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A 0-0 draw is seen by 3,918 people and described by the club’s own website as “a low-key friendly”. With players’ shouts echoing off 21,668 empty seats one early August afternoon, Hull City versus Getafe Club de Fútbol was nothing to write home about. Unless of course you’re Abu Kamara: in which case, that is exactly what it was and now, two months on, he’s smiling. “I didn’t even score but I’m guessing I had a decent game,” the England Under-20 winger says. “Because if not, I don’t think they would just come up to anyone and say: ‘Do you like the idea of playing in La Liga?’”
Did he ever. “At the end of the game, the sports scientist Javi [Vidal], and the technical director, Gonzalo [Fernández], came up to me and asked,” Kamara recalls. “I said: ‘Yeah, I’d be down for it.’ It’s a big league, so I take it as a massive compliment. I went back into the changing room, spoke to my friend Kasey Palmer, messaged my agent and then left the MKM Stadium. I didn’t take no contact number or anything so I don’t know how my agent did it but he got in contact with Getafe and here I am.”
It’s a bright October afternoon two months on and two days before Real Madrid visit, exactly the kind of game he came for. The session has finished, Getafe’s players driving the short distance down from the training ground in groups, piling out still in their kit and heading into the stadium to shower. Now, Kamara strolls up Avenida Teresa de Calcuta and over the zebra crossing to the club’s offices with his teammate Allan Nyom. It’s 25C and this is home now, the kid from Southwark with Sierra Leonian parents playing south of Madrid.
“I had never thought of it,” Kamara says. But he grew up at the height of the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry – the answer to that question is clear, by the way, and not just because Kamara is a “lefty” too – and even if Manchester United were his childhood team, English football more the focus, although he gets there via Norwich, Portsmouth and Hull, something about Spain pulled.
“It was unusual but this was the next step I really wanted to take, to test myself against the best in the world. When that opportunity arose, I couldn’t turn it down. I lived on a place called Rodney Road until I was three. Then I moved to the Brandon Estate and I was there ever since. There was the clásico growing up and I’m from a neighbourhood that was big on cage football so players like Ronaldinho and Neymar had a big influence in my area. When I heard about La Liga I just thought about those great names, what they had done, and I’m hoping to do the same.
“Growing up in the cages, I was there every day with friends, playing little games like Knockout. It’s just a free-for-all. I was going up against older kids and I just had to find a way to stand out. That’s where I have learnt how to be skilful, when to slow down and speed up again. That’s where I really learnt my tricks. I played Sunday football too. And playing with my older brothers. They have been there throughout. They can’t make it to this game but they were at the Barcelona match and they’re just so happy for me. I’m so glad they’re on the journey with me.”
It started at the Brandon Estate, once described as the most dangerous in the UK. Kamara admits they didn’t have much and it wasn’t always easy, but he doesn’t portray football as a way out, still less some kind of salvation; instead, it was just, well, fun. There was support too and loads of talent, south London forging a new generation and a new culture, cages taking over from muddy fields. Kamara starts to name top players from around his area, and it is a long one. So, pleasingly, is the list of those who shared the journey with him.
Was there a responsibility to make it, pressure? “No. With my family, there wasn’t. They just wanted me to do something that made me happy and football is what makes me happy. I’ve always had a love for football; that was what keeps me going. Whatever comes with football, comes with football. Luckily, it has benefited me and my family so I’m grateful. I was going up to Norwich from the age of 10 and my parents would always take me. There were times I would have to be up at 6am and they would be there the whole journey; I really appreciate them, because they made a lot of sacrifices.
“At 12 I got offered a school scholarship. That took a lot of the load off them and enabled me to do more training at Norwich. But I struggled being away when I was younger. I didn’t go with my family. You go from London to a private boarding school; I’m with friends but it’s different. Different food, no family. I was a bit homesick.
“A lot of us were from London, going at an early age. That made us grow up faster and I think it prepared us for the life we have now: moving around, being without family. We have been through a lot together, which made us bond. I still talk to them to this day, every single one of them. Although we’re on different football journeys now, we all keep in contact, see how each other’s doing. That’s the best part: you make friends for life. And from my age group there’s a decent amount who have a career in football.
