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Interesting article on Colin Kazim-Richards



johnny jigsaw

"My life's in pieces"
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2257502,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=5

Bury, Brighton, Bramall Lane, Champions League


He was the Coca-Cola Kid, now he plays for Zico in Istanbul. Anna Kessel meets Colin Kazim-Richards

On a snow-covered training pitch on the outskirts of Istanbul, Roberto Carlos is practising his signature free-kick. Despite the freezing temperature, the Brazilian wears shorts, his enormous calves bulging out over the top of his socks. Alongside him Alex, Japan's Brazil-born star, and Mateja Kezman ping balls at the fence. Overseeing the star-studded pitch is one of the greatest ever footballers, now the manager of Fenerbahce, the majestic Zico. His side are preparing for their Champions League game against Sevilla on Wednesday.

But for a goal by a boy from east London in a 2-0 victory over PSV Eindhoven in the group stages, Fenerbahce would probably not have made it into the last 16. Eight months ago you would not have bet on Colin Kazim-Richards playing Champions League football in the company of Brazilian greats. With Sheffield United relegated, the then 20-year-old striker was facing an uncertain future. Twice plucked from obscurity and thrust into the limelight, it surely could not happen a third time.
Born in Leyton in 1986, Kazim-Richards first found fame three years ago when a Brighton fan entered a competition run by the Football League's sponsors and won Albion £250,000 in transfer funds. Most of that money was spent on signing the 18-year-old from Bury, so he was dubbed the Coca-Cola Kid. He missed only a handful of games, but Brighton were relegated in 2006 and Kazim-Richards put in a transfer request. Mark McGhee, the then manager, exiled him even from the reserves as the new season started, but on the last day of the summer transfer window Neil Warnock took the young striker from League One to the Premiership, signing him for his newly promoted Sheffield United side.

Now he is in Istanbul, playing alongside international stars. But Kazim-Richards always believed it would happen. Even at Sheffield United last season, when the team were battling relegation, he said he would play in the Champions League one day. 'I said that on Sky Sports,' Kazim-Richards says, 'and afterwards I had someone in my own team try to banter me: "Champions League, you're having a laugh." I always believed in myself, though. You get idiot people - I don't call them haters, I call them motivators.

'I'm training with the best left-back in the world ever, the guy is unbelievable. I'm playing with Kezman, who has scored over 250 goals, Stephen Appiah, Alex - they call him the magician - and my manager is one of the best players who ever lived.'

'Do I pinch myself? Sometimes. I'm a boy from east London, my family didn't have a lot. Now I'm round Carlos's house, playing Pro Evo with Kezman.'

Fenerbahce's foreign players live in an exclusive gated development in villas worth millions of pounds. Kazim-Richards' is on five floors - with a lift and a three-metre-diameter satellite dish - as well as the obligatory pool and ping-pong tables, and home cinema.

Despite the bling; the transition to a new life and playing in the Turkish league has not been an easy ride. Kazim-Richards' mother is Turkish Cypriot, a connection that enabled him to make his debut for Turkey last June. But growing up in a Turkish family in London is very different to life on the Bosporus.

As the loudspeakers at the mosque next to the training ground boom out a call for prayers, Kazim-Richards rolls his eyes. 'It is weird. Every day, five times a day, that music comes on. And it's loud. All the mosques have big sound systems. Coming here has been a massive change for me. Obviously you know about the religion when you're in England - the praying, the fasting - but to see it, like when 10 of your team are all doing it and going to mosque on Friday, it's crazy.

'I don't feel religious. It's difficult because half my family is Muslim, and the other half is Christian. I've always felt Turkish, though. My nine [grandmother], she can't speak English. Half of my family, their first language is Turkish, and so I went to Turkish school before I played football, although I can't remember any of it now.'

Driving home from training, Kazim-Richards strings together a smattering of Turkish to instruct his chauffeur, while picking at a local dessert. Inside the car it is warm. Outside, roofs and dustbins are covered in melting snow and children roam the freezing streets. 'You see how Turkey is? Tiny kids out working, and they keep the dogs outside.'

Back at the house, Kazim-Richards' own dog - a six-month-old puppy called Shadow - is allowed into the warmth. Despite the luxury of the place, small details make it a home from home: the cupboards are stuffed with chocolate fingers and Jaffa Cakes.

Kazim-Richards' family background is unusual, with Antiguan grandparents on his father's side. 'There's not many like me.' The mixture in his name was too much for the registrar of births - the hyphen was put in the wrong place, landing him with a surname that differs from that of the rest of his family and is possibly unique.

On taking up Turkish citizenship, there were further changes. 'Here they call me Kazim Kazim. For political reasons I had to change the name on my passport, you're not allowed to have a Christian name in a Muslim country. When people are bantering they call me Kazim Kazim, or sometimes Pepsi.' He pauses to grin at the joke, although the Coca-Cola Kid stuff clearly irks him.

