It makes sense that off-duty footballers should dress brashly. They pass their professional lives in club-chosen suits and ties, wear matching trackies for training and then all that glowing polyester for games. It’s not surprising then that Daniel Sturridge, the 25-year-old Liverpool and England striker, seems to relish an afternoon in a room full of snappy, distinctive menswear. On racks in the Merseyside studio hang oversized rollnecks and dimpled bomber jackets, a creaking, patent leather coat that won’t quite fasten around Sturridge’s broad-shouldered 6ft 2in frame. “In fashion you express yourself however you want,” he tells me (going with the rollneck). “You express your personality.”

More so than in football?



“Yeah. Because in football you can be misunderstood. People have a perception of you without knowing you.”

This has to be written with some caution, about a sport in which various top practitioners, at least from this armchair fan’s point of view, come across as humming narcissists with no discernible taste, but Sturridge is cool. His lightly accented Brum is tuned, as a rule, to a low volume. He’s reflective, pausing before answering questions, and doesn’t smile easily. He carries himself a little differently, a fact that has been noted. Last spring, just before the World Cup (a tournament at which Sturridge gave the England team its first goal and only highlight of a short-lived campaign), online magazine Vice anointed him “football’s first hipster”. Though their reasoning amounted, in the end, to his liking for brimmed hats and the voguish musician Banks (“a goddess”), these choices were worth praising nonetheless. “In the age of soul-garroting media training and dull as fuck sponsorship campaigns… someone like Sturridge is at least brightening things up a bit.”

The opinion seemed especially sound after England were knocked out of the World Cup, and Sturridge responded by posting a curious video on Instagram, a little visual poem that showed his sad frown, then a coconut impaled with a straw, then a desolate Brazilian beach. As a statement it was better than “the lads are gutted”, I thought. Did he read the Vice article? “I did,” Sturridge says. “I was a bit flattered.” He leaves the matter there.

Bomber jacket, £345, by PS by Paul Smith, from matchesfashion.com. Sweatshirt, £150, by Our Legacy, from mrporter.com. Sweatpants, £55, nike.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Photograph: Desmond Muckian for the Guardian

We talk in his dressing room, between shots, the footballer periodically going outside to have his picture taken before returning to haul off a splatter-print top by Marc Jacobs for something plainer by McQueen. Underneath the jumpers he wears a thick tangle of neck chains, including a couple of crosses studded with diamonds. And… are those glow-in-the-dark rosary beads?

“Yeah. I always pray. I’m quite religious. I’ve had the beads since I can remember.”

Why glow-in-the-dark?

“When you’re scared at night, as a kid, they make you feel safe. I’ve always worn them. I feel lost without them, to be honest. They’re only plastic but once, when I was on holiday, they came off in the pool without me knowing. I’ve not let that happen again.”

Those diamond crosses look more expensive.

“I’ve lost a couple of these, too. Usually I like to keep a piece of jewellery on me when I’m playing. Not around my neck, because that’s banned. I used to tuck [a diamond cross] in my sock. I was playing for Manchester City at the time, or it might have been Chelsea, and it came out on the pitch.”

Where did it end up?

“Someone’s hands, obviously! It was pricey.”

So let’s not get carried away; he has his flash side. Earlier in the month Sturridge extended his contract with Liverpool, a new deal thought to put his wages at something like £150,000 a week. He drove to the photoshoot in a growling Porsche Panamera (drawing hoots from a gang of metalworkers) and his concern for dressing precisely could be interpreted, if you were minded to do so, as preening. Off the plane at last summer’s World Cup, the first thing Sturridge did in his hotel room was get out a steam iron.

The first thing?

“Had to. Can’t go out with crushed clothes. Can’t do it.”

What does that say about his character?

“That I was raised well?”

Scribble sweatshirt, £170, by Marc by Marc Jacobs, from liberty.co.uk. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Photograph: Desmond Muckian for the Guardian

He laughs – and the room laughs along. Present at the photoshoot are Sturridge’s agent and a couple of representatives from his chief sponsor, Nike. The footballer is obviously close with this circle (there’s a round of cheerful teasing about a photo of Sturridge, circulated to celebrate his big contract-signing, that showed him hovering a pen over a blank piece of paper) but he arrived at the studio alone, and makes it clear that if he has anything resembling an entourage, it’s his immediate family. Mum Grace, a cook. Dad Michael, a retired footballer turned scout. A brother and sister.

When Michael Sturridge signed a deal that first took his youngest son to Manchester City, back in 2003, the entire family relocated from Birmingham to live in Congleton, near City’s academy. Did he feel guilty about the family uprooting itself?

“At the time I didn’t. Because I didn’t know they were doing it for me. I was 13 when we left. It’s hard to think your whole family are moving for you, personally.”

Does he think about it differently now?

“Of course. Of course. I’m grateful. I can’t repay