Growing up as the son of former Premier League star Ian Wright (Arsenal’s second-highest goalscorer), Shaun Wright-Phillips came into the sport with plenty of expectations. In a 15-year career in England’s premier football league, he earned a place for himself outside his father’s shadow. Currently in India for a promotional tour with Manchester City, Wright-Phillips spoke to Sportstar about winning the league title with Chelsea, the role football played in keeping him on the right path as a youngster, his stints with City and the challenges of growing up as the son of a famous footballer.
Q: Your family now has three generations of footballers - your dad, Ian Wright you and now you’re son in Belgium. Your brother played football as well. Did that make life harder or easier for you?
It is what you want it to be. I think pressure is something you either put on yourself and that’s if you listen to the outside noise. People are always going to say ‘He’s not as good as his dad.’ Well, I’m not meant to be as good as my dad. I’m different to my dad. I’m a different person. I play football differently; same with my brother, my son and my daughter. Pressure is not something that you can ever get away from, especially the bigger the club, but it’s always going to be there.
You’re better off just enjoying football the way you did as a kid and getting on with it. And that’s basically what I did. Don’t worry about the outside noise. The only people that really matter when you’re playing is the manager, fans and your teammates. They’re the only ones that can pull you out of the team. If the manager likes you, no matter what anybody else is saying, you’re going to play.
My daughter plays football but I’ve never forced her to take it up. It was entirely up to her. I wanted her to play the sport because she enjoyed it. Not because it was something I was good at.
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you find your way into the sport?
I think the first time that I saw the (Premier League) trophy was on TV. As a kid you don’t really think about it, you think it’s cool, but the first thing you think about is trying to be a professional footballer. You don’t think about, ‘Oh, I’m going to win that or can I win that,’ because the chances of making it as a professional footballer are, at that point, maybe 1-2 percent. And out of that one or two percent, it’s a one or two percent chance of actually winning the Premier League. It’s something you aspire to once you’ve established yourself within the game, once you’re recognised as maybe a good player and only perhaps once you get a chance to get to play for a say Man City or an Arsenal or a Liverpool at this moment. Those are the teams that are more than likely to win the Premier League than others.
For me that opportunity came only once I went out of City for the first time. During my first stint at City (2001-2004), it wasn’t something that it seemed like City was ever going to do. It’s only when I got the chance to go to Chelsea—even though I didn’t want to go— that these options become available.
Ian Wright with his chikdren | Photo Credit: IG/ Shaun Wright-Philips
Q: What was it like growing up and trying to make a name as a footballer?
Even though I loved playing for City, I didn’t grow up in Manchester. I grew up in South London in a council flat with my brother and my mom. At that time, I was either playing football or my mom was keeping us entertained by creating games and stuff. If it wasn’t for that, there was a good chance that I would have ended up in trouble like a lot of the other young kids around me. In many ways, I could say football was mine and my brother’s saviour. We had a choice to make when we were younger and, thankfully through the guidance of our parents and the right friends around us, we made the right choice. It could have easily gone another way.
We did whatever we needed to play. I remember we used to use trees, bikes, jumpers, whatever it could be just to mark out a couple of goal posts. And then, when we got slightly older, we would find a place that had nets and we would climb over the wall to those private facilities just so we can play on the better pitches with the nets. Eventually, it was in secondary school that I started to realise that I was good. I didn’t think a lot about education back then. I put all my eggs in one basket. The only thing I thought about was playing football.
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I think things are a bit different now. Now you need to be both educated and play football. And that’s why you see some very educated footballers if you look at (Manchester City defender) Manuel Akanji, he’s a really good mathematician. Vincent Kompany is really smart too. The list really goes on and on.
Q: When you started playing for Manchester City, you were playing what was then the first Division. It isn’t the giant that it is today. How have things changed?
City’s always been a giant of a club. The difference was that, during my first run there, it was a sleeping giant. It didn’t have the right backing or the investment. But it was still the same City that it is now in many ways. I think the only difference now is now that the Sheikhs have taken over. When they first took over, they created a blueprint, they put ambition into people, into the crowd and they followed that blueprint and it is has taken us to where we are today. They just made the model that was successful in the community in Manchester when I was first there. They’ve now been able to do that globally and obviously with success and medals that help speed up the process.
