s England goal and the time Troy didn’t speak to Odion Ighalo for two days, listen to the first episode on BBC Sounds.
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