Teacher told Rio to have back-up plan

13 April 2012

He is the £30 million footballer whose wage demands no manager would dare refuse.

But Rio Ferdinand, the most expensive player in English history, has revealed for the first time how one of his key mentors was not former manager Harry Redknapp or David O'Leary - but a teacher who is not even interested in the game.

Blackheath Bluecoat School's senior master, Christopher Owen, even warned Ferdinand he might not make it in football and should have a contingency plan for another career. Ferdinand told how Mr Owen and a series of other staff at his old school, including PE teachers Matthew Delaney and Virgil Gill, kept him on the straight and narrow as a boisterous teenager.

The player grew up on a tough Peckham estate and moved to Blackheath when he was a teenager, but he managed to avoid the temptations of drugs and crime which some contemporaries succumbed to.

He credits his success in football to the discipline he learned at the 900-pupil Church of England school, which he left in 1995 with five GCSEs, to become a £40-a-week apprentice for West Ham.

Today he earns £70,000 a week and commands an automatic place in the England squad - but still calls his old teachers "Sir".

Ferdinand said: "I liked to have a laugh, but you can't let it go too far. Mr Owen was the one who gave people a stern talking-to and I received a few. He told me not to put all my eggs in one basket."

Today Mr Owen, found by the Standard living in retirement four years after leaving Bluecoat, said he remembers his former pupil well.

"He was an ebullient character," said Mr Owen, who as senior master was in charge of the school's house system.

The 6ft 2in teacher was a large physical presence - but Ferdinand was one of the few pupils who could look him in the eye. "He stood out because in a school of mostly small boys, he was very tall," said Mr Owen. "If pupils needed to be spoken to, I was the final person they would be sent to. But I don't remember having to speak to Rio too often."

The two still keep in touch through Rio's mother, Janice Lavender, who insisted on hard work from her son.

"Football isn't something I really follow," said Mr Owen. "But it's great to know he is such a success."

Ferdinand's PE teacher Mr Delaney is now a coach with SportEngland. He and colleague Mr Gill, now a tennis coach, knew they had a huge talent on their hands - and were determined not to let him stray. "He was very serious about his training," said Mr Delaney. "He came back to Bluecoat to present me with a school sports achievement award. He was the same old Rio. He called me 'Sir' and signed autographs."

His form teacher, Denise Winston, told how the threat of a phone call to his mother always calmed any high spirits in the teenager. "I had a good relationship with Mrs Ferdinand," said Mrs Winston, who has taught at the Greenwich school for 24 years, and said the worst Ferdinand was ever guilty of was "a bit of cheek".

"If he was getting a bit boisterous, I would only have to say something like' 'Should I call your mum?' and he would calm down."

And she added: "He was very popular with the boys and with the girls."

Ferdinand told Greenwich council's magazine, Greenwich Time: "When I was at school I remember thinking, 'If I don't make it in football I'll work in sport and some way or another, become a coach or something.' I haven't needed to but I am still glad I did okay at school."

The player also told how he had known murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was four years ahead of him at school. "The whole school was in mourning when he died," he said. "I can't understand the mentality of anyone who would do such a thing. You've got to be an idiot."

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