When Britt Assombalonga runs out on to the Elland Road pitch on Sunday lunchtime his thoughts may well stray, momentarily, to the past, to the sacrifices his parents made in helping him become Middlesbrough’s record £15m signing.
“I thank my mum and dad every day,” he says. “I think about them a lot. They gave us a better life and a good education in the UK and worked so hard when we were growing up that they didn’t see too much of each other.”
Assombalonga is casting his mind back to 1995 when, aged two, he joined his brother and two sisters in boarding a Paris-bound flight from Kinshasa, capital of their native Democratic Republic of Congo. A country dubbed “Africa’s bleeding heart” was on the brink of civil war and their parents, Beatrice and Fedor, wanted the children to belong to a different world.
A Channel crossing later they had swapped life in Kinshasa, where Fedor was a professional footballer, for London’s St John’s Wood and jobs at Abbey Road Studios. That may sound a decent exchange, but the couple were cleaners, Fedor working the day shift and Beatrice nights.
The pair were on low incomes and often struggled to buy food. Their home was on the nearby Rowley Way council estate which, these days, is a grade two listed development where ex-local authority two-bedroom flats can sell for more than £500,000, but back then was not quite so upmarket.
“It was very hard for mum and dad, I’m so proud of them, when they first came they only spoke Lingala and French but they wanted to give us chances they never had,” says Assombalonga, as he sits in the corner of a quiet dressing room at Middlesbrough’s attractive training ground in the undulating parkland near Darlington. “They’ve made this possible for me but it wasn’t easy. My dad was a striker, like me, but he gave it up to bring us here.”
It took time to convince the authorities to let them stay long-term. “In year eight at school there was a trip to Disneyland but my mum explained I didn’t have a British passport,” says Assombalonga. “I was so proud when I got one in year nine.”
Now 24, he left school with several grade A GCSEs but postponed plans to become a lawyer when Watford spotted the football talent honed by playing frequent five-a-side in Camden’s urban football cages.
A professional contract beckoned with Assombalonga leaving Vicarage Road to become Peterborough’s record £1.5m signing. When he joined Nottingham Forest in another club record transfer, £5.5m this time, a pattern was emerging.
This upward trajectory was interrupted when his studs caught in the turf and a ruptured patella required a complex repair involving a hamstring graft followed by 14 long months of rehabilitation. Fourteen goals in 32 appearances for Forest last season not only confirmed his faith in the rebuilt knee but provoked a summer move for £15m to Teesside.
The price tag does not seem to be weighing heavily on what must be among the broadest shoulders in the Championship. “No pressure,” says Assombalonga, smiling. “Well, maybe I felt it on the first day here but, after that, it’s just been like everywhere else. I’m getting used to being my clubs’ record signing.”
His tally of eight goals in 16 appearances this term is more impressive than many of Boro’s performances but a run of three wins has reignited promotion optimism. Another victory at Leeds would further vindicate manager Garry Monk’s close-season decision to leave Elland Road for the Riverside and a £50m squad overhaul.
“We’re quite confident we’re on the way up,” says Assombalonga. “It’s taken a little bit of time but I think we’re clicking. We’re getting the balance between attack and defence right and trusting the manager.
“Garry’s a really good communicator and this is a great dressing room. You want to come in every morning, just to see everyone.”
Although Assombalonga complains about the weather – “I’m still adjusting, it’s a lot colder than London”– he has no regrets about relocating his partner, Laura, and toddler daughter, Amiyah, to Teesside. “I’m really enjoying it,” he says. “I love the place, it’s a really nice area.”
Last November, he flew into Kinshasa on his first return to the DRC. An international call-up offered a prospective debut against Guinea but problems with paperwork ensured it never happened, leaving the door ajar for a potential England summons. “We’ll see what the future holds,” he says. “But it was very touching to go back to my roots. To finally see what my birthplace is really like.”
As Assombalonga talks intelligently about Joseph Kabila, the DRC’s controversial president, it is easy to envisage his muscular bulk repackaged into a lawyer’s suit but such ambitions can wait. Right now, there are goals to be scored and promotion to be clinched.
“The Premier League is where Middlesbrough belong,” he says. “And it’s where I want to be.”
