Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography (8 page)

We had some great fun at the club. One night, close to Christmas, we went out for a run along a regular route through Feltham. As we set off, someone decided we should go carol singing instead. We went from house to house and knocked on each front door. I’d never sung Christmas carols before. As soon as the owners answered, everyone began singing. In return, they gave us sweets. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen.

I soon progressed from the county championships to English Schools, representing Middlesex. At the same time, I was competing for the Borough of Hounslow in the athletics league. But there were still times when I was reluctant to go training or wanted to hang out with my friends and play football. As any athletics coach will tell you, football and training don’t go well together. The kicks to the legs take the speed out of you; the general wear and tear of running up and down on the pitch, striking a ball – it impacts on your running ability. But I can be stubborn, and at that age I just wanted to play. As I progressed through the junior ranks, from school races to borough, then county and finally English Schools, it soon became obvious that I couldn’t keep up both running and football. One or the other had to go.

By the age of twelve, I’d reached English Schools level and was close to achieving something special. The top eight runners in English Schools events got to wear an England vest and had the chance to compete against Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the National Championships. Whoever won those races was then selected to represent Great Britain in the junior European Championships. The thought of representing my country in athletics was a huge motivation for me. Britain was my home now. It’s the place where I first went to school, where I made friends and learnt to become a runner.

For me, competing for my country was the ultimate goal.

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1996, when I was twelve years old, I was selected to run in the annual English Schools Cross Country Championships in Weymouth, Dorset as a reward for finishing second in the counties race. It was my first race at national level.

Weymouth was a 4.5 kilometre race. I’d started out running 3 kilometre races and worked my way up to the longer distance from there, with the length of the races increasing year by year. But this was my first race at 4.5 kilometres, and on top of that, the race was open to both Year Eight and Year Nine students. I was competing against 300 kids, about half of whom were older than me, some as old as fourteen, and I was smaller than most of the other Year Eights. Before the start of the race, Alan had given me a pep talk.

‘Look, Mo,’ he said. ‘You’ve done really well just to get here. If you come in the top fifty, you’ll have done an amazing job. Even top hundred would be a good result.’

Alan was careful to manage my expectations. For sure, there’s a danger in telling someone they can win a race because if it doesn’t happen for whatever reason, they’re crushed with disappointment. Psychologically, losing when you expect to win is harder to process than winning when you don’t expect to place that high. No doubt Alan saw the size of the field, realized that many of the other runners were physically more developed than me, and wanted to make sure I didn’t feel under any pressure to win as easily as I’d done at the borough and school competitions. But I saw things differently. This was my first English Schools run. I wanted to win.

The race started. The pace was ridiculous. I focused on my own race and didn’t worry too much about what the guys in front were doing. I tore round the first bend in the middle of this huge pack of runners, most of whom were twice the size of me. At that point I was down in a hundredth place and quite a way back from the front. As we started making our way round the various loops of the track, the thought suddenly hit me: ‘I’m faster than most of these guys.’ Slowly but surely, I began overtaking kids in the chasing pack. After 1 kilometre I was somewhere in the top fifty. After 2 kilometres I’d made it into the top thirty. By the time we clocked up 3 kilometres, with 1.5 left, I had managed to catch up with the lead group of nine runners, with the top eight automatically selected to represent England in the Nationals. The chance to represent my country was in my grasp.

As we scudded round the final bend I nudged ahead of the eighth-placed runner. Now I was top eight. I sprinted towards the finish line with a couple of hundred metres to go. But as I closed in, the kid immediately behind me, the one I’d overtaken, kicked on and caught up with me. We were neck and neck. I was so close to that England top. I kicked again, pushing fiercely, giving it everything as I fought to cling on to eighth place and the England spot. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the strength in my legs. With less than 50 metres to go, my rival surged ahead of me. I crossed the finish line in ninth place.

I was bitterly disappointed. I remembered what Alan had said about top fifty being a great result, but to come so close to a qualification place only to lose it at the very last moment was gut-wrenching. Alan was waiting for me at the finish line. He came over, put an arm round my shoulder and said, ‘You did really well, Mo. Don’t forget that. Ninth place is a fantastic result, you know.’

