Robert Earnshaw
Robert Earnshaw (6 April, 1981- ) is a Zambian-born football player who lives in Wales.
Earnshaw was born on the outskirts of the north central Zambian mining town of Mufulira on 6 April 1981. His English father, David, managed a nearby coal mine while his mother, Rita, played semi-professional football and looked after Earnie's three sisters and elder brother. "I remember quite a bit, most of it," says Earnie. "They're good memories. My Mum used to play football and I remember going to watch her play a couple of times, watching her training. Just playing with my friends as you do when you're a kid."
When Earnie was five, the family moved to Malawi where David Earnshaw took charge of another coal mine and his youngest son began school. Again, the family's stay was to be a short one. In September 1990, following the death of her husband, Rita moved the Earnshaw family to Caerphilly, a small Welsh town to the north of Cardiff, where they lived initially with her sister. Earnie still has a house there.
"It was the first time I had been away from Africa." he recalls. "It was just completely different, from one to extreme to another. It was much colder as well, just every little thing was different, everyone spoke English over here and although I could speak a little bit I had to learn. But when you're a kid you just get on with it."
It was in Wales that he began playing football, kicking a ball around with friends between and after classes at Cardinal Newman's, the school he moved on to after a spell at St. Helen's Primary. Cardinal Newman's was a rugby-playing school so Earnie's first organised football match came at the age of 12 with local youth side Lanbrachdach. "We didn't win anything, we weren't the best," he says. "I only played one year and then I moved to GE Wales, which was a better team and we won a few local titles. I scored a lot of goals, 80 one season, 60 another when I was 14, 15, 16."
Those goals grabbed the attention of Cardiff City youth team coach Gavin Tait, earning the youngster an invite to training, and, on the 1st August 1997, a one-year YTS contract at Ninian Park.