Henry Winter har en høy stjerne blant PL-reporterne, han har vært positiv i Leeds-reportasjene sine siden Championship-dagene.
Nå har han intervjuet Kalvin, og det grundig!
For første gang er farens skjebne omtalt...
Henry Winter
@henrywinter
One of the most fascinating people I've met in football. Kalvin Phillips #lufc #eng.Camera with flash
@michaelpowelluk
Kalvin Phillips is sitting at Leeds United’s training ground, thinking about Billy Bremner, about what the late, great midfield player still means to the club, and what Bremner means to him personally. “He’s just the kind of person that I’d like to be, a tough player who was loyal, who just does everything for the club that he can,” Phillips says.
Phillips is the present embodiment of Leeds, homegrown, hard-working, tough, an intelligent warrior and very aware of the club’s history. “Because I was a Leeds fan, I heard a lot of people sing Bremner’s name,” he says, “and I used to watch a lot of old videos of him and seen that film, The Damned United.
An hour in Phillips’ company this week is to appreciate the sacrifices that have gone into his living the dream, the importance of the women in his life, like his mother Lindsay Crosby, and his complete love for Leeds United.
“This is not a job for me,” Phillips says. “This is my passion. I’ve grown up loving this, especially these last three years, the best I’ve ever experienced with football. Being on a stage now where I’m getting recognised by England and big players follow me on Instagram, commenting on pictures, it’s just mad!
“My mates are all Leeds fans. Before I was in the first team, they’d slag some players off but now they know if we don’t play well they’re not going to do that in front of my face. They probably just wait until I left the room! We’ve got family group chat, 30 of us on WhatsApp, and when games aren’t going well, my family are commenting on a player ‘what’s he doing?’ I keep quiet. If I do get involved it just starts being an argument.
“My grandmother knows more about Leeds than I do. We got her an iPad and she’s never off it. She reads anything about Leeds. But it just shows how much Leeds fans love the club. Every time I come into training or play at Elland Road that same desire is in me all the way, it runs through my veins.”
Every time he turns up the drive to Thorp Arch, Leeds’s training ground, Phillips passes HM Prison Wealstun, where his father Mark is incarcerated. “He’s been in and out my life since when I was young,” Phillips says. “He’s been in prison, out of prison. He got into the wrong crowd, drugs, fighting, anything you can name.
“I look at the background of my dad. He wasn’t brought up in the best situation. He never knew his father really. He got the name ‘Chalky’ because he was the only black guy in his school and in his neighbourhood. A lot of people still now call him ‘Chalky’. It’s crazy. He had a kid at 13, my step-sister, we’re very close.”
He then met Lindsay. “He and my mum had a relationship where they were OK for a certain point and then my dad would go off and just do whatever he did. My mum would lose patience with him and then my dad would go into prison, come back out, come back to my mum and then do exactly the same thing.”
Phillips was happy to stay at Leeds despite not winning promotion two seasons ago.
Phillips was happy to stay at Leeds despite not winning promotion two seasons ago.
ALEX DODD/GETTY IMAGES
Phillips looks towards the window, in the direction of Wealstun. “He’s in that prison there. I drive past him every morning. It’s crazy really. I’ve been to see him a few times but I don’t really like going in there and seeing him in prison. I’d rather speak over the phone. I speak to him every couple of weeks.
“He is proud of me. He’s Leeds. He’s lived in Leeds all his life. He rang me a couple of weeks after we’d been promoted, and said, ‘Listen to this.’ All the people who were waiting for a phone-call in prison were there, all singing ‘Marching on together’, banging on the walls. It was mad!”
Phillips is understandably very close to Lindsay, who worked so hard to raise the family on her own. “We used to live in a three-bed house, me and my brother upstairs in bunk beds, my little sister and older sister in the other bedrooms and my mum used to sleep on the sofa downstairs.
