Online Reporter
LONDON. – Jordan Zemura knows it’ll be second time lucky switching from a job using his feet to a career with his hands when he hangs up his boots.
The Udinese star, once without a club and fired as a glass fitter, is now an accomplished writer with the world at his feet in the Italian Serie A football.
The former Bournemouth defender keeps a journal on his iPad where he jots down his thoughts and emotions before games.
Zemura admitted during an exclusive interview with talkSPORT.com during Udinese’s international media days event that he has considered releasing his work “maybe under an alias”.
“I’d love to, not influence the next generation, but tell them honestly, the power of the tongue is so important to what you end up doing.
“What you see is what you do. What you speak is what happens. So for me, all of that is just so important.”
Understandably so for Zemura, who at only 26-years-old, has already manifested a career that could be the brainchild of the finest writers.
The London-born Zimbabwe international spent time in the QPR academy before receiving, in his words, a “reality check” move to Kent.
“I was like, ‘Where is the football?’” he added. “I ended up going to Soccer Elite, which is just like an academy, but not a Sunday league.”
Under Lee Spiller and Tony Browne’s tutelage, Zemura was part of a seven-a-side team that played at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground.
“I was just running around, like a headless chicken, trying to do everything I could to be seen, and I’ve done well,” he told talkSPORT.
“And then I got a call back from Lee saying, ‘Ah, listen, they want you to come in on trial.’ And I was like, ‘No way.’ It’s Chelsea, it’s a big deal!”
Zemura spent the next six weeks on trial at Chelsea as a striker, in the year above Callum Hudson-Odoi – the highlight of which were the two goals he scored against Ipswich Town.
His main competition was future two-cap England Under-20 forward Martell Taylor-Crossdale, who now plies his trade in the seventh tier.
He continued: “I did six weeks, done all right. And then they said, ‘Okay, listen, we want you to do another six weeks.’ I was thinking, maybe this is a good thing, maybe I’ll get close to getting signed.”
However, the drawback for Zemura was the near two-hour commute from his home on Kent’s Isle of Sheppey to Cobham in west Surrey.
“They said to me, ‘You’re obviously as good as the players we have, not better than the players that we have, but obviously you’re good enough.’ But also, there’s this big factor as well, that you live a big, big distance away.” – talksport
