Richard Nartey: 'You Learn How Fortunate You Are Growing up at Chelsea'

 Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock
Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock
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Richard Nartey: 'You Learn How Fortunate You Are Growing up at Chelsea'

 Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock
Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock

“The first thing that happened was a ball got kicked in the air at me and I got an elbow in the face,” Richard Nartey says as he recalls his gritty introduction to League One after going on loan to Burton Albion. The centre-back, who has been at Chelsea since he was nine, knew it was time to sink or swim. He was making his professional debut after coming off the bench against Bristol Rovers in August and it was a rude awakening.

“I was a bit dazed,” Nartey says. “It was my wake-up call. I was telling myself: ‘You’ve got to give it back. You can’t act like this young person from Chelsea, otherwise people will pick on you.’ I had to show I could do all the physical stuff and let my technical side show as well.”

He knuckled down, helping Burton to a 2-0 victory. He enjoyed his time at the Pirelli Stadium and is disappointed that the League One season is over prematurely. He has been back at his family home in Wimbledon during lockdown and, with Chelsea deciding not to renew his contract when it expires on 30 June, he is focusing on finding a new club.

The 21-year-old is used to being challenged. Nartey placed a high value on his education, even though it slowed his development at Chelsea. He attended St Paul’s, a private school in south-west London, until he finished his GCSEs when he was 16. “I stayed longer than most at Chelsea before going on loan because I started full-time a couple of years later,” he says. “Usually you do day release at 13. You still go to school and take a day off to train. At 14, 15, 16 you do full-time football. I didn’t train for two and a bit years full-time.

“Even if you were good enough you can never tell what’s going to happen at that age. With my parents giving me all the help I needed I thought it better to do my GCSEs. Once you go full-time it switches to being more focused on football. It ended up with me going to school for the five days and then I’d have to just turn up on the day of the game. Then I’d go back to school while everyone else went back to training for the week.”

There was more to come for Nartey, who spent three years studying for maths and French A-levels after joining Chelsea full-time at 16. He is grateful to the club for paying for his lessons and finding him quiet spaces to work, but he also had to catch up on his teammates. Nartey had fallen behind at an academy that produced Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Reece James.

“The goalkeeper Nathan Baxter did a similar thing to me,” he says. “But you do feel on your own. I didn’t know many in my situation. I was surrounded by players who were not only the best but had been doing it for two years, every day. I came in as a skinny schoolkid.

“That was my first ever pre-season. I’d never trained every day before. The first time I tried it I cramped up within 40 minutes. I took that session as a break and trained every other day. I told myself I had to be patient. I did two training sessions in a row for the first time and in my mind that was a great achievement. Everyone else was celebrating in a jokey way. But it was big for me.”

Nartey is not surprised that Abraham, Mount, Tomori, Hudson-Odoi and James have broken into the first team. The academy coaches improved their technique but also instilled a strong work ethic. Nartey had a solid grounding thanks to Joe Edwards, who joined the first-team coaching staff at the start of the season, and Jody Morris, Frank Lampard’s No 2.

“Joe has been there since I was very young,” Nartey says. “He’s been extremely helpful, especially as you’re getting into the 23s. He was crucial in reminding us you’re going to lose games when you go out, you’re going to find yourself not playing sometimes.

“Jody was my youth-team coach. His success speaks for itself. He would join in the training session sometimes and would usually be the best player technically. You would see what the top level looks like, even though he had retired.”

Nartey had more to learn. He had featured against lower-league sides when Chelsea reached the semi-finals of the Checkatrade Trophy in 2018, but he needed a tougher environment than academy football. Burton beckoned. “You learn how fortunate you are growing up at Chelsea,” he says. “You go on loan and see there are bonuses for winning games and how much that means to someone.”

Nigel Clough, who quit as Burton’s manager to help the club cope with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, gave Nartey 28 appearances. Jake Buxton, the experienced centre-back who has stepped in as player-manager, has been another big influence.

Tore André Flo, who looks after Chelsea’s loan players, has also helped mentor him. “He’s been extremely helpful,” Nartey says. “I’d play a game and the first message I’d have when I’d get back was: ‘I saw you played the whole game, how did you find it?’ He’s come up to Burton a few times.

“He played up front and he was saying what he didn’t like. Strikers like time on the ball and he said the toughest ones were when people got tight and didn’t give you the chance to turn.”

The next step is approaching. “I always wanted to be involved in financial things,” Nartey says. “My dad works at Barclays so I’ve been getting advice from him. I’ve started a financial trading course during lockdown. Hopefully it stays as a back-up plan, but even when I retire I’ll need to do something. It will never hurt to have the two A-levels.”

The Guardian Sport



Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game Without Incident in Hungary

28 November 2024, Berlin: Maccabi Tel Aviv fans wave Israeli flags in the stands during the EuroLeague Basketball match between Alba Berlin and Maccabi Tel Aviv at Uber Arena. Photo: Andreas Gora/dpa
28 November 2024, Berlin: Maccabi Tel Aviv fans wave Israeli flags in the stands during the EuroLeague Basketball match between Alba Berlin and Maccabi Tel Aviv at Uber Arena. Photo: Andreas Gora/dpa
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Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv Plays Soccer Game Without Incident in Hungary

28 November 2024, Berlin: Maccabi Tel Aviv fans wave Israeli flags in the stands during the EuroLeague Basketball match between Alba Berlin and Maccabi Tel Aviv at Uber Arena. Photo: Andreas Gora/dpa
28 November 2024, Berlin: Maccabi Tel Aviv fans wave Israeli flags in the stands during the EuroLeague Basketball match between Alba Berlin and Maccabi Tel Aviv at Uber Arena. Photo: Andreas Gora/dpa

Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv's game against Besiktas in the Europa League was played without incident before empty stands in Hungary on Thursday, with the stadium closed to fans over security concerns following attacks on Israeli supporters in Amsterdam this month.
Maccabi won the game 3-1 on a cold and rainy evening in Debrecen, Hungary's second-largest city. Groups of police patrolled outside the stadium but security levels did not appear overwhelming in the city of around 200,000 residents, The Associated Press reported.
After the match, Maccabi coach Zarko Lazetic said playing in front of an empty stadium without fans is always a struggle for the team.
“We play football because of the fans, to give them some pleasure, some excite(ment) and to be together,” he said.
Israel’s soccer teams play domestic games at home despite the Israel-Hamas war. But European soccer body UEFA has ruled that the war in Gaza means Israel cannot host international games.
The Thursday match was Maccabi’s first in Europe since its fans were assaulted in the Netherlands on Nov. 7 in attacks that were condemned as antisemitic by authorities in Israel and across Europe.
Before that match in Amsterdam, a large crowd of Israeli fans chanted anti-Arab slogans, and later, youths on scooters and on foot crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli fans, punching and kicking them, according to the city's mayor.
Five people were treated in hospitals and police detained dozens of people.
Even before the Amsterdam attacks, the European soccer body UEFA announced that Thursday’s Europa League match, originally scheduled to take place in Istanbul, would be moved to a neutral venue “following a decision by the Turkish authorities.”
Hungary, which has hosted several home games for Israel’s national team since the war in Gaza began, agreed to host the game.