Jermaine Pennant - Mental: Bad Behaviour, Ugly Truths and the Beautiful Game

I f you have a difficult upbringing, then its bound to affect you in your adult life. I just didnt realise at the time just how much it would affect me.

I grew up on a tough estate in Nottingham, the Meadows. It wasnt so much working class; more what people might call lower class. Thats the simple truth. I think that if Id had a different upbringing, with my mum and dad always on the scene, then I would have played for England and would have had a bigger career, for sure. Ive had a good career and Im not unhappy, but I could have done more. I know that and Im the first to admit it.

But a difficult childhood affects you when you grow up. Even now it affects me, with certain choices I make. I even went to see a psychologist and had six or seven sessions, telling them my story: why I made mistakes, why I would push people away, not let people get close to me. And the main reason was my childhood. I didnt have a mother figure; my father was disruptive.

Whenever people get close, I tend to get scared and dont want to be let down again, so I push them away. Most kids have someone to put their arm around them when they need it. I never had that. Thats something that has always affected me and probably always will.

My mum, Debbie, left home and I didnt see her for years. She was told by her mum my grandmother to have nothing to do with her brown baby, and I was even told that she had died, only to discover later that she hadnt at all.

I watched my dad selling drugs, turning our house into a drugs den, becoming a heroin addict, leaving shotgun cartridges around the place, having the front door kicked in by police and ending up in prison. He was a gangster.

I know what people say about me. Here comes trouble, hes a troubled guy and he is trouble. Its been the story of my career. But I want people to understand some of the reasons.

* * *

The Meadows was a council estate and we moved from house to house. My dad had several partners, going from one woman to another, and we would move in with them, or vice versa, but then they would split up. I would see a lot of different women come and go, so at the time I had a number of stepmums, but not having my real mum as well had an impact.

My mum had separated from my dad, Gary, when I was a little kid, maybe about three. My dad would have me at the weekends and then take me back home to my mums. One weekend he went to take me back at the usual time but no one was there. So we went back to my dads and came back the next day, but for six months my dad couldnt get in touch with my mum. She just disappeared overnight and my dad just had to tell me that he couldnt get hold of her.

GARY PENNANT: I had him at weekends and then took him back to his mum, but one Sunday night she wasnt there. There was no answer at the door, I phoned her every hour and this went on for a week, but nothing.

Then I thought, Right, Ill have to do something. So I went to social services and we got a flat in the Meadows. I was very young at the time, not even twenty, and, to be honest, it was a steep learning curve.

Its a friendly neighbourhood but we, as a crowd, were very naughty. In fact, we were pretty notorious. The Meadows was a nice place because no one dared come and cause any trouble. But we took all our troubles out of the Meadows. I used to think the Meadows was a nice place to grow up, even though a lot of people were into the criminal side of things; but actually, there was no trouble inside the Meadows because we wouldnt do bad stuff on our own doorstep.

I met a partner and she moved in with me eventually. We then had a new baby boy and of course we had a family bond there. Obviously Jermaine was going to miss his real mum and I didnt know at that stage just how much it would affect him. Clearly it has affected him, although we havent really spoken about it much between ourselves.

Sometime after my mum had gone missing, disappeared without a word, my dad saw her out of the blue in Nottingham city centre and he couldnt believe his eyes. He shouted at her, chased her down and she just ran off. He later found out that shed moved on with her life, met someone else and got married. It was one side of the story.

However, as I got older, I saw my mum from time to time, but I didnt actually ask her what had really happened. She just told me that my dad and his family had threatened her and told her never to come near me again. She said she always wanted to get in contact but was too scared of my dad and the family.

One day, I asked my dads mum, my grandmother Cynthia shes got no issues, shes been great what happened and she told me that she never had anything against my mum but said that my other grandmother, my mums mother, had said to her, I dont want anything to do with this brown baby. My daughter has got enough to deal with. You lot keep it and deal with it.

There is no reason for her to lie or for my dad to lie. My dad was only nineteen at the time and I couldnt see a nineteen-year-old taking on the burden of a child on his own. I had to believe that story; I believe its true.

My grandmother said that she had no bad feelings. She said to me that if I wanted to pursue my mother then shed be right behind me. My dad said the same thing and that if I wanted to get in contact, then it was fine.

But from when I was three, I didnt see my mum until I was thirteen. Then we had to get in touch because I needed a passport to go to play in Paris for England Schoolboys. To get that passport I had to get a signed birth certificate. I dont know how it was set up, how my dad got in touch, but we met up for the first time in years and she signed the document and got the passport. And it was hard to be in contact. It felt like seeing my mum almost for the first time, because I had been so young when she left that I couldnt really remember much. It all felt so weird.

But the craziest thing of all was that, for a while, as far as I knew, my mum had died. I was with my agent, Sky Andrew, in his office after I had signed for Arsenal and there was a phone call. Sky then came into the room and said, Jermaine, Ive just had a call. Ive got some bad news: your mums died of cancer throat cancer.

I asked who it was that had called. He said it was a member of my family, and they said they were so sorry. I was never close to my mother. But even if youre not close, it is still upsetting, because losing your mum or dad is different from losing a cousin, say. I didnt break down, although obviously I was sad, but thats how I had grown up. Growing up on my own, thats how I had to deal with all the emotional stuff. Ive always been on my own.

After I got the call to say she had passed away and I told everyone at Arsenal that I had found out about it, they gave me a few days off and I didnt know really what to feel because I was never attached.

They were very good, giving me some compassionate leave. They wanted to send some flowers, but I didnt know where to say they should send them or where to send anything myself because I had no address.

Then it just came out that she hadnt passed away. I cant remember exactly what happened, who got in touch to say she was alive after all. To me, it wasnt a happy or a sad moment. It was a blank. I just thought, Oh, shes alive, OK. It felt blank. It was just so typical of my upbringing.

I was growing older and shes got two sons who are my stepbrothers, and they got in contact via social media. I responded and some of the family on my mums side got in touch when I was doing well, moving up and into my twenties.