Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor-News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

For a man who touched the pin­na­cle of his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, Sha­ka His­lop has found a dif­fer­ent sat­is­fac­tion in fa­ther­hood. The for­mer T&T goal­keep­er, who had a fa­bled open­ing game at the 2006 FI­FA World Cup, is fa­ther to five chil­dren–four girls and a boy.

His el­dest is 28 years old and his youngest will be 18 soon.

Through­out his time on the foot­ball field as a pro­fes­sion­al play­er for the likes of Read­ing, New­cas­tle, West Ham and Portsmouth, in the top flight of Eng­lish foot­ball, His­lop's chil­dren have kept him "cen­tred".

As the world cel­e­brates Fa­ther's Day, His­lop, 56, spoke to this spe­cial edi­tion of the Sun­day Guardian's HE mag­a­zine about his jour­ney in fa­ther­hood, the chal­lenges, what he's most proud of, and his ad­vice for ex­pec­tant fa­thers.

His­lop has been one of this coun­try's most pro­lif­ic foot­ballers, hav­ing donned the So­ca War­riors T-shirt 26 times in sev­en years. His time in pro­fes­sion­al club foot­ball spanned 15 years start­ing with Read­ing in 1992 and ul­ti­mate­ly end­ing at FC Dal­las in the Unit­ed States in 2007.

From on the field, His­lop was tran­si­tion­ing his foot­ball skills in­to analy­sis. He now works for sports news and broad­cast­ing ser­vice ES­PN where he is most of­ten seen as an an­a­lyst on ES­PN FC com­ment­ing on some of the most im­por­tant foot­ball match­es tak­ing place in the world. Less than two weeks ago, British Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer host­ed an in­duc­tion cer­e­mo­ny for Show Racism the Red Card, an or­gan­i­sa­tion es­tab­lished in 1996, thanks in part to a do­na­tion by then New­cas­tle Unit­ed goal­keep­er His­lop.

How­ev­er, for a brief 30 min­utes over the last week, in a rare in­ter­view about his fam­i­ly life, His­lop put aside foot­ball to talk about his jour­ney in fa­ther­hood and how it has re­shaped a man whose im­age em­bod­ied the sport of foot­ball.

Ryan Ba­choo: Can you tell me a lit­tle bit about your fa­ther­hood?

Sha­ka His­lop: It's been an in­cred­i­ble jour­ney in so many ways. I think kids not on­ly give you a pur­pose, they give you a fo­cus, but they al­so keep you ground­ed in so many ways. I thought that ground­ing was good for me through every stage of my ca­reer. From a pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller, al­ways be­ing able to hold them clos­est, re­gard­less of what was go­ing on pro­fes­sion­al­ly, I thought this was ex­act­ly what I need­ed at the time, at dif­fer­ent points dur­ing my ca­reer. Sim­i­lar­ly, as they got old­er, as I got old­er, as they start­ed shap­ing lives of their own, it was hum­bling to see them grow up, to see them em­brace the world as it is, to see how they con­tin­ue to per­ceive and want to change the world.

RB: How has fa­ther­hood changed you over the years?

SH: You start to recog­nise that you want to shape these young peo­ple. You want to be an ex­am­ple to them. You want to rep­re­sent all that's good in the world, a safe space from the things that may be a chal­lenge or may be fright­en­ing. As I grew old­er and I recog­nised my kids tak­ing on what this world has to of­fer, you then at some point have to ac­cept that it's no longer my world, that this is very much their world. You go from be­ing that teacher to be­ing that ex­am­ple, to recog­nise that you need to learn from them.

RB: What's your favourite mem­o­ry as a fa­ther on or off the foot­ball pitch?

SH: Rather than favourite, I would say my most valu­able mem­o­ry is com­ing home af­ter a game, and I guess I first no­ticed it when we lose. I'm not a good los­er on the foot­ball field, but then I'd come home and my kids would ask, "How did to­day go, Dad?" And I'd say, "We lost 5-0." And they'd say, "Oh, nev­er mind, Dad. Let's have a tea par­ty. And we'd have a lit­tle tea par­ty and sit around and play with their dogs."

But then there was this bal­ance that even when things went well, if I came home and said, "We won 5-0, Dad played re­al­ly well, they'd be like, "Oh, con­grats, Dad. Let's have a tea par­ty." That kind of bal­ance and recog­nis­ing that is how your kids see you re­gard­less of how I'm feel­ing, re­gard­less of how the fans saw me that day be­cause of my per­for­mance, I still had this revered po­si­tion in their eyes, and that was both hum­bling.

RB: How do you ap­proach your chil­dren's re­la­tion­ship with sport, hav­ing been a pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller?

SH: My el­dest daugh­ter con­tin­ues to dance to this day. Any­body who's seen me on a night out knows that that's not what I'm known for in the slight­est. The sec­ond is in­to gym­nas­tics. I can­not touch my toes with­out bend­ing my knees. So, again, I had ze­ro im­pact on her choice, in her cho­sen path. My youngest three all play foot­ball, two girls and a boy. My ap­proach has quite sim­ply been hands-off. If they want my ad­vice, they ask for it and I give it. I try not to vol­un­teer that ad­vice. I want this to be their thing. I don't want them to feel any pres­sure around play­ing the game, around how suc­cess is de­fined, let alone mea­sured. That's for them to de­ter­mine.

RB: Who were some of your role mod­els grow­ing up and how did they shape your fa­ther­hood?

SH: I've al­ways seen my fa­ther as my role mod­el in every sin­gle re­gard. Giv­en his life and how he pro­gressed through it, the sto­ry of how he was wrong­ful­ly ar­rest­ed in Eng­land in the late 50s in­to the ear­ly 60s. It's a sto­ry I tell how he chal­lenged the pow­ers that be in lo­cal foot­ball. My dad has three sons. I have two younger broth­ers. He al­ways put his kids and their well-be­ing at the fore­front of every­thing he did. And at no point did he com­pro­mise his morals in that re­gard. That, for me, is who I as­pire to be as a man. If I can be half the man that my fa­ther was, I will die a hap­py man.

RB: What's one thing you would tell a new or ex­pec­tant dad to­day?

SH: En­joy every mo­ment of it be­cause it pass­es you by re­al­ly quick­ly. I think one of the chal­lenges to be­ing a par­ent is won­der­ing if you're do­ing it right, won­der­ing if you're giv­ing the best of your­self, won­der­ing if you're be­ing the fa­ther that your child needs. My on­ly ad­vice to that is to be present.

Lis­ten to your kids. Be what feels nat­ur­al and best and hon­est. I think kids un­der­stand and re­spect, even at the youngest of ages, hon­esty and sin­cer­i­ty, even from their par­ents.