Jude Bellingham is one of the best examples of a fairytale story in English football. Born and raised in the midlands, he joined Birmingham City’s academy as a child, and burst into their first team at 16, before being sold to Borussia Dortmund for a massive fee, financially rescuing the club in the process. It was the stuff childhood dreams are made of.
Bellingham went on to set the Bundesliga on fire, become one of the most talked about players in the world, before getting a huge transfer to Real Madrid, where he’s already won himself a La Liga title and the Champions League. Along with this, he’s become a regular for the national team.
But the story of Jude Bellingham starts even earlier than his time at Birmingham City. One of the great stories of modern English football has its roots in the town of Leamington, with the club that bears its name.
Mark Bellingham and Leamington FC
Father of Jude and Jobe, Mark Bellingham was a legend in his own right, but at a very different level. His day job was as a police sergeant, but part-time, he became a legendary non-league striker, with a lengthy career as a wandering striker, playing for only a dozen clubs and scoring over 700 goals across his career.
While making an impact for many clubs, the team he is most fondly remembered by is Leamington FC, where over the course of two seasons, he helped the club achieve promotion. Signed from Stourbridge, he scored a total of 79 goals in 87 appearances, all while raising two children, and working full-time as a police sergeant.
In 2009, Bellingham netted a total of 48 goals in a single season on the way to Leamington achieving promotion from the Southern League Premier Division, and in many of the pictures from that famous season, a young Jude Bellingham can be seen, on his father’s shoulders celebrating, or most famously posing with the Premier League trophy while wearing a Brakes’ jersey.
It’s difficult to see that the boy who stood among the crowd at the New Windmill Ground would go on to play for his country at the World Cup, but that’s what he’s about to do. He’s even favoured by some of the best betting sites in UK to be a World Cup winner as England are among the favourites.
Jude and Jobe Bellingham: From Leamington to Europe
Mark Bellingham only played for Leamington for two years, and both were before the Bellingham brothers made their starts in academy football. Mark had an absurd appetite for football, continuing to play well into his 40s at veteran tournaments, even with two major ACL injuries later in his career.
His love for football seemed to be infectious. Both Jude and Jobe eventually enrolled in the Birmingham City academy, where they both blossomed as football players. Bellingham was courted by every top club in the world when he turned 16 and started playing first team football, choosing to go to Borussia Dortmund and then Real Madrid.
Jobe Bellingham has ended up on a similar trajectory, though not as smoothly, and now plays at Borussia Dortmund himself. Whenever one brother or the other makes headlines, Leamington FC are sure to share the pictures of the boys as they were young, posed in their Leamington FC kits as their dad makes history on the pitch.
Bellingham has spoken at length about how his dad’s career inspired his own. Whether that means we’ll ever see Jude Bellingham suit up in the black and gold is up for debate, but his hunger for goals and success were clearly inherited from father to son.
Article written by Michael Cage.
