Why Leeds-born Mallik Wilks’ boyhood club was a closely-guarded secret – and the ex-Sheffield Wednesday pair he owes plenty to

The backstreets of Newcastle in a Sunderland shirt? A sojourn through Manchester’s Moss Side in the colours of Liverpool? It would take idiocy before bravery, one feels.

It’s why Sheffield Wednesday attacker Mallik Wilks never wore the colours of the team he supported as a boy. Not on the streets of gritty Leeds suburb Chapeltown, anyway.

A Leeds United academy graduate, most would be forgiven for assuming he was a born and bred Whites supporter.

Alas, he followed the support of his family. Whisper it quietly still round Leeds, perhaps; Mallik Wilks is a supporter of Manchester United.

But it is Leeds, the first of five white rose clubs the 23-year-old self-described ‘Yorkshire Boy’ has played for, that reared him through his academy, through tough times off the field and who gave him his first steps in senior football.

Two former Sheffield Wednesday coaching figures were at the side of those first steps; Garry Monk and James Beattie.

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He said: “The first time I was training with them, I didn’t know we had to call the managers ‘Gaffer’ or whatever.

“I got to training and I was calling him 'Monk! Monk!’ Everyone was laughing at me. It was so embarrassing. I can look back and laugh now.

“He’s a good guy, Garry. When I was a younger guy it was him and James Beattie that helped me a lot and gave me opportunities to train in the first team I might not have had otherwise.

“James is a great guy. His finishing drills and that were great and I wasn’t sure how old he was but every now and then he’d spank a few in the top corner.

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“Finishing drills, he was still incredible.”

Headstrong and confident both on and off the pitch, Wilks doesn’t strike as someone who would hide his passions.

But did he ever wear the red of Manchester United while wandering round Leeds?

“I could never have done that,” he laughed. “That’s just asking for it!

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“I know, it was mad. Whenever anybody asked who I supported, I had to change the subject!”