17 year old Jordan James, son of former Hereford United defender Tony James, has recently been drafted into Birmingham City's first team squad.
A five minute appearance against Bristol City was followed by 45 minutes at Hull. And on Tuesday night this week he came on as a sub at Coventry.
Manager Lee Bowyer has been impressed.
“He came on at half time against Hull away, we were down to ten men, he
put in a great shift, didn’t let us down, tried to do the things,
brought energy to us,”he said.
“Again he came on the other night, down to ten men, comes on, runs around, tries to do the right thing. In possession he is comfortable, he can travel with it, a nice weight of pass.
“He has a lot of energy and wants to run forward. A lot of midfielders nowadays don’t want to run forward, they want everything to feet, look pretty – but he just ticks a lot of boxes for me. I like what I see.
“It’s difficult to say things like ‘He reminds me of myself’ but I was 17 when I first broke through and there are some similarities.
“I like him, he is a grounded young lad, well-mannered, respectful to everybody, whatever you ask him to do he tries to do.
“He is quiet around the senior players but not fazed, you see him coming on the pitch ‘Give me the ball’. He wants to play no matter where he is on the pitch.
“He was a little bit shy when we were at Hull and he had to sing in front of everybody, bless him. But apart from that he has been as good as gold.
“Physically it’s tough, he’s a 17-year-old lad, he needs to fill out, we can all see that.
“But when he came on in his first game against Bristol City his first aerial challenge, then a 50-50, he didn’t pull out of anything.
“Physically he is not scared but obviously there are going to be times people move him out of the way, he needs to get stronger – but we accept that.”
James or JJ as he is known has been with Birmingham since the age of seven.
“I can’t even imagine the number of hours I’ve sat in the car waiting for him to train, turn around and go back home, sometimes getting in at nine o’clock at night," said father Tony.
Just before the Covid lockdown JJ was given a two year scholarship. However the lockdown meant he could not travel to Birmingham for a while.
Tony sees a big change in JJ recently.
“Since Covid he has improved so much in such a short space of time you could see his confidence growing. He started to develop physically.
“Once he started being able to use his physicality a little bit more he suddenly changed. Once they got back in training playing matches he changed overnight."
And now he's with the first team.
Read more at: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/birmingham-city-jordan-james-bowyer-22280259