DARREN BENT
When England begin their Euro 2020 campaign this month, Darren Bent will spare a thought for the players whose dreams were dashed at the last moment. While the squad prepares at St George’s Park, others will be sat back at home, disconsolate after missing out on selection for the tournament. Bent knows that feeling all too well: few players have been quite as unlucky as he was.
The marksman netted 106 Premier League goals in his career – 24 of them in a single season, with Sunderland in 2009-10, but even that didn’t earn him a call-up for the 2010 World Cup.
It had been a similar story four years earlier, when the top flight’s leading English goalscorer saw a 17-year-old Theo Walcott go to Germany 2006 in his place, and then play zero minutes. There have been few more surprising selections in English sporting history.
Bent never did go to a tournament with the Three Lions. Now, aged 37 and working as a pundit for talkSPORT, he is ready to reflect on his career and tackle FourFourTwo readers’ questions. As well as those England heartbreaks, he has a few things to say about beach balls, infamous tweets, and the day he was unfavourably compared to Harry Redknapp’s missus…
I met your father once and we had a really good conversation about his time following Chelsea. Are you also a Chelsea fan?
George Downs, via Instagram
No, I’m not! He’s a massive Chelsea supporter, and I remember him taking me there as a surprise for my first ever game. He said, “I’m going to take you somewhere” – I asked if it was Chelsea, and he said no. We were driving over there and I said, “Dad, I can see the floodlights – are we going to Chelsea?” He still said no! I was very young and he managed to fool me the whole way until we got inside the turnstiles.
He’d take me to sit in the Matthew Harding Stand or the Shed Lower, but Ian Wright was my big hero. I grew up in Crystal Palace territory and when Wright signed for Arsenal, I was an Arsenal fan through and through. My dad has been trying to get my kids to support Chelsea. It’s such a joke! Every single birthday and Christmas, it’s full Chelsea kits, Chelsea dressing gowns, water bottles, lunch boxes, pyjamas, pencil cases... he’s trying his hardest!
Is it true that you were a good long jumper growing up?
Annabel Parker, Southwold
That is true. I did athletics for England as a youngster and it got to the point where I had to choose one: I couldn’t be long jumping and playing football, because of injuries.
