Jude Bellingham's first coach says he urged youngster to love football

Parents of reluctant young footballers might be relieved to learn even England star Jude Bellingham did not love the game when he first started playing.

Phil Wooldridge, of Stourbridge, West Midlands, told the BBC Bellingham had come to him as a four-year-old and was clearly athletically gifted.

But he said: "As soon as you put a football in front of him, [he was] not really interested."

Mr Wooldridge said it had taken months to teach the player to love the game.

The coach ran a company called PSI sports and he said he remembered Bellingham, currently 19 and a midfielder for German club side Borussia Dortmund, "popped along one Saturday morning and joined in with us".

The then four-year-old took part in all the tag matches and Mr Wooldridge said: "He just excelled and generally won pretty much every game.

"He'd got it from four years of age; but playing football, no," he added.

Teaching former Birmingham City player Bellingham to love the game in his early years "took a while, it wasn't just overnight, it was a matter of a few months", Mr Wooldridge said.

Over the next few years, Mr Wooldridge and Bellingham's father set up a team called Stourbridge Juniors and he started playing regular games.

By the time the young footballer joined Birmingham City's academy at the age of seven, Mr Wooldridge said: "You'd see him playing and you'd say 'yeah, that kid's definitely got it'.

"Since then he's absolutely blossomed and [Birmingham City] did a fabulous job with him," he added.

Mr Wooldridge said he had tried not to tell the story too much, but a few work-mates had joked he had taught Bellingham every trick he knew.

The coach plays that down though and said: "The only part I had in his development of football was just basically getting him to try and enjoy it."

Nevertheless, he took special pleasure in watching Bellingham score England's opening goal in their 6-2 victory over Iran at the World Cup and said: "When the goal went I tried to be quite reserved, but it was emotional really."

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