Rovers' Roberts bucks the football trend

by Andy Cryer – Lancashire Telegraph

PUBLIC perception would make it easy to tar Premier League footballers with the same brush. Filthy rich, fast cars and their pick of the ladies – is this really what they call living the dream?

Just a few minutes in the company of Jason Roberts though and the usual view of today’s top flight player is shattered, and the Blackburn Rovers striker insists he isn’t the only one.

While scandal and sleaze continue to dominate the morning headlines about the world’s most glamorous football league, scratch the surface and it is not hard to spot the flaws in the readily-used stereotypes. It is just not reality.

Of course, football has its ‘bad eggs’ as does every walk of life, but for every over-paid and over-hyped individual is a Jason Roberts – who has used his own inspirational rise to the top to help others defy the odds to achieve their own goals.

He said: “Maybe people don’t talk about stuff as much as they should. Dioufy has his foundation, Aaron Mokoena has one, I have one, Roque Santa Cruz has had one. That is just the players who have been through Rovers.

“Of those players there are a number who do different work in the community through their clubs and a lot of guys have their own charitable endeavours. You do it though because you think it is right.”

Founded in 2007, the Jason Roberts foundation aims to use sport, especially football, to help youngsters in Grenada, his father's birthplace, and the UK His own ascent from the tough streets of Stonebridge, North West London, to Premier League footballer, Grenada international and MBE recipient, is inspiration enough but Roberts is doing all he can to ensure others are afforded the opportunities he was.

Backed by his strong family unit, which includes his three footballing uncles, former England international Cyrille Regis, Notts County's Dave Regis, and Otis Roberts, who played in Belgium and Hong Kong, the Roberts foundation is gathering pace.

A charity match between Liverpool legends and a Jason Roberts X1 is taking place at Hayes on May 16, while the striker himself will be in Grenada in June to mark the launch of the first junior league on the island.

Family member, Olympic athlete John Regis' nephew Adam, died in East London in 2007 after being stabbed at the age of just 15, giving Roberts another incentive to try and give something back.

He said: “What's happening in London and England, the emergence of gangs, comes into what we are doing. Some kids are aspiring to the wrong things and sport show them a better way to earn respect.

“I was really inspired by the Kickz project, which is a project where they go into inner city areas, put up a couple of goals, get a couple of coaches and get games going.

“They were surprised at how the crime rates went down, just by getting people engaged and I thought that is an idea that could have worked in two places that are important to me – Grenada and North West London.

“A lot of kids who maybe sometimes get missed through the school education programme or who don't really engage on that will engage in sports. They can learn lessons through sport that they can't learn in the classroom or through relationships with people around them.

“I was lucky I had a very strong family but I saw people who didn't have the opportunity or the support to try to engage in sport and that is a very sad thing – especially in Grenada where you don't have the facilities to do it.

The 32-year-old will run out at former club Portsmouth tomorrow looking to make his 125th Premier League appearance – albeit just 10 of those were during a loan spell at the South Coast outfit in 2003/04.

His career has seen him rejected by Chelsea as a teenager, score in every division including the conference and also represent Blackburn Rovers in Europe.

“It has been a story hasn't it”, he said. “One I don't think many people could have called at the time I was playing for Hayes' youth team.

“I am really proud of the way I made my way to the Premier League and have played there for the majority of my career. It has been something no one could have called and I have had to work for every single promotion.

“I would love it if someone was inspired by my story. I am not going to say it myself but if someone looked at it and took something from it then I would be proud.”

Roberts' charity work earned him a date at Buckingham Palace earlier this year to receive an MBE – something he insists was for the collective rather than the individual.

“It was a surreal experience,” he said. “It was a humbling experience and I feel like it is an award for everyone who has given their time and efforts to be involved in the charity. I am just a proud recipient.

“A future life in politics? I don't know about that.

“The charity work I have done is the best thing I have been involved in in my life though. The feeling of giving something back to people who appreciate is immense so for sure I will do much more work after I have finished.”