Head south-west from Elephant and Castle, passing the Walworth Road as you go, and before you reach Kennington Underground Station you’ll see an historic housing estate on your left.

The Guinness Trust Buildings on Kennington Park Road were built between the two World Wars. The development was one of the first in the country to receive government funding as efforts were raised to accommodate the working class after the devastations of war. The new tenements even included separate bathrooms, an innovative move 30 years into The Guinness Trust’s existence.

Little did the architects know, but the open courtyards between the buildings would develop into a makeshift playground for the children living on the estate. It was here, at the turn of the 21st century, that Jadon Sancho first experienced the pleasure of kicking a football around.

‘Me and my friends just had a love for the game,’ Jadon tells us.

‘In your earlier days everything is just fun. You want to show ability to other people that are watching or playing. We would play mini games for two hours, and I used to have all the tricks, nutmeg people. I’d call myself a street footballer.

‘It was a rough area, there were a lot of bad things happening, but that is what made me who I am today: the toughness of where I am from, embracing it, and growing up quicker.

‘I’m still close with the friends I was playing with at that age. That is where I am from, so I will never lose contact with them.’

Jadon descends from Jamaican-Guyanese heritage on his father’s side, while his mother is Scottish-Irish. It is, he smiles, a ‘pretty good mix’, and he believes the different cultures he experienced growing up have helped him as a person and as a footballer.

Jadon lived with his mum and attended Crampton Primary School, a goal kick away from his flat. He was on the school team, unsurprisingly, but getting involved in organised football at the weekends was more arduous.

‘My dad used to find mini tournaments in the area,’ Jadon recalls.

‘I just used go there, turn up with no team, and usually someone was always missing players, so I would just go on that team. Player of the Tournament was always a big thing for me. I tried to do the most, do my skills and score lots of goals.

‘After time we started becoming more serious when clubs come looking at you. Every Sunday we were going to Sunday League tournaments. It was nice. Around seven or eight, a few clubs were in for me, and I chose Watford in the end because I felt comfortable with how they treated me.’

Aged 11, Jadon was given the opportunity to attend the Harefield Academy, which had a partnership with Championship club Watford and was where the kids did all their schooling and training. His family supported the idea, keen for him to avoid the pitfalls that would accompany becoming a teenager in south London.

‘I was obviously very disappointed [with moving away] because all my friends were there,’ he admits.

‘The first year was very difficult for me, leaving home for the first time. I was very young. The first year was horrendous. Every chance I got to go home, I went home. The whole point of going to that school was not to come home, just to focus on football! By year eight and year nine, I started to understand why I was there, and started to focus more.

‘Off the pitch was where I found it tougher, but on the pitch, that was my playground. I was happy every time I touched the ball.’

In between classes, Jadon would train daily and play a match on Sundays. He had to adapt to spending so much time with boys who were not his childhood friends and with whom he often had little in common, besides footballing ability.

His parents and friends of theirs who had been so helpful in the past would come and watch him play. Such was his talent that at Watford he usually played two age groups higher.

‘It was definitely worth it,’ Jadon reflects on those years away from home.

‘Looking back, if there was a younger me I could speak to, for sure I would advise them if they were living in the same environment as me, to look at the bigger picture. Go chase your dream instead of being distracted.’

When the prodigious attacker was 14, Manchester City made their move. Within a year he was playing for their Under-18 and Under-21s sides.

By now, Sancho was regarded as one of the best young talents in world football, so his decision to leave City in 2017 and sign his first professional contract at Borussia Dortmund grabbed the headlines.

‘It was a big risk,’ he acknowledges. ‘I knew it was a risk I was willing to take because I believed in myself.

‘I was willing to do everything I could to prove everyone wrong. At the time, it was seen as a strange move. The year before I went, I was at the Under-17 Euros when we got to the final and lost on penalties. I got Player of the Tournament. So there was big talk about why I was leaving. People said I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t really listen to everyone.

‘It was when City bought [Riyad] Mahrez and Leroy Sane. For a young player like me, I felt it was the right time to move on. I felt I was ready to play first team. It was not that I didn’t want to wait and play under Pep Guardiola, one of the best coaches ever, it was that in my mind I felt I was ready. I felt like they had other plans. That was why I made the jump to Dortmund.’

Jadon’s father accompanied him to Germany for a couple of months to help him settle. By the end of that season, the 17-year-old had played a dozen Bundesliga games and scored once. He went from strength to strength the following campaign, 2018/19, with his consistent performances in the Bundesliga and the Champions League earning him the first of, to date, 23 England caps.

This summer, Jadon arrived at Chelsea on loan from Manchester United, who he had signed for three years prior. For the first time as an adult, that meant a return to London.

‘It’s still a bit weird to me, but it’s always good to be home,’ he smiles. ‘My family is close, my friends are close.

‘I always supported Chelsea as a kid, because of Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba. And speaking to Enzo [Maresca] before I came here, he was determined to work with me. He showed me his plans of where he sees me fitting in the team, and telling me how I could help the team moving forward. That brought me here. He made me feel comfortable. I liked his energy on the Facetime call we had.

‘This squad has a lot of great talent,’ adds Jadon. ‘It’s weird being one of the older players! There are a lot of young guys here. I have a lot of experience and I can show and help a couple of the younger ones coming through. And they can help me. We can achieve something big if we all stick together and work hard together.’

Back on his estate in Kennington, kicking a ball around, the young Jadon could never have imagined what the sport would give him. It has defined the man he is today.

‘It means everything to me. It’s my life. Without football, I don’t know what I would be doing.’

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