Jamie Gittens has been kicking a football around for as long as he can remember. Even now, he has balls lying around his apartment in London ready to play with.

When Jamie was growing up, though, it was the parks, streets and schoolgrounds of Reading that gave him his first taste of the beautiful game.

‘I am from Caversham, a small town on the outskirts of Reading,’ Jamie tells us.

‘When I was three or four I remember going to Emmer Green Park with my parents and my sister Chante and just having fun with the ball. I would dribble and shoot with my sister. She still plays now. She’s a striker, a very good player to be fair!

‘As I got older, I would always be in Caversham or Emmer Green playing football with my friends in the park or on my estate. Every day we would go after school to play, from about 3.30pm until 9pm, especially in the summer when it was bright outside.’

Jamie’s first experience of organised football was at a football camp called Heath Farrington Sport. He was five when he joined Caversham Trents, a youth development club that supports the local community. Later, Jamie played for Woodley Zebras.

‘Playing football was the highlight of that time for me,’ he says. ‘It was just really fun playing with my friends from my school. Their parents were the coaches as well. It was a real family vibe, going on a Saturday, playing football, scoring goals and winning games.’

Born to Bajan parents, Jamie comes from a very sporty family. His father played cricket to a high level and his mother did athletics. The cricket influence rubbed off on Jamie. He was a bowler with plenty of natural talent who loved the game, but when aged 12 it came to choosing between cricket and football, he opted to pursue the latter. It paid off.

By then Jamie was embedded in the Reading academy. He joined at Under-9s level but had already been in their pre-development academy squad for a couple of years. He also spent some time at Chelsea at that very young age.

But it was Reading where Jamie’s immediate future lay. He trained twice a week and played a game on the weekend. Futsal was also a regular feature on the schedule.

An attacking player from early on, Jamie was clearly very talented, but he remembers it wasn’t all plain sailing. There were obstacles to overcome.

‘At one point I was playing down an age group because my confidence wasn't that good,’ he says. ‘I used to always get angry when I got tackled or the ref didn’t give a foul, so they played me down an age group to try and get my confidence back up again.

‘At other times I went up age groups. That was also hard because everyone was bigger, faster and stronger than me, so I had to really think about how to receive the ball and how to beat my man without using my speed. But it helped me in the long run.’

Jamie moved twice in his teenage years. He joined Manchester City at Under-14 level and after two years there, signed his first professional contract with Borussia Dortmund shortly after his 16th birthday.

‘There were so many big differences,’ he says. ‘Going up north to Man City was a bit challenging at first because the weather is cold and wet, and I was away from my family. They didn’t come with me, I was in digs, and then it was a new school, new faces, new friends.

‘At first it was very hard, but over time I always enjoyed going to school, going to training. It was actually quite exciting for me to mature as a person. I grew up very quickly.

‘The Dortmund move was bigger because of the language barrier, at first, plus it was Covid, so everyone was isolating in their rooms.

‘So the first year, year-and-a-half was hard in Germany, but after that I got used to speaking German more, talking to my team-mates more, having more confidence in myself to speak to other people and make new friends. By the second year I was already adapted to it.’

Jamie says that while signing that first pro contract at Dortmund was a ‘good feeling’, he didn’t get too excited because he knew there was so much more to achieve. His journey was just getting going.

There were a couple of bumps in the road, with his progress initially halted by shoulder and ankle injuries, but 2021/22 proved a breakout campaign. Jamie shone for Dortmund in the UEFA Youth League and stepped up to play for their first team by the end of that season. Plenty of goals, assists and accolades followed as he established himself at one of Europe’s biggest clubs.

Along the way, Jamie has taken plenty of advice on board. One recommendation he received when first starting out at Reading has never left him.

‘My coaches would tell me to always dribble, and just express myself,’ he says.

‘It's quite a simple thing to say, but it stuck with me for years because that's my strength, to dribble and to beat players and to entertain. That's what I love to do as well, so that makes me happy. If I lose that, then I'm not going to be happy, so I've got to keep doing that to a high level.

‘I also learned how important it is to stay dedicated to the game, to be professional and not do stupid things off the pitch,’ Jamie adds.

‘And then just stay true to yourself, have respect for others and remember to keep enjoying your football. Football is everything to me. That’s what I’ve done since I was young. I used to have balls everywhere in my house, in my bed, ready to kick around. I still have them now in my apartment.

‘Football is my life. I just love playing football.’