The town that watched Jude Bellingham grow before the world took notice

Worlds away from the Santiago Bernabeu – more figuratively than literally – there is a stadium in the Black Country of England, in a small town called Stourbridge. The stadium’s name is the War Memorial Ground, and its football pitch is the home of Stourbridge FC, a Southern League Premier Division Central team in England. It sits alongside a ground in the same area used for first-class cricket matches.

The stadium may not be the biggest, but it has character. Every game draws a good crowd, filling up the two stands while others watch from the cricket ground and clubhouse.

Not far from where they play is a smaller pitch available for academy kids to practice on. Around 15 years ago, one of those kids was Jude Bellingham, who used to come in every other week to see his father Mark play.

Long before Bellingham was scoring last-minute winners at the Etihad Stadium against Manchester City, he was just a kid who was slowly but surely falling in love with the sport.

“Jude was so young back then,” said a Stourbridge fan present at their team’s match against Hitchin Town, listening to Beat 54 by Jungle, which was playing at the stadium pre-game. “He used to come in to watch Mark while playing with the other kids on the other pitch.”

Mark was a policeman and used to play part-time for several different non-league clubs in England. At one point, it was Stourbridge, and he became a household name there, scoring every week, and sometimes, having to leave mid-game to fight crime, literally.

Another fan present at the eventual Stourbridge loss, who has watched the team for as long as he can remember, reminisced: “Mark used to play a lot, scored goals for fun, but I have been around for so long that I remember him leaving the pitch mid-game to go to his actual job as a policeman.

“Sometimes that is what you get with non-league football in England, stuff like this just happens.”

The War Memorial Ground was built more than a century ago and also has a war memorial archway at the entrance, which was designed in 1928. You can get to the stadium by taking the shortest train journey in the UK, just a few minutes from Stourbridge Junction to Stourbridge Town.

It is a historical site for the people of Stourbridge, and it was the same for Bellingham, who came through the archway with his mum every other Saturday at 3 pm, and also at other times to train with the youth team.

“He never played for the club, but is so incredibly famous and loved here because it is his hometown,” said a fan at the ground.

He only played for Stourbridge Juniors in 2009 and 2010, before moving to Birmingham City, where he spent 10 years forging into the player he is today.

Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

A striking mural of Bellingham stands in the Ryemarket Shopping Centre, which in itself is huge for a person who has quickly become one of the household names in English, Spanish and world football.

Despite his fame and success, it is easy to forget that Bellingham is still just 21 years old. Seeing storied successes for a player of his age, no matter who it is, becomes something that always catches your eye. Few 21-year-olds have two murals in their honor, making Bellingham’s rise even more remarkable.

Ever since the Englishman broke onto the scene – particularly after he moved to Real Madrid – people have been associating the Bellingham name with the hit TV series Peaky Blinders which is based in Birmingham. Because of that, there has been an assumption among the fanbase and among casuals that he is also from Birmingham, but there is a clear distinction.

Bellingham’s birthplace is a good 30-minute drive from the skyscrapers of Birmingham, and Stourbridge’s official Twitter account also tweeted about this difference when Bellingham lifted the Champions League trophy in June.

It is not to say that he is only celebrated in Stourbridge, though, as Birmingham City have a mural dedicated to him too, and they retired his squad number when he was 17 – which is generally unheard of for any player of that age. It shows the influence the player had during his time there.

Photo by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images

However, Stourbridge is the place where the midfielder got his values from, that is also the place where he fell in love with the sport for the first time, and that will forever be earmarked as Jude’s hometown.

It is not just the place that he has put on the map. He has also inspired the next generation coming through, who are living the lives that Bellingham lived when he was their age. so many kids aspire to be just like him. The impact he has had on people’s lives, and the hope he has given them knows no bounds. That is something you cannot quantify in statistics. He is an icon, already, at the age of 21.

People in the War Memorial Ground’s clubhouse — drinking beer while sitting next to a photo frame of a young Bellingham — will agree, just as they did when they watched him, alight the World Cup 2022 and Euro 2024 tournaments from that very spot.

Photo by David Davies/PA Images via Getty Images

His time to chase his nation’s dream will come again, and when it does, the people of Stourbridge — who watched him grow from a boy chasing a ball to a global superstar — will be cheering him on from the clubhouse.

They will always hope that, one day, their greatest-ever player walks back through the War Memorial Ground’s archway, not as a spectator, but as one of their own once more.

“If you see Jude any time soon, tell him we would love for him to return to the Black Country when he is done conquering the world,” joked a fan at the War Memorial Ground.

Everyone at Stourbridge knew he would be good. No one knew he would be this good. It is likely that even Bellingham — when he was watching his father score headers and volleys, and was not nearly as in love with the sport as he is today — could not have predicted just how well his career would have panned out at the time.

But, when he moved to Birmingham, people started to take notice. At Dortmund, people realised just how good he can be. And, at Real Madrid, people realised just how good he actually is.