Jordan Graham Aston Villa
Every winger needs a good sidestep in his armoury and Birmingham City new boy Jordan Graham has certainly demonstrated his. Whether it’s been injury, sceptical managers or just a lack of opportunity, the 26-year-old is only now back at the level that in November 2015 seemed to be just the floor of a career with a very high ceiling. Brought up in the Aston Villa academy and then handed the oxygen of first team football at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Graham finally seemed to have lift off when Kenny Jackett handed him his Old Gold debut at Ipswich Town. At the age of 25 and with barely 50 senior appearances to his name, it looked for all the world as though the Coventry-born wide-man was never going to become the player he was supposed to be.
Jordan Graham said: “I have had a tough journey. I am not normally one that looks for sympathy and stuff. Football is my job and I love football, so I take an interest in players’ career, how they play. I watch almost every game on TV. I do look at other players’ careers and think to myself I honestly believe I have had some of the worst luck out there ever. Which almost makes this now, to get here where I am, even sweeter than for anyone else who gets a move like this. Leaving Wolves was hard, looking back probably for me on a personal note, the wrong manager at the wrong time. He wanted me to play a certain way, that I tried to, but that clearly wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t working for him. That was tough for me because it was at a time when I had had quite a long term out with my knee injury, but I had started to look forward, to hit my peak again and that first pre-season [2017/2018] I really felt like ‘Right, I am ready to go again’. And it just all went wrong. That’s football, stuff you have to live with. Looking back on it, should I have tried harder or given more to do everything I possibly could? I probably could have done a little bit more but sometimes you have to live with regrets, things that didn’t go so well. You get bad luck, I have had my fair share of that.”
And then came the sidestep. Unable to overcome those Molineux obstacles, he went round them – all the way to Gillingham. A step backwards into League One for some, a move sideways to go forward for Graham. His final Wolves loan was at Priestfield – even that was cut short by the pandemic – but he’d seen enough to know he could succeed under Steve Evans.
Jordan Graham added: “I needed that platform to play games and the manager at Gillingham, Steve, was brilliant for me personally. I met him the summer before, signed and the vibe he gave me and things he said to me, he was true to every word. He kind of said to me ‘Look, the Jordan at his best will take this league apart. We need to find a way to get you firing and keeping you in the team week in week out’. We worked really well, the group was brilliant, it was a shame it was so far away from home for me personally but the year we had I didn’t really get to travel much anyway. I got my head down and found a home down there for the year and it was probably one of the best moves I have had in my career because it set me up to be here at Birmingham.”
It certainly did. Well into his mid-20s Graham played the first full season of his career. It brought 44 games, 13 goals, six assists and last January, transfer interest from Charlton Athletic, managed by a certain L Bowyer esq.The current Blues head coach missed out then but Graham felt the stars aligning as Bowyer moved to St Andrew’s – just 25 minutes away from his home town.
Jordan Graham said: “I remember having this conversation with my family when he came to Birmingham because I knew about the interest and the bids that went in on the last day of the January transfer window. When he came to Birmingham I was thinking to myself ‘This would be an ideal move’. Then everything fell into place to be honest. The gaffer still wanted me here. I know Craig [Gardner] quite well from coming through at the Villa academy and obviously Gary. Mark Kennedy was at Wolves with me 18 months-two years ago. It’s like it was meant to be. To be honest I did a little bit of research when I first found out about the interest from Birmingham, I started to look at the players who were going to be here this season and how the team played. I knew that Juke [Lukas Jutkiewicz] is the main man here up top and he likes his service into the box. It’s not too dissimilar to last season at Gillingham. We had Vadaine Oliver that’s quite a big striker, good aerially, loves balls in the box. When I first came and met the gaffer the chat was pretty much ‘Try and replicate what you did last year, beat your full back, drive into the box, get fouls, get shots off, get balls in for Jutkiewicz because that’s what he lives for’.”
It’s also what Graham lives to do. Almost as much as silencing the naysayers.
Jordan Graham said: “I have had to work hard and graft for this, that makes me feel good, it makes me want it even more, to keep doing this, keep proving people wrong – because a lot of people had doubts. For the last four or five years saying ‘We know how good he can be but he has only done this or that’. Some of the stuff along the way has made it really tough. So for me to be here now, I can’t wait to keep showing people what I am about.”
Even if he has had to go the long-way round.
