WHEN Jermain Defoe moved to the North-East in January 2015, I thought I had him worked out. Flashy, arrogant, more interested in flouncing around London nightclubs with a WAG on his arm than dedicating himself to his profession.

I feared he’d be a nightmare to deal with, if not quite on a par with former Newcastle captain Michael Owen, whose self-important condescension still sends a shiver down the spine, then at least with plenty of similarities to some of the other ‘big-name’ players who have made millions out of North-East football while treating the region’s supporters and media with disdain.

How wrong I was. On Sunday night, I had the privilege of being at Durham’s Ramside Hall as Defoe was crowned North-East Player of the Year by the North-East Football Writers’ Association. He joins a roll call of former winners that reads like a Who’s Who of the North-East game. To my mind, however, he is the most worthy recipient of all.

The Northern Echo:

Defoe is the epitome of what supporters want their footballers to be. On the pitch, his efforts pretty much single-handedly kept Sunderland in the top-flight last season, and are threatening to do so again this term. He has scored more than 50 per cent of the Black Cats’ league goals, and is the joint highest-scoring Englishman in the Premier League despite playing for a side that are bottom of the table. Just imagine how many goals he’d have if he was leading the line for Chelsea or Arsenal.

Despite having turned 34 in October, his fitness levels put most of his contemporaries to shame. He has started every single one of Sunderland’s league games this season, and even featured in both of the club’s FA Cup ties.

When he wanders into the press room at the Academy of Light to be interviewed, he is invariably clutching a bottle containing some horrendous-looking vegetable juice that he swears aids his recovery process. He doesn’t drink, and even paid to have a cryotherapy unit delivered to his house before former Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce installed one at the club’s training ground.

“There’s only one other player we know about who does cryotherapy at home, and that’s Cristiano Ronaldo,” said Mark Taylor, who was Sunderland’s performance guru under Allardyce. “He’s got his own unit at his house.

The Northern Echo:

“When we started doing cryotherapy at the training ground, Jermain led the compliance. He was going in and everybody else was following. He was 100 per cent onside with all the things in the recovery cycle – good nutrition, rest, sleep, cryotherapy, massages and cycling.”

So much for leading a playboy lifestyle. When it comes to Defoe’s ability to still be at his peak in his mid-30s, his longevity is hardly a coincidence.

Yet his commitment to his own professional standards does not merely extend to his fitness levels. Off the pitch, and away from the day-to-day demands of actually playing football, Defoe is both an inspiration and an exemplar for others to follow.

Prior to signing for Sunderland, he didn’t have any links to Wearside at all. He was a Beckton boy, born and raised in East London as a West Ham fan, and with a strong affinity to Spurs thanks to his time at White Hart Lane.

Yet while plenty of people have paid lip service to Sunderland’s historic and cultural identity after signing at either Roker Park or the Stadium of Light, Defoe understands what it means to be the figurehead of an institution that stands at the heart of a proud, largely working-class community.

In the same way that Niall Quinn admits Sunderland “got under his skin”, so Defoe has willingly embraced everything that the club represents.

“There’s just something about knowing those fans are behind you,” he said at the weekend. “When I scored that goal against Newcastle (in April 2015), I had to wipe away a few tears from my eyes. I’m not sure I’ve ever scored a goal that meant so much to so many people.”

The Northern Echo:

Always willing to give up his time, whether before or after a game, Defoe is a dream to deal with from a press point of view. Unlike so many modern-day footballers, who are pre-programmed to say nothing, he is happy to sit for half-an-hour and discuss anything you want to throw at him. He doesn’t speak in platitudes, and doesn’t swerve potentially-difficult questions. In his eyes, ambassadorial responsibilities are as much a part of his job as scoring past an opposition goalkeeper.

Which brings us, of course, to Bradley Lowery. Of all the sporting photographs that are published this year, none will have the power or poignancy of the one that emerged on social media earlier this month showing Defoe cuddling a sleeping Bradley in his hospital bed.

The picture moved everyone who has seen it because it wasn’t stage-managed or posed. It wasn’t the work of a PR department or brand manager. Defoe travelled to Bradley’s hospital bed with three of his team-mates because he wanted to be there, and when Bradley asked if he would lie with him while he went to sleep, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.


“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy going there and seeing Bradley like that,” he said, in an interview on the Ramside Hall stage at the weekend. “But it was something I thought was important to do.

“If I can help in any way, then I want to try to do that. One minute Bradley was chatting away, the next he was fast asleep. He’s the inspiration, not any of us.”

Be that as it may, Defoe’s actions went viral and were quickly picked up all over the world. As a highly-paid professional, it can be argued that it didn’t take much for him to make that visit and act in a way that most people would regard as ‘ordinary’.

But whether we like it or not, it’s hard for footballers to be ‘ordinary’, especially ones who are plying their trade in one of the most high-profile leagues in the world.

Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Defoe is that he is both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. As a result, he deserves to be hailed as the North-East’s Footballer of the Year.