“Tony Springett, he’s still at Norwich. Nelson Khumbeni is at Gillingham. Ken Aboh, at Norwich. Jonathan Rowe was at Marseille; he’s gone to Bologna now. Tyrese Omotoye is in the Czech Republic. Jaden Warner, he’s at Newport County. Saxon Earley is at Stevenage.”
And Kamara is in Spain. A friendly in Hull started it, but even once Kamara’s agent found the number, it wasn’t done. Getafe couldn’t comply with La Liga’s financial fair play rules until they completed the sale of Christantus Uche. That left six players in limbo. “They’re not just football stickers,” as the coach, José Bordalás, put it. Kamara was one, although it was a loan; it took a month, and deadline day, for it to be finalised.
“It was a lot of stress, to be honest,” the 22-year-old says. “I actually flew back to England because I didn’t know if the deal was going to go through. That morning I was up at 5am to get on a 6.30 flight, and there was a lot of doubt. My agent told me to keep calm. In the end I got a call from him: the registration’s all done, you’re a Getafe player. It went though, so happy days.”
Very happy days. Kamara hasn’t worked out where to get gravy yet and although he’s taking three lessons a week and has Netflix switched to Spanish with English subtitles, the language is hard. But he’s moved into his flat south of Plaza Castilla, next to a park where he can walk the dog. Besides, he says, laughing, “with the Spanish you have to make mistakes to get better”.
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“I’m here to play football, meet new people, learn the language, live. I’m here with my missus so that helps as well: we go out to different places, different restaurants, get to know the area. I don’t think it’s too different, to be honest. It’s very nice; it’s similar to London in that there’s loads to do.
“A couple of the boys speak English and if I don’t get it, I ask. A couple of the coaches speak English too, so there’s a mixture: a bit of copying the others and a bit of asking what’s going on. Here, I notice everyone is very good technically. In England, maybe players can be more direct; Spanish players are a bit more possession-based. The rondo is very good: very good. There’s been a couple of times I’ve been stuck in the middle and I’m blowing out my arse. It’s like they’re a step ahead; they already know where the next pass is going. Being around this is only going to make me a better player.
“But I don’t think it’s a big change. Here at Getafe they want me to be direct as a winger. That was the same at Hull City. They have a bigger emphasis on the defensive side: you’re literally sprinting around, closing down the ball. Maybe you’re adding that dark side of the game too, so it’s benefiting me a lot. I’m taking every moment, listening to everything the coaches say and doing what they want. Bordalás is a very good guy, very intense, and I can only benefit from that.”
From the opponents he faces too: Kamara has been to Barcelona, now Madrid visit the Coliseum. His first game was against Real Oviedo. “I would have liked to get Santi Cazorla[’s shirt] but I had to keep my own because it was my first game, and as I came on as a sub I only had one,” he says.
“Against Barcelona, I swapped with [Marcus] Rashford. I always looked up to him and I see myself in him a bit as he has that similar physique. He’s a great role model for me. He had made a big impact on a lot of kids, helping them with school dinners. And for someone like myself, I didn’t grow up with a lot of … how do I say it? … resources … I didn’t have a lot growing up, so for someone like Rashford to do that was a really good thing for me to see. That was big for me and hopefully I could do something like that one day.
“My family and the people around me say: ‘Wow, you’re up against Madrid.’ Me personally, I try to treat it like another game. I grew up watching the Champions League, so to get the chance to see how they play up close, the intensity of it all, drives me to bigger and bigger things, to up my own intensity in everything I do. It will be nice to play against them and see the level they’re at, take little things I see from them and add them into my game.
“I’m happy I’m here. I would like to stay more than a year. The club is brilliant, the boys were very welcoming, it feels like family. It’s not in my hands, so I just take things day by day: go to training, give my all and hopefully things will take care of themselves. I just want to be the best player I can be and I feel like here is a good space to do that.”
And with that he strolls out into the sunshine and heads back down Avenida Teresa de Calcuta past the Coliseum, where he climbs into his car with its English number plate and its steering wheel on the wrong side and heads home to Madrid.
