Victor Moses was just 14 when he first started attracting wider attention.
“Holy Moses – Wonder Player Parts The Red Sea,” read the headline in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph after he scored all the goals in Whitgift Under-14s’ 5-0 National Schools Cup victory over red-shirted, Grimsby-based Healing School.
Those were the early days of Moses’s football journey to triumph, trophies and becoming a champion of England and Africa.
But even before reaching that point, he had already been on a personal journey that began with an unimaginable family tragedy, and made everything he went on to achieve with club and country all the more remarkable and inspiring.
Victor Moses’ journey is tale of tragedy into triumph.
This is his story.#NoRoomForRacism | @VictorMoses pic.twitter.com/IHmpmMe22N
— Premier League (@premierleague) October 24, 2024
Moses, currently of Luton Town in the Championship, was an 11-year-old when he arrived in England as an orphaned asylum seeker after his parents – father Austin, a Christian pastor, and mother Josephine – were killed in their Kaduna home during religious riots in 2002. The horrendous news was delivered to Moses while he was doing what he loved most, playing football in the street.
Fearing for his safety, Moses was kept in hiding by an uncle for a week before enough money was raised to send him to England where he was placed in foster care.
Moses did not speak a word of English or know anybody.
The weather was part of the huge culture shock he faced too.
But, if little else, Moses at least had the comfort of the sport he was obsessed with.
“Football helped me settle,” he told The Independent.
Moses joined local league side Cosmos, transforming their fortunes, and from there he was picked up by Crystal Palace.
The Eagles then recommended Moses to one of the area’s best schools, Whitgift.
Their expert tuition, elite facilities, and environment helped him thrive, while entering the school system also aided his adaptation.
“It was really difficult to start with but I survived,” he said.
Professional debut at 16
As well as his headline-grabbing cup final display, a 50-goal season for Palace’s U14s was another indication of the prodigious talent they had on their hands and aged just 16, a fast-tracked Moses made his professional debut against Cardiff City in November 2007.
Palace’s financial problems forced his sale to Wigan Athletic in January 2010 and after 74 appearances and eight goals for the Latics, he was then snapped up by Chelsea in August 2012.
His time at Stamford Bridge proved an eventful one, from falling out of favour and being loaned out for three successive seasons to becoming an integral member of Antonio Conte’s 2016/17 Premier League title-winning side, when he starred in an unfamiliar wing-back role.
Moses also won the Europa League twice and the FA Cup with the Stamford Bridge club.
His strength of character to persevere and turn things around at Chelsea should not have surprised anyone, given the childhood trauma and adversity he had already encountered.
Moses displayed this in his international career too. He represented his adopted country England at youth level, but accepted the call to represent Nigeria as a senior player, making his debut in February 2012.
Given all that he had seen taken away from him, it would have been understandable if had Moses opted against returning to a place that held such tragic memories.
But, instead, he did not just bring joy by saying yes to representing his native Nigeria, he cemented his hero status by helping inspire them to a first Africa Cup of Nations triumph in 19 years in 2013, making the team of the tournament in the process.
Moses has repeatedly shown incredible levels of resilience and courage throughout his life and career, defiantly preferring to look forward rather than back. To push on amid his own personal pain and achieve.
“His story is inspirational,” Alistair Osborne, Whitgift’s assistant head and former director of sport, once told the BBC.
And nobody would disagree with Moses when he said, in an interview with The Guardian: “Wherever they [his parents] are at the moment, looking down, they should be proud of me.”