The Premier League’s joint top scorer had injury struggles at Coventry when he lived on takeaways but his girlfriend sorted him out: ‘She introduced me to salads and healthy foods’

“Before I met her I’d never really had a salad,” Callum Wilson says, thinking back to the moment that accelerated his development from a promising but fragile youngster into the lean and muscular striker who is gobbling up chances for Bournemouth in the same way he once devoured fast food. Wilson always knew that he was talented enough to reach the top, but people around him were not quite as convinced as the confident, smiling teenager who seemed to spend more time on the treatment table than the pitch.

There was a danger that his progress at Coventry City would be derailed by his struggle to stay fit. Wilson broke the same foot three times and it was only when he left his crowded family home and his girlfriend showed him how to eat like an athlete that his injuries started to clear up and he began to turn into the player who is now the surprise joint top scorer in the Premier League, level with Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez on five goals.

His early life was fraught with difficulty. The eldest of six children, Wilson lived in a three-bedroom house in Coventry with his mother and siblings after his father left when he was a baby. “I had to turn into a man the quickest and look after my brothers and sisters,” Wilson says. “You have to learn to stand on your own two feet without a father figure around. You have to set an example.”

A question about the origins of his speed offers an insight into why he had to grow up so quickly. “I don’t really know anything about my dad,” Wilson says. “I don’t really know too much about his background. He’s Jamaican and Jamaicans are usually more athletic. You’ve seen Usain Bolt.”

He describes football as his release, a place where he could spend time with his friends and be himself, because he lived in such a hectic household. He shared a bedroom with one of his little brothers, but he needed his privacy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Callum Wilson, who has five siblings, was a baby when his dad disappeared. ‘You have to learn to stand on your own two feet without a father figure around,’ he says. Photograph: PhilYeomans/BNPS for the Guardian

“There was me and my brother in one, another two brothers in another,” Wilson says. “I had two younger sisters so they were in my mum’s room. I knew I had to get out of the house to give them room. Being a teenage lad, you want your own room. Eventually my mum said, “You’re going to have to go out and get your own place.’”

There was a solution. Stacey was in his life. “I met my partner when I was 17,” Wilson says. “She was 19. After about a year with her I moved into her house, which helped me progress. As someone who wanted to be a footballer, to have not had a salad … I was eating takeaway food because it was quick and easy. She introduced me to salads and healthy foods, and my injuries have kind of slowed down from that point.”

Wilson has been with Stacey for six years and they have a son. They are getting married next year, although Wilson does not expect his team-mates to be at his wedding; Bournemouth’s captain, Tommy Elphick, is tying the knot on the same day.

Wilson is friendly and engaging, always smiling and joking, and he speaks openly about his background. When he started training at Coventry, there were no lifts from his mum.

“She’s had her hands full,” he says. “It was hard when I was growing up for her to take me to training. She was a single mum. It was family friends and team-mates who picked me up. I got a bit fed up of relying on people for lifts so I went back to play for my local Sunday League team, because the manager picked me up.

“It seemed easier at the time. I felt awkward getting lifts off people. I went to Coventry and didn’t really like it and went back to my Sunday team. I tried again when I was 12, didn’t really like it, went back to my Sunday team again. Then the third time I knew that if I wanted to be a professional, I had to stick it out and bear the lifts off other people.”

There were other distractions. Wilson ran the 100m and the hurdles at school and he also did kickboxing for a couple of years. “I only had three fights,” he says. “Obviously I won all three. It was by technical knockout but at that age it was just making the other kid cry really.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Callum Wilson twice left Coventry City to continue as a Sunday League footballer before he put his heart into making it as a professional. Photograph: PhilYeomans/BNPS for the Guardian

Kickboxing did not grab him, though, and he dedicated himself to becoming a professional footballer. Not that it was straightforward for him at first at Coventry. He was overlooked by the manager at the time, Andy Thorn, and ended up going on loan to Kettering Town and Tamworth. Those spells in non-league football toughened him up. He turned up at Kettering in his Fiat Punto, played out of position on the right of midfield and worked tirelessly.

“At a Premier League club there’s a tendency to have the best things early in your career,” Wilson says. “You’ll be 16 or 17 and be training in amazing facilities, so to go to Tamworth or Kettering, where the roof in the changing room is falling down and the stadium or crowds aren’t as big, you’ve got people round the side eating burgers, it felt like going back to Sunday League.”

Wilson’s chance at Coventry came when Steven Pressley became their manager in 2013. He scored 22 goals in League One in the 2013-14 season and when Bournemouth were looking for a striker to replace Lewis Grabban who had been sold to Norwich City, they signed Wilson for £3.5m in July 2014. Eddie Howe polished a rough diamond and Wilson’s 23 goals helped Bournemouth win the Championship title last season.

Wilson is superstitious about numbers. He wears the No13 shirt; unlucky for some but not for him. “I went for that one because a few things have happened on the 13th day of the month,” he says. “I passed my driving test, my theory test, I had my first driving lesson, my little boy was due on the 13th. It’s inspired from that.”

Twenty-two is another important number. He scored his first hat-trick in Bournemouth’s 4-3 win over West Ham United last month. “It was on the 22nd, which is a number that sort of pops up a lot between me and my partner,” he says. “Every time I look at my mobile phone before bed it seems to say 22:22. I thought that has to mean something in the future. Ironically when it was happening I ended up scoring 22 goals for Coventry.”

Wilson relaxes himself by speaking to the club psychologist and after failing to score in Bournemouth’s first two games this season, his first goal in the win at West Ham removed any lingering doubt from his head.

The feeling of scoring in the Premier League took a while to sink in and it is not in Wilson’s nature to get carried away about talk of him playing for England. He is a lively character in the dressing room, but he prepares for matches by disappearing into his own little world.

“I’m a person now who likes my own company,” Wilson says. “It’s nice to be able to have my freedom and peace.”