I forced a smile. Alan was right. I had no right to expect to be anywhere near the front of the pack, considering my disadvantage in age and size. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the end of the race. I’d given it everything and come up short.

‘Run like that again and I reckon you’ll come back next year and win it,’ Alan added. ‘Tell you what. If you win the next English Schools Cross Country, I’ll buy you a football kit. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

My eyes went wide. ‘For real?’

Alan nodded. ‘Any kit you want.’

‘Arsenal,’ I replied instantly.

Arsenal were my team. As a young kid, I sort of followed Manchester United. When I first moved to Britain, lots of the kids at school supported the Gunners, and after a while I started looking out for their results. They had top-class players like Tony Adams, Ray Parlour, Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp, and they had just appointed Arsène Wenger as manager. He was in the process of revolutionizing football in England. Suddenly, they were my team. Now I had the chance to wear their shirt. That was all the motivation I needed to win.

I trained all-out for the next English Schools Cross Country Championships. The 1997 championships were going to be held in Newark and I had my eye on that Arsenal kit. First up, though, I had the English Schools Track & Field Championships, due to take place in Sheffield in July (the Cross Country Championships take place early in the year, with the Track & Field Championships held in the summer). In order to qualify for the finals, I had to post a top-eight finish for Feltham in the Middlesex Schools Athletics Championship. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Then, one week before the regionals, disaster struck. I was playing football in the field with Mahad before athletics training. It was a warm afternoon, the sun was out and we thought we’d kick the ball around outside rather than play inside the stuffy sports hall. I booted the ball really hard. It soared through the air and landed on top of the sports hall roof.

I’d kicked the ball over, so it was my job to fetch it. Grabbing hold of the gutter, I boosted myself onto the roof, scooped up the ball and threw it back down to Mahad. As I lowered myself from the roof, however, I slipped and felt this intense burning pain as something sharp scraped against my right leg. I stacked it, hit the ground and looked down at my leg. There was blood everywhere. The sharp edge of the gutter had ripped a gash from the top of my thigh all the way down to the back of my knee. I clamped my hand over the wound to stop the blood gushing out.

My immediate thought was, ‘I can’t let Alan find out.’ I wasn’t even thinking about the county championships at that moment. All I cared about was not getting Alan in trouble. He’d been kind enough to let Mahad and me kick the ball and I worried that he might get the blame for letting us play unsupervised. A few moments later he came rushing out of his office. He must have heard the noise from me falling off the roof. Alan asked me what was going on. I mumbled something about falling over whilst going for the ball. After he helped me clean up the wound, Alan drove me to A&E at West Middlesex Hospital, where I had several stitches in my leg. Once I got the all-clear from the doctor, Alan took me to the athletics club for a meeting with Alex McGee. The look on Alex’s face told me it wasn’t good news.

‘No Middlesex Schools for you this weekend,’ he said. ‘You can’t run carrying an injury like that. Out of the question.’

I was gutted. Missing the Middlesex county championship meant that I wouldn’t make the cut for the English Schools Track & Field that summer in Sheffield. I was doubly determined to win the next English Schools Cross Country race the following March at the County Showground in Newark, a few days before my fourteenth birthday. I gave maximum effort in the build-up and didn’t miss a training session that season. I ran well all year and felt in great shape going into the competition.

Then I got off to the worst possible start. Someone clipped my heel at the beginning of the race. I tripped, lost my footing, stumbled to the ground. The leading pack took off ahead of me while I scraped myself off the ground. No big deal. I just had to run even faster. There was no way I wasn’t going to win that race. Not after having put so much effort into training.