Turkish fan culture has been a surprise. 'The fans are crazy. We've got 30 million fans in Turkey alone. It's a buzz, but I love it and hate it. Sometimes you're going out to have a nice meal and you get hounded.

'Zico gets it the worst. One time we were in an airport and there were loads of Japanese people, I've never seen nothing like it in my life. I thought Turkish people were bad, but these Japanese women were fainting - old women, I swear. "Oh Zico!"'

The manager is a big admirer of Kazim-Richards. 'He is a bet for the future,' Zico says, 'but he is still adapting to the Turkish style and he tends to perform better against European sides. I like the way he is with the ball, and his speed.' But Zico did not choose to bring Kazim-Richards to Fenerbahce; as with most decisions in Turkish football it was down to the club president, in this case Aziz Yildirim, whose previous signings include Nicolas Anelka.

Kazim-Richards' decision to play for Turkey raised eyebrows back home. 'In England people don't see me as Turkish. Like when police stop me, it's not because I'm Turkish, it's because I'm black. But I have never got Turkish racial abuse, it's only when I've been to other countries.

'I played in Albania for the under-21s and, oh my God, the whole stadium was doing monkey noises when I went to take a corner. Against Liechtenstein an opponent called me a ****** the whole game. I threw the ball at him in the end, and I got sent off. I shouldn't have done that, but you can't just accept these things.'

Kazim-Richards has always been opinionated and it has often led him into trouble. 'If I've got an opinion I'll say it. That's why they put the "arrogant" tag on me. Mark McGhee could never take the fact that I had an opinion aged 18. Where I grew up you had to have an opinion or you'd get trampled on. McGhee labelled me a problem child, but I never was. I just wasn't a follower. He tried to bully me into things. But no matter how much he tried to break me, it didn't work. When I handed in my transfer request he dropped me, I wasn't even allowed to play for the reserves. There were clubs coming in for me and I wasn't even in the squad. The day before the last day of the transfer window I played in a reserve game against Crystal Palace. I scored one and set one up and Sheffield United signed me.'

Just the kind of luck that you come to expect with Kazim-Richards. At Bramall Lane, Warnock called him 'unorthodox' and when you watch him tearing around you can see why.

Kazim-Richards says he misses home and English football. At times you wonder how comfortable he really is with life in Istanbul. But with a quarter-final spot in the Champions League up for grabs and a call-up for Euro 2008 likely, the boy from Leyton is having the last laugh. 'Not even the doubters can say any different.'
 




Rangdo

Registered Cider Drinker
Apr 21, 2004
4,779
Cider Country
Mark McGhee could never take the fact that I had an opinion aged 18. Where I grew up you had to have an opinion or you'd get trampled on. McGhee labelled me a problem child, but I never was. I just wasn't a follower. He tried to bully me into things.'

To me that translates as "The manager expected me to do as I was told and take instructions like everyone else in the team but I was too petulant to be told what to do".
 






Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
59,876
The Fatherland
To me that translates as "The manager expected me to do as I was told and take instructions like everyone else in the team but I was too petulant to be told what to do".

....but part of being a football management is....er... managing players. I very much doubt he is the first young player to disagree with a boss. It is how the manager deals with it that really counts. Throwing players off buses or ostracising them doesnt strike me as the actions of a good manager in any walk of life.

CKR does come across as a tad headstong but then a lot of strikers are.
 




Seasider78

Well-known member
Nov 14, 2004
5,941
He struck me as someone who always thought he was 'bigger than Brighton'

Fair play to him for getting where he is never really rated him enough to think he would ever play at Champions league level but hey strange world football!!
 


Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
59,876
The Fatherland
He struck me as someone who always thought he was 'bigger than Brighton'

Fair play to him for getting where he is never really rated him enough to think he would ever play at Champions league level but hey strange world football!!

....so manage the 'bigger than Brighton' out of him. There was a reason Mark MaGoo had the word 'manager' in his title.
 


Rangdo

Registered Cider Drinker
Apr 21, 2004
4,779
Cider Country
....but part of being a football management is....er... managing players. I very much doubt he is the first young player to disagree with a boss. It is how the manager deals with it that really counts. Throwing players off buses or ostracising them doesnt strike me as the actions of a good manager in any walk of life.

CKR does come across as a tad headstong but then a lot of strikers are.

Depends what their behaviour was like. Perhaps the manager decided that their disruptions were so detrimental to the team that getting rid was the best course of action. Thats also part of managing people. Getting rid of dead wood. The number of people who left the club citing Mcghee as the problem was few and one of those has gone on to be booted out of a string of further clubs after us.
 




