I have watched Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall at Leicester City for a decade and I was wrong about him
The qualities that got Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to Leicester City stardom have been there to see for a decade
Ten years ago this winter, a group of parents, coaches and friends were huddled around the touchline of pitch number two at Belvoir Drive.
They were there to cheer on Leicester City under-15s in a weekend friendly. To the untrained eye, one player stood out for the wrong reasons. A small, blonde central midfielder whose royal blue kit looked four sizes too large. He ran his socks off but, after being knocked off the ball time and again, he was substituted early.
Ten years ago this winter, a group of parents, coaches and friends were huddled around the touchline of pitch number two at Belvoir Drive.
They were there to cheer on Leicester City under-15s in a weekend friendly. To the untrained eye, one player stood out for the wrong reasons. A small, blonde central midfielder whose royal blue kit looked four sizes too large. He ran his socks off but, after being knocked off the ball time and again, he was substituted early.
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Over the next decade, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall would go on to prove that scout right. Perhaps more than either of them could have imagined. And thankfully, this Leicester supporter has never been happier to eat his words.
The following season, while watching the under-18s, a small blonde midfielder caught my eye with a crunching slide tackle on the next pitch across. It was the young kid from the year before, and I walked across the Belvoir Drive car park and up the grass slope to cast an eye over his progress.
He was physically no bigger, and everyone towered over him, but he was getting knocked off the ball much less. It was with a different eye that I watched Dewsbury-Hall that day. I looked at his technique, his desire and his attitude. Through that prism, he quickly became my favourite player on the pitch.
It was clear the young teenager had a bee in his bonnet, at least on that afternoon, and was more than keen to prove himself. Skip forward to 2023, and he is doing exactly the same. That path was far from easy for the youngster, and he has proven – to anyone who needed showing – that with hard work and determination, you can achieve your dream.
Speaking about his journey in an interview last year, Dewsbury-Hall said : “I had a lot of setbacks coming through the academy. I was a very small lad, it wasn’t until I was 17 that I got a growth spurt. I was a late developer and for my whole life I was small, so I was always the smallest lad in the age group. I never got the chance to play in groups above.
“I’d always watch lads in my team go and train with the older lads, and I’d be thinking ‘will I ever get a chance?’. It got to the point where I said to my mum: ‘can you please take me to the doctors? When am I ever going to grow?’
“She was like: ‘trust me, just be patient’. It got that serious. I thought I needed growth hormones or something. I bided it out and I’m so happy I did that. I had to work on all the other things. Technically, I had to be good else I’d get boshed off the ball otherwise. I couldn’t go up against players physically, so I was improving technically.
“Eventually I knew I’d grow. Then I went out on loan a couple of times, made it into the first team and now I’m just wanting to keep kicking on.”
Dewsbury-Hall raised eyebrows over the summer when he claimed he wanted to be the best player in the Championship. That desire was blatant in the opening game of the season, and even Enzo Maresca has remarked that ‘KDH’ was “shooting from his house” in an attempt to score.
The midfielder is now playing more thoughtful and considered football, and is quickly on his way to fulfilling the claim he made. Much like he did as an under-16 player, he has again taken himself to the next level by doing things slightly differently and working hard in the process.
If he replicates his last couple of performances for the rest of the season, and perhaps even find yet another level, he will no doubt be the Championship Player of the Season.