At the 1 kilometre mark I was down in twentieth place. I steadily worked my way up the group, picking off the other runners one by one. Winding it up. With less than 1 kilometre left of the course, I caught up with the ten guys leading the race. This time I had learnt my lesson from Weymouth the year before. Instead of kicking on early and wearing myself out, I just kept pace with them. Pushing and pushing, burning off my opponents. I had to fight hard to keep the pace. It was really windy that day and I was running into a hard breeze. But, with 500 metres to go I drew level with the race leader. At 400 metres to go I left him in my shadow and broke clear of the chasing pack. First place was up for grabs. I dug deep, concentrated on holding my position and maintaining my pace. All I had to do now was hold it for another 200 metres, kick on for the last 100, and then the English Schools title was mine.

All of a sudden, this kid flew past me, going crazy fast. He was wearing the Durham colours. I recognized him immediately. He was a friend of mine, Malcolm Hassan. A Sunderland kid, born and bred. Talked in a northern accent so thick you could almost stir it. There was still 300 metres to the finish line. My first instinct was to kick on and match Malcolm before he won the race, but then I thought, ‘There’s no way he can sustain this all the way to the finish. Don’t panic. Just keep your stride. He’ll burn out.’ I held back, kept my stride and stuck to my race strategy. Two hundred metres to go, and sure enough, Malcolm started losing speed. He’d made the same mistake I did in Weymouth and gone too early. Finally, with less than 100 metres to go, I pulled clear of Malcolm and swept ahead to cross the line. I’d done it. I’d won. I had the English Schools Cross Country title. Then it sank in: I’d be competing for England in the Schools International. I was on a high after that race, absolutely buzzing. This was what it was all about. Alan came over to congratulate me.

‘You owe me an Arsenal kit,’ I said.

That race was the start of a big rivalry between Malcolm and me. He was a phenomenal runner, and a great rival. Sometimes I’d beat him; sometimes he’d beat me. Despite this, we were really good mates and often competed against each other in the English Schools Championships. We’d go on to represent England together. Malcolm’s dad used to come along to the races. He’d drive Malcolm around in this comedy van. Whenever we raced, I’d take the mick out of Malcolm’s Geordie accent. He gave as good as he got, did Malcolm, calling us southern softies for wearing gloves in the winter and so on.

In 1997, the year I won the cross country at Newark, I also competed at Chepstow for England and won the Home Countries International Cross Country title. Wearing that England kit was a special moment for me. I was filled with pride. I was starting to assert my ability on bigger stages now. Things were starting to happen for me. The following summer Alan drove me up to Sheffield for the English Schools Track & Field Championships held at the Don Valley Stadium – the championships I’d been forced to miss the previous year because of injury. I was scheduled to run in the 1500 metres. Alan felt that I lacked a bit of speed, and before the race he told me I’d do well to get a medal.

‘If the pace is silly, don’t go with it,’ he said. ‘It’ll be too quick. You know how to run a good 1500 race, Mo. Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing out there. Run your own race.’

I don’t know why, but I had this feeling that I could hold my own out there against the other kids. As a runner, you have to believe in yourself. Sure, there’s a fine line between self-belief and arrogance, but no one who didn’t believe in themself ever won a gold medal in athletics. You see it time and again on the circuit: someone posting crazy fast times in training, but when it comes to a big competition, for whatever reason, they fail to make the podium. I had this absolute belief in what I was capable of. The way I saw it, I already had the English Schools Cross Country title and the Home Countries title in the bag. I had nothing to lose at the Track & Field Championships. I went out there ready to give it my best shot.

Malcolm was competing in the same race. As ever, we were both desperate to finish above the other. At the start, Malcolm took off like a bullet. BOOM! In next to no time he’d established a huge lead over me – 50 metres, easily. Maybe more. He was going for it, big time. With 500 metres to go, Malcolm was pushing hard and still out in front. In the corner of my eye I saw Alan screaming at me from the sidelines, yelling for me to pick up the pace. All right, then. I started winding up. With just over a hundred metres left, I pulled level with Malcolm. Now we both went for the sprint finish. It was a question of who had more strength left in their legs, who could kick on harder. Who could dig deeper. We were both going flat out, giving it absolutely everything. I could feel the muscles in my legs burning.