“I used to get free school meals. I’d see kids coming in with packed lunches, having sandwiches and chocolate bars. Some kids would laugh at me, saying, ‘you’re getting free school meals.’ I’d come home and say, ‘mum, why can’t I have a packed lunch?’ ‘We can’t afford it,’ my mum explained. There have been times where my mum didn’t eat at night because she had to feed us. My mum worked two jobs to make enough money to feed us. Grandma would chip in for food. So what Marcus [Rashford] has done is absolutely massive [with getting the government to fund free school meals during half-term].” It’s also why Phillips donates to food banks in Wortley.
He mentions his “little sister”, his twin, but they were triplets. “My sister Lacreasha got ill and passed away when she was a couple of months. When my mum was making tea she used to put on music that reminded her of my little sister, and she’d sit in the kitchen crying. We’d walk in and say, ‘what’s wrong?’. She’d never really tell us. Me seeing her like that made me feel I’ve got to help her out, make tea, look after my brothers and sisters when she was working. With Lacreasha, it’s just the thought of not knowing what person she’d have grown up to be.
“On our birthday we always say happy birthday to Lacreasha as well. We always go and put flowers on her grave, and just remember that day she passed away. I think about her when I play. I’ve a tattoo on my arm which symbolises her. That’s why I kiss my arm and point to the sky.”
The 24-year-old is a loyal character. “I’ve been with my girlfriend [Ashleigh Behan] 11 years,” he smiles. “We met in school. Ever since then, we’ve just been together. I don’t want to meet anybody else because we’re that close. I keep my circle very tight, keep newcomers at a distance.”
He’s devoted to Lindsay, admiring her selflessness. “She was working two jobs but recently she stopped working as a receptionist and cashier at the pizza shop called Harpos in Leeds.” So, presumably, Phillips enjoyed some takeaways. “Before this manager came in…!” he laughs.
Since Marcelo Bielsa arrived, Phillips has lost a stone. “I was a bit chunky,” he admits. “I wasn’t in the greatest of shape. The manager said to everyone, he wanted us to lose weight. We had to get the body fat down. He said we had to eat less food. I just ate some sweet potato wedges and some normal barbecue chicken. The way the chefs prepare it’s just a lot cleaner. Every week I’m reducing how much I eat. It’s hard work.
“If you come in on your weight target and your body fats are good then you can eat what you want. You can have ketchup! But say I went home and had a big fry-up for breakfast, came in here and I was overweight then the manager will look at me as if to say, ‘what are you doing?’ He just thinks whenever your weight’s low you play better.”
Bielsa famously works them hard, and the first floor of Thorp Arch has been rebuilt to provide dormitory accommodation for the players to sleep between training sessions. It’s a safe haven after the rigours of “Murderball”, the eight v eight full-on, no-holds-barred 15-minute games. “Murderball’s mental!” Phillips laughs, shaking his head. “I’m used to it now but for new players that have come in like Robin [Koch], Rafa [Raphinha], Diego [Llorente] after the training session they were looking around, as if to say, ‘What have we just done?’
“We got three or four coaches in the middle screaming, plus the manager. Say a ball goes out, they’re screaming at you ‘get the ball back in,’ ‘play’. It’s 100mph! I could clatter you, no foul, play on. People fly into tackles, I’ve done it. I’ve been angry because the manager’s shouting my name and I’ve seen the ball, and gone to tackle somebody, and then thought, ‘I should calm down now because somebody’s going to get hurt here.’ ”
Bielsa’s demanding nature, and redeploying Phillips in front of the back four, has been the making of the player, seeing him picked by England and shining against Manchester City in the 1-1 draw at Elland Road. “I’ve never seen football like it from any team,” Phillips recalls, “just how sharp it was, how well coordinated all the movements were. When they scored, I thought this could be a 5-0 game here. But we got into it, started making tackles.”
He was controlled in the tackle. “Since VAR’s come in you can’t play football the way it used to be played. You can’t tackle.” He’d scrap VAR. “I would. Football’s a physical game. With VAR getting involved, referees are pushed to one side. Then you don’t really have control over the full game when you have people sat not even in the stadium but sat 200 miles away [in Stockley Park].”
