Jack the Lad - The Making of Grealish

With Notts taking on Aston Villa this evening in the League Cup, all eyes will be on Jack Grealish, the young winger whose fruitful loan spell at Meadow Lane and recent performances for Villa have make him a popular figure in the eyes of both sets of fans.

Pride of Nottingham spoke to Kevin, Jack's proud father and a lifelong Villa fan, about his son's upbringing, his early days in football, his loan spell at Notts, and what he hopes the player will achieve in his career.

Hello Kevin, pleasure to speak to you. First of all we'd like to ask you, what are your earliest footballing memories?

I started going down to Villa when I was about eight or nine and got a season ticket when I was 13. The memories that stand out? Seeing them win things like the European Cup… in fact, winning everything bar the FA Cup (we’ll forget about that one). Later on in life, bringing Jack and my other son Kevan down to Villa Park.

How did Jack get into football?

He began getting into football aged four, and within a year he was playing football in a small kickabout team. By age six he was training with Villa, and at age seven they signed him and he’s been there ever since. Quite a few clubs were enquiring about him, such as Crewe, Birmingham, West Brom and Wolves, but Villa’s his club.

How did you know that Jack had something special and could have gone on to play professionally?

When Jack was seven, I went into a bookmaker’s and asked to put a bet on that my son would go on to play football professionally. The guy behind the counter told me to look on the internet, but back in those days (2002) not everyone had it – I was one of those, and I didn’t chase it up!

But it was then, when he was seven, that I knew he had something about him and that he was standing out a bit. He was playing in older age groups and was still holding his own.

What was Jack like at school?

He was good at maths, okay at English, but the football did sidetrack him a bit, he didn’t do as well as he should have done. When he was around 13 years old he was taken out of school two days a week and educated at Bodymoor Heath (Aston Villa’s training ground). And during his last year, all his education was there.

How did the Notts County loan move come about?

I’ve always known about Notts County, everyone knows about them – they’re the oldest league club in the world. On the Wednesday before he was due to go there I got a phone call from Gordon Cowans, Villa’s Under-21 manager, and he said: “Jack’s going on loan to Notts tomorrow morning!” I checked where Notts were in the league and they were near the bottom of the table so I thought: “We’ve got a battle on our hands here!”

At first it was only a loan until Christmas, for around six weeks, but then by late December he started playing some good games, creating and scoring goals and generally having a great influence in matches – and the Notts fans liked him. Also, the rest of League One started taking notice of him. In fact, six clubs came in for Jack while he was at Meadow Lane – two of them in the Championship, but we said no, Notts were good enough to give us a try so we agreed to stay here.

One of those clubs was Peterborough, who were riding high in the league. Jack could have gone on to play at Wembley as a 19-year-old but we stayed put at Notts and as it turned out the team ended up surviving. It was a great move for Jack.

As a father how did it feel coming down to Notts and watching your son play first-team football?

It was brilliant. Before that he was playing in Under-21 games in front of around 60 or 70 fans, and now we were at Notts who were getting four, five thousand fans. It meant something to the fans and we had a reason to play football to try and keep the team in the league.

The lads there, Callum McGregor, Alan Sheehan, JCR, they got on great and he had a great connection with them all. And I really enjoyed going to Notts. I used to never miss Villa games, but where Jack plays, I go and watch him, and we had a great time.

What are your proudest memories of Jack’s time at Notts, and did you have any memorabilia from it?

We have Jack’s away shirt – the purple one – framed in our house, “Grealish No. 7”. I was really happy he got that number as some top players over the years have had that number, it means “let’s see what you can do”. We also have his home shirt (Kevin kindly brought it along to the interview) and we’ll get that framed soon.

The proudest memory would have to be keeping Notts up in the final game of the season. That was a fantastic, unbelievable experience. The whole of Meadow Lane appeared to be there at Oldham.

As for goals, the Gillingham goal, where he collected the ball outside the area, beat one defender, then another, then another, and walloped past the keeper – their manager said: “We made him look like George Best!”

The best game he had was Colchester away – scored one, set up a few and I thought he was just outstanding.

This is the second time we’ve spoken to you (we first spoke to Kevin for our Meet The Fans feature at Meadow Lane). What are your thoughts on Pride of Nottingham?

It’s great what you lads do. The way you connect with the fans and give them an insight of things at the club – even bringing me back, even though Jack played at Notts over a season ago, is great. Fans still have fine memories of Jack and what he did at Meadow Lane. I think what you lads are doing, a lot of other clubs can follow.

Do you still keep tabs on how Notts are doing?

We were looking all last season – one of the first questions we asked at Villa in the players lounge after a game was: “How did Notts do?” You had a great start to the season and then sadly the wheels fell off.

Me, Jack and the rest of the family are always keeping tabs on how they do. They’re the club that gave us a go, you’ve got to look out for teams like that. We could have moved on in the January transfer window and tested Jack further but we wanted to stay with Notts.

What are your hopes for Jack’s career?

He’s had a fantastic season last year, signing a new four-year deal at Villa, being voted Young Player of the Year both with his club and with Ireland’s Under-21s, and playing a part in keeping a team up for the second season in a row. Considering where Villa were in January, we looked done for, but it was fantastic – not to mention getting to the FA Cup final and playing at Wembley.

My career ambition is for him to go one better and win trophies at Villa, because that’s his club.

Pride of Nottingham would like to thank Kevin Grealish for his time and for speaking to us. Best of luck with Villa's game tonight, for the rest of the season and of course for Jack's career!

If you want to discuss this interview, or to view the interview in its original video format, head down to the Pride of Nottingham forum, view the YouTube video and join the conversation.