Barrel of Fun

Abort, retry, fail
I would find it easy to be happy for him if he had sweated blood and tears for the club. He was gifted, talented, but never looked as though he was willing to die for the cause. I am happy for players to use us as a step up, but only if they are to earn a move away with dazzling displays or by pulling up trees.

I would give my right arm to have his talent and my left arm to have been given the chance to play for Brighton.

Ho hum.
 


Simon Morgan

New member
Oct 30, 2004
6,065
Oxford
I think this illusion that he didn't try hard is a bit strange. I don't go to that many Bton games (maybe 10 a season), but he never struck me as lazy, I think his general arrogance is what leads people to believe he didn't try hard.
 






Yorkie

Sussex born and bred
Jul 5, 2003
32,367
dahn sarf
Born in Leyton in 1986, Kazim-Richards first found fame three years ago when a Brighton fan entered a competition run by the Football League's sponsors and won Albion £250,000 in transfer funds. Most of that money was spent on signing the 18-year-old from Bury, so he was dubbed the Coca-Cola Kid. He missed only a handful of games, but Brighton were relegated in 2006 and Kazim-Richards put in a transfer request. Mark McGhee, the then manager, exiled him even from the reserves as the new season started, but on the last day of the summer transfer window Neil Warnock took the young striker from League One to the Premiership, signing him for his newly promoted Sheffield United side.
s.


Kazim-Richards has always been opinionated and it has often led him into trouble. 'If I've got an opinion I'll say it. That's why they put the "arrogant" tag on me. Mark McGhee could never take the fact that I had an opinion aged 18. Where I grew up you had to have an opinion or you'd get trampled on. McGhee labelled me a problem child, but I never was. I just wasn't a follower. He tried to bully me into things. But no matter how much he tried to break me, it didn't work. When I handed in my transfer request he dropped me, I wasn't even allowed to play for the reserves. There were clubs coming in for me and I wasn't even in the squad. The day before the last day of the transfer window I played in a reserve game against Crystal Palace. I scored one and set one up and Sheffield United signed me.'


He wasn't allowed to play in the reserves and yet was playing a reserve game when the phone call came through to say the sale was on? Yeah, right.
He came on as a sub in the first game of the season at Rotherham. He turned his back on Wilkins when DW was on the sideline shouting instructions at him.
I was at that reserve game when we played Palace. He came off after 60 odd mins.
 


Publius Ovidius

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
46,152
at home
"On taking up Turkish citizenship, there were further changes. 'Here they call me Kazim Kazim. For political reasons I had to change the name on my passport, you're not allowed to have a Christian name in a Muslim country. When people are bantering they call me Kazim Kazim, or sometimes Pepsi.' He pauses to grin at the joke, although the Coca-Cola Kid stuff clearly irks him."

Not allowed a Christian name in a Muslim country? really?


Anyway, good luck to the guy. Its a shame he never really made it down here, but he is probably one of those players who play better with better players around him.
 


Dandyman

In London village.
"On taking up Turkish citizenship, there were further changes. 'Here they call me Kazim Kazim. For political reasons I had to change the name on my passport, you're not allowed to have a Christian name in a Muslim country. When people are bantering they call me Kazim Kazim, or sometimes Pepsi.' He pauses to grin at the joke, although the Coca-Cola Kid stuff clearly irks him."

Not allowed a Christian name in a Muslim country? really?


QUOTE]

Very odd, as Turkey as been secular since the 1920's.
 






Jam The Man

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
8,140
South East North Lancing
He wasn't allowed to play in the reserves and yet was playing a reserve game when the phone call came through to say the sale was on? Yeah, right.
He came on as a sub in the first game of the season at Rotherham. He turned his back on Wilkins when DW was on the sideline shouting instructions at him.
I was at that reserve game when we played Palace. He came off after 60 odd mins.

I'm not here to start an argument, but he was actually prevented from playing in the reserves UNTIL that Palace game, and within a few minutes after he came off as sub, Knight approached him and told him he was to be sold 24 hours later.
 


The Wookiee

Back From The Dead
Nov 10, 2003
14,909
Worthing
"In England people don't see me as Turkish. Like when police stop me, it's not because I'm Turkish, it's because I'm black."

Wanker
 








Silent Bob

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Dec 6, 2004
22,172
I think this illusion that he didn't try hard is a bit strange. I don't go to that many Bton games (maybe 10 a season), but he never struck me as lazy, I think his general arrogance is what leads people to believe he didn't try hard.
I went to most games that season and there definitely wasn't a massive amount of running from him. I couldn't decide if he was lazy or just out of position - he never looked like a striker, he didn't have the brain - and since he has played almost exclusively on the wing since leaving us I'd say it's largely the latter.
 


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