Phillips excelled against City, winning six tackles, making three interceptions, and enjoying a real duel with Kevin De Bruyne. “If you want a football player to be like anybody it would be Kevin De Bruyne,” Phillips says. “He can do absolutely everything, defend, attack, run, hold the ball, tackle. He’s 6ft, strong, quick, so smart with the way he finds space to get on the ball. It was a good battle between us. I felt it was one my best games. I didn’t get his shirt. I didn’t get anybody’s shirt. I was more mesmerised by Pep Guardiola giving me a handshake, and saying, ‘Congratulations, well done.’ That was nice!”
Phillips in action for England against Denmark last month
Phillips in action for England against Denmark last month
ROBIN JONES/GETTY IMAGES
Bielsa is less demonstrative to players. “The manager’s very reserved,” Phillips says. “He doesn’t like getting too involved with the players, getting emotionally attached to players. A lot of managers in the past had their favourite players but this manager treats everyone exactly the same.” Phillips does smile at the memory of a rare sight, Bielsa charging across Thorp Arch to embrace Patrick Bamford who’d just scored a special goal to celebrate his return from injury. “It was nice to see that side of the manager but you don’t really see that often. Pat had been in and out of injury.”
Bamford is a popular character at Leeds, especially with Phillips. “Last year was tough for Pat. He had a lot of stick. I had family and friends saying, ‘what’s Bamford doing? Is he a good player?’ Pat’s an unbelievable player. He’s got all the attributes to be a great striker: strong, quite big, faster than people think. His finishing is unbelievable.” So why is Bamford now flying this year, scoring seven times in eight Premier League games? “Confidence,” Phillips replies. “I’ve always said he’s a really good player, just a confidence player.” Bamford remains hopeful of following Phillips into the England squad. “Pat said he couldn’t sleep the other night because the squad was getting announced the next day and he thought he could have a chance.” Bamford didn’t make the cut. “I don’t think he’s far from it. He’s in the top three for goals this season.”
Phillips himself is missing England, regaining fitness after a shoulder injury, but grateful for manager Gareth Southgate phoning him to say he remained in his plans. “It’s a shock at first,” he says of being called up for the first time in September, “quite nerve-racking just sat there eating breakfast with all the big players. Everyone’s welcomed me into the England set-up. I feel at home.”
He’s delighted for Jude Bellingham, who he played against in the Championship. “I’m happy for him. You don’t expect someone so young [17] to be such a complete footballer. Jude’s very athletic and just the move from Birmingham to Borussia Dortmund, to go straight into playing first-team football, you don’t see it very often.”
Talking of transfers, Phillips explains why he didn’t move to Aston Villa after Leeds were knocked out of the Championship play-offs by Derby County in 2019 and the club were short of cash. “There’d been a lot of talk about me possibly leaving and obviously Leeds United’s financial situation,” he recalls. “It was one of the first weeks of pre-season we came into this room here with Victor [Orta, Leeds director of football] and ‘Jay’ [James Mooney, the club’s head of media and communications].”
Orta asked Phillips, “What do you want to do?” Phillips was torn. He loves Leeds. “There was Premier League football there and money there that I’d never, ever seen before in my life. If I do make this move, I’ll look after my family and the heartache of not making it [promotion] was just devastating. Do I really want to leave on this note? Do I really want to leave without doing anything with Leeds? I have loads of Leeds family, so they were getting stuck into me, saying you’d better not leave. Everything was going through my head.” So he told Orta, “I just don’t know.”
Orta, a warm man, occasionally fiery, said to him, “If you want to leave now then tell me and we can sell you. But if you don’t or you don’t know then I’m not going to sell you.” Phillips replied again, “I don’t know.” Orta’s mind was made up. “I’m not selling you.” Phillips was relieved. “This is my club. I’ve been at Leeds since I was 14, been through so many bad times and then to see the good times is something I will treasure for ever.” Bremner would have approved.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/kalvin-phillips-leeds-are-my-club-this-is-my-passion-rhd56jjq8