THE new African footballer of the year, former Charlton Athletic attacker Ademola Lookman, was a “model student”, according to a former teacher.
Lookman, 27, grew up in Peckham and Camberwell and was spotted by the Addicks at the age of sixteen before an, eventual, meteoric rise in the game.
Lookman left Charlton for Everton at the age of nineteen in an £11million deal in 2017 but struggled to secure a regular starting place before he made a loan and then permanent move to RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga.
It again looked like he wouldn’t fulfil the talent he showed in South London when further loans at Fulham and Leicester City followed.
But a £10million move to Serie A Atalanta proved to be the making of him.
He became the first player since 1975 to score a hat-trick in a major European final when he tore through Bayer Leverkusen – who hadn’t lost a game in any competition all season – to help the Nerazzurri to a 3-0 win in the Europa League final in 2023-24.
Lookman represented England up to under-21 level but qualifies for Nigeria through his parents and made his senior international debut in 2022. He helped them into the final of the Africa Cup of Nations last year, where they lost 2-1 to Ivory Coast.
Lookman finished fourteenth in this year’s Ballon d’Or before being crowned Africa’s best this week.
In an interview with Southwark News in 2017, one of his former teachers, Ali Young, recalled his time at St Thomas the Apostle in Nunhead.
“He was a standout footballer in his year group and a standout sportsman. He was a good all-rounder – he was a top performer in a number of sports but obviously, football was his best,” Young said.
Ademola achieved four A*’s and five A’s in his GCSEs.
Young added: “I remember him being in school until 6pm every night revising for his GCSEs. It didn’t really matter what he was doing, he would be one hundred per cent dedicated to it. He was deputy head boy, too. He was a model student – both sports-wise and academically.
“He is a really humble, articulate and intelligent young man. We’re all incredibly proud of him.”
