Football: Phillips pursues a dream ending

From Baldock to Budapest, the latest England attacking hope has earned his chance today. By Glenn Moore

IN THE film When Saturday Comes, Sean Bean plays a non-League player who goes out with his mates on the eve of a trial for Sheffield United. The following morning Bean wakes hungover, smelling of booze and with a stripper in bed beside him. To the delight of his jealous father, who had goaded him into the night out, he fails the trial.

Kevin Phillips' father was made of better stock. "He kept my feet on my ground in my non-League days," said the Sunderland striker of Ray Phillips yesterday. "My mates were ringing me up on a Friday night saying: `let's go out', and he was saying: `you've got a game tomorrow'. It was only non-League but I wouldn't have done myself justice if I had been going out."

Phillips' dedication will be rewarded today when walks out to play in the England attack against Hungary at the Nep Stadium. The story of his progress, from playing full-back for Baldock Town and stacking shelves for Dixons, is even more far-fetched than the plotline of When Saturday Comes - which eventually saw Bean lead Sheffield United to victory over Manchester United in an FA Cup tie.

It is not, however, a fairytale as Ray Phillips, having died suddenly three years ago, will not be present to see his son win his first cap. Kevin said yesterday: "It hit me very hard but I'm sure he'll be looking down at me. He would be very proud."

Kevin Phillips' own emotions are tinged with relief. At the weekend it did not seem as if he would even be travelling to Hungary as his 17-month- old daughter, Millie Ann, was rushed to hospital with suspected meningitis.

"She's not been well for about three weeks," said Phillips. "We took her to the game on Saturday, which was the first time for a while, and I got called off the pitch during a warm-up to be told she'd come over all lifeless."

Phillips, who pulled out of Sunderland's match to go to hospital with his daughter, added: "It was scary, I thought I was losing her, she had a penicillin injection straight away but, thankfully, it was just a virus. I've been phoning home every couple of hours but she's fine now."

Freed from anxiety over his daughter, Phillips is now looking forward to the biggest step of a remarkable career. Hertfordshire born and bred, he joined Southampton as a 14-year-old striker only to be converted to a full-back - the usual story, "they said I was too small to play up front" - then released at 18.

The nearest he had got to the first team was cleaning Alan Shearer's boots. When they met up again at the team hotel on Sunday Shearer, who will partner Phillips in attack tonight, said to him: "You can come up and clean my boots after training."

Having told Chris Nicholl, the then-Southampton manager, that he "would prove him wrong", Phillips went to Baldock, where he initially struggled to adapt to playing men's football. He finally gained a place before, one Friday night, taking a phone call from Ian Allinson, the former Arsenal striker, who was Baldock's manager.

"He said we were struggling for centre-forwards and had I ever played there? I scored two goals the next day and never looked back."

In another twist the match was at Burnham, just down the road from the England team hotel at Burnham Beeches. Les Ferdinand, then in the England team, had come along to watch.

In the meantime Phillips supplemented his pounds 180-a-week at Baldock with a variety of jobs. He worked at Sunblest, at a radiator manufacturers, drove a fork-lift truck, and at Dixons. When Watford came in for him he took a pay-cut. Two years later Sunderland paid pounds 325,000 (since increased to pounds 670,000) for him. Playing alongside Niall Quinn, whom he once watched as an Arsenal fan on the North Bank at Highbury, he has scored 53 goals in 79 appearances despite a bad injury this season.

One of the goals was at Wembley in last season's promotion play-off and, although the penalty shoot-out defeat to Charlton left him shattered, he had at least settled one family score. "Karen, my little sister, had played at Wembley before me, for Hemel Hempstead Ladies. I was so jealous."

This season has brought a First Division championship medal and now an England cap. Phillips, 25, seems unaffected by his call-up and both determined and intelligent enough to take advantage of it. He is taking a big step up from the Nationwide League but he added: "I've always believed in my own ability, this is a fantastic life and if you put the work in you get rewards."

"He excites me," the England coach, Kevin Keegan, said. "I'm not going to build him up because he has nil experience at this level but, watching him in training, I thought: `This is where he belongs'."