PHOTO | Shaun Wright-Phillips when he played for Chelsea | Photo Credit: Getty Images
In many ways I thank God that we got the investment we did. Look at the fan base we have now. Everywhere we go, I see blue shirts. I was in Benguluru for a fan event and I expected there would be 500 people who showed up. We had over 1500 people who came in. So it’s been a wicked experience.
Q: Your debut for City came in the first division. What do you remember about those days?
I remember coming on as a substitute against Port Vale in my first match. We were trailing 1-0 and I remember, in my first ever tackle, my shorts ended up ripping. After that, I tried to claim an own goal. At least we came away with a 1-1 draw. However, those memories formed the start of my career.
Q: How do you think things have changed now?
First things first, I’m really glad that City is winning as much as it is. It’s something the fans from way back really deserve. They’ve gone down to Division 2, still sold out the stadium and they’ve sold out from that point until this day. Now of course there’s a blueprint of success but back then, a lot of people were like, it’s never going to happen.
It was very entertaining the first time I played at City. The second time I went there (2008 -2011), we were talking about trophies, and that’s how it’s changed. It’s the same now. The most amazing thing is the consistency. They’ve been doing it for, what, 10 to 15 years. They just keep winning stuff, and that’s due to the players’ mentality and the staff’s mentality. Even for the people behind the scenes, the purpose is just win, win, win, win, and hopefully there’s a trophy at the end of it. They don’t think about losing at any point.
I could see that mentality taking shape. I could see when we started gelling together as a team and when we started beating Man United at the Etihad. That’s kind of when it kind of just changed and more people started taking notice, the players started signing on to the plan and then once Pep’s (Guardiola) team gets into it, it was kind of the icing on the cake.
It wasn’t just that we were winning trophies – we had won them before but now, the kids below the senior squad were already playing a certain way. Now the first team plays the same way. I was speaking to some of the staff and it’s almost like he made a recipe for success, and he doesn’t really change it. It’s like he adds an extra ingredient all the time, just in case somebody kind of figures it out.
Q: You started your career at City and you played the bulk of your career with them. However you won a Premier League title with Chelsea (in 2005). What would you rate higher?
Well, I’m not sure every footballer would say the same but I just enjoyed playing football. It was an opportunity that I managed to take. So in many ways I was blessed, I was lucky enough to be doing something that I enjoyed for 18 years. So every time I crossed that white line, I just played like it was my last game. I’m not saying it always went according to plan or I always played well but I enjoyed the hard work and I enjoyed the downs as well as I did the ups. Most people don’t enjoy the downs but if I didn’t have the downs I had in my career and then figured out a way to manage it, whether it be on the pitch or away from the pitch when I’m with my family, I wouldn’t become the person I am today. Everything in life you learn from and that whether that’s in football, politics, banking, whatever it is, there’s always like a down period where you just hate something about the day. You have to learn from it, otherwise you’re going to keep making the same mistake all the time.
Q: What do you see as the role of football in building up communities?
In all ways, I think it’s most probably one of the most diverse sports in the world. It’s an opportunity for people, in many ways with lack of education, to make something of themselves. And a lot of the time, it’s free. You can just pick up a ball and play with your friends. It sometimes leads to Sunday League football. You look at people like Chris Smalling (who made his debut for Maidstone United in the sixth level of the English Football League) and James Vardy, (who started out for 7 th division side Stocksbridge Park Steels FC) who got signed up. They became two of probably the biggest players in the Premier League. Both played for their country and both of them started from the grassroots.
Q: What would it take to replicate some of that grassroots development in India?
I’m not sure actually. I think, in some way, we lost some of that grassroot structure that I had when I was growing up. At that time, football was nearly free. The most you used to pay to compete at the Sunday League was maybe two pounds a week and that was either to pay for the pitches with the nets and the referees or to pay for the oranges at half-time. Now it’s a lot more structured, which is understandable because kids are starting to play for pro clubs a lot younger, so they do have to prepare them in that way. I don’t’ think there’s a shortage of facilities in India. I went to Bengaluru where Terry Phelan is coaching (at South United). The facilities that they had there were probably facilities that kids in England would dream to play on. So you’re going in the right direction, you just have to keep at it. It’s not a quick thing. It’s longevity. You have to maintain exactly what you’re doing for a period of time.
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