My name is Mide Kole-Emmanuel and I currently attend Westcliff High School for Boys, I recently joined the sixth form at the start of the year and I have chosen to study PE as a subject. The main sport that I usually play is football and I can play in the centre and right midfield positions. I have been playing football from a very young age and have enjoyed it thoroughly and I have a great enthusiasm towards the sport, I began playing at the age of eight, at this point it was not a serious commitment but I frequently went to the park to practice my football skills with my friends.After these few periods I developed enough interest to join a football team at the age of 10, the football team I chose to play for was called Enfield Rangers under 11s, based on the outskirts of London; this was a very good experience for me as I played matches regularly.
It was a very successful team which boasted players who were already being scouted by the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham, I however was not one of them and I did not receive an opportunity to do so for a further few years.We won the league in my first season, and then we came second throughout the remaining 2 years I spent there. I had no choice but to leave Enfield Rangers at the age of 13 as my family decided to move out into Essex, however it did not take long for me to discover a new football club to play for. This club was made known to me by my new school friends who prompted me to join and within a month of moving I was now representing Rayleigh Boys Football Club.
Rayleigh Boys Football Club was one which had good sporting equipment and training programmes, the kit that we wore was most probably the greatest piece of clothing I had ever seen, bright orange and I wore the number 14 shirt which was an honour because it was my favourite player's number Thierry Henry. During my time at Rayleigh boys I played in a variety of positions, such as right back, right midfield, centre midfield and as a striker.The position which I enjoy playing in the most is the centre midfield, this is because you are involved in much of the play and much of the team depends on how you perform, giving you more responsibility, also I prefer the centre midfield position to the right midfield position because in that position you would normally have to wait for the play to come to you.There was much success at Rayleigh Boys we were promoted from the A Division to the Premier Division which fuelled our main rivals, Concord Rangers, a team that we played regularly during the three years I spent there, friendlies to competitive matches it was still a very passionate game of football, we also finished in second place in the Premier Division which was a great achievement. It was later in the 2005/06 season where I was lucky enough to be picked for trials at West Ham and Ipswich Town; those were very surprising but welcome events.
I was told by the manager thereafter that it was the performances at the Essex cup games against Hornchurch and Hullbridge, respectively. In the 2006/07 season that was a year of fortunes for my team because we had managed to reach the final of the Essex cup, this meant that we had the opportunity to play at Roots Hall, it was a great feeling, we were able to run out onto the pitch through a mini tunnel and the was a good turnout which made it an even greater experience, the atmosphere was terrific, those moments remain one of the best in my life.We won the game 2-1 and it was available on DVD days after, I did purchase it but it was strange watching myself play football in an amazing stadium. This season I joined the Rayleigh Town team late after deciding I shouldn't quit the sport I am passionate about, I join roughly a month and a half after the season had started. I also represented my old school football team, called FitzWimarc and secured a starting place in the team; we had a very good team which underperformed as there were players who played for great alliance teams but we still failed to win anything.
I am aiming to secure a place in the school I now attend, the Westcliff for Boys School where I have only been given the opportunity to play in the second team, to achieve this I must constantly work hard and attend training regularly. My proudest sporting moment would be the time I played at Roots Hall and won the Essex Cup with my football team, Rayleigh Boys. The call-ups for trials sessions with both West Ham and Ipswich Town closely follow at second place.
