Tattoos, school tales and an ex-Owl brother - Inside the Sheffield Wednesday journey of Jarvis Thornton
Jarvis Thornton’s elevation to the Sheffield Wednesday first team has been sharp. His next step is a big one. Via tattoo backstories, an ex-Wednesday brother and school humility, our man Alex Miller takes a deep dive into how he got here.
Sprawled down Jarvis Thornton’s left forearm is the tribute to those he feels made him who he is today. His sleeve tattoo shows the time of the passing of a grandfather that would smear dubbing on his childhood football boots, it shows an image of his brothers and one of his parents standing at the football stadium he now counts as his workplace.
They may well be just brushstrokes on his skin but it’s clear they mean a great deal to him as a conversation with The Star winds down towards its close. For a 20-year-old lad who has been elevated to Championship status and all the local adulation that comes with that, he comes across remarkably grounded and unaffected. He’s a young man who clearly carries his gratitude with him.
“Both my granddads played such a big part in my football growing up,” he said with a smile. “My mum's dad, he took me to Sunday league games, washed my boots after games, put dubbing on them, keeping them in good order. It was an old school thing I think. But he was the same with all three of us. Both my brothers played football as well and he was the same, he just wanted the best for us and wanted us to enjoy it as best we could while we were young. He came to as many games as he could.
“My dad has always had an influence on me as a person, just constantly putting confidence in me, just backing me all the way. He’s always been with me through good and bad spells and that's all you really want, isn’t it? Both my parents were the same. Dad was my coach when I was young and if I needed to be brought off, he brought me off. He didn't really give me any leeway or anything like that. That's the way it should be.”
Like so many others in South Yorkshire, Thornton’s family is one that has football running through it. The Star since discovered that one of the brothers he mentions is former Wednesday youngster Fraser Preston, who was similarly thrown into senior football from the youth ranks by Jos Luhukay all those years ago and has since forged a successful career in the non-league game.
His old man Rob was his coach for Hoyland Town Magpies and as a die-hard Barnsley fan its often joked that he isn’t wholly impressed that his particular image on his son’s tattoo is taken from a photo snapped at Hillsborough. Needless to say, there’s a great deal of pride in Thornton’s rise - and his old man celebrates Wednesday goals these days.
It’s been a whirlwind few months for the Sheffield Wednesday midfielder, this time last year a name barely spoken on the Hillsborough terraces despite a knowing in-house appreciation of his efforts in the senior youth teams in recent years. Thornton has a great deal to learn on the job but has impressed in what has been a steep learning curve in a crisis-hit changing room. Where other young colleagues have perhaps faltered in their progress, Thornton’s contribution has raised as the campaign has rolled on.
His first mission statement came at Bolton Wanderers in August, when a team of youngsters made the trip to take on League One opposition barely given a hope. A thrilling 3-3 draw ended with the young Owls winning out on penalties, Thornton a key figure in the middle of midfield, launching into tackles and moving the ball nicely.
In the hours before kick-off, the phone of Kirk Balk Academy PE teacher Jack Heald buzzed with a note or two of thanks. Heald had overseen Thornton’s secondary school game and was not surprised to have received a text from a former student who has kept some level of contact with the school since he left. In the build-up to this season, with Wednesday’s pre-season preparations in limbo, plans were made for the Wednesday midfielder to use the facilities in an effort to top-up his fitness.
“He was always just one of the nicest lads,” Heald remembered. “He was obviously at Wednesday at that time but you wouldn’t have known, he didn’t walk around cocky or anything. He was just a good lad; really popular with staff, really popular with other kids, never in trouble and he had a good focus on his studies as well.
“I remember Jarvis just loved playing for the school. You can get some some lads that are at academies that they think they're a bit above school football, or want to save themselves for their academy games so they don’t play. Jarvis always, always wanted to play with his mates at school. Playing in an academy, you don't necessarily get to do that and I think those kids miss out a bit. He’d run around giving it everything.”
Heald remembers an all-round sportsman who would compete with the very best in athletics, would try his hand to cricket and even impressed in a one-off Gaelic football tournament in Manchester. He wasn’t alone in his talent - school teammates Ben Hatton and Rogan Ravenhill now play in the academies at Rotherham United and Barnsley respectively - and the side reached the round of 16 in the national Schools Cup in 2022. It’s felt they’d have achieved a great deal more were it not for the nature of the Covid pandemic.
In September last year Thornton visited his old school as part of an EFL Youth Development initiative and was interviewed by Heald in front of its students. During that talk, he delivered the advice that ‘Five per cent is talent, the other 95 per cent is hard work’. As a source of inspiration, that quote now hangs proudly on a banner on the school walls.
Head of PE Heald, who describes himself as a ‘half-decent’ amateur player once upon a time, is a Wednesday season ticket holder and so has been delighted to see Thornton’s progress on many levels. But what has given him the most pride is how the youngster appears to have dealt with his new-found fame.
He said: “We’re grateful for him coming back in and knowing that he's still the same lad, in terms of his personality, that he left with. He's not let it all get to his head, he's not let any kind of attention he's had put his way change him. He's still the same lad that left his school with GCSEs. To see that, it's obviously nice as well. He’s got a lot to learn obviously but he’s done really well in these last few moths and hopefully there’s a really good career for him there at Wednesday.”
And there lies the next step. Thornton is 25 appearances into his senior career and having seen his playing time paused just a touch since the return of Nathaniel Chalobah from injury, stepped out to captain the under-21s in a rampant win over his native Barnsley on Tuesday afternoon. The agreement of a new deal appears to be something of a formality, with Owls boss Henrik Pedersen having suggested in a recent press conference that it’s a deal they intend to do.
“They’ve all been really good,” Thornton said on the senior coaching team. “Obviously, we've got Andy and Giles helping as well and I've had them for a few years. So that's helped me being more comfortable around everyone. And obviously, they're always someone to speak to as much as the other staff. And then obviously Pete, Muddy, they've come into it and they've been brilliant for me from the development side of things. It's all different stuff to learn from. And then the gaffer has put loads of confidence into me from the start.
“The thing you feel is that he’s always wanting me to improve, making myself look at the stuff I'm doing well and then to keep doing that and then the stuff to improve on. He's always on to me but in a positive way. They’re really good.
“I just need to play my own game, keep improving as games go on, listen to the manager, listen to what he wants me to do and then go into next year just try and keep my shirt the best I can. Hopefully I do enough for the manager to see that I could help next year as well.”
The downturn of Wednesday was to the fortune of many young players and having broken through, the hard work starts now. With a clear humility, the support network he wears on his forearm and the importance of 95 per cent hard work instilled in him, it seems Jarvis Thornton has every chance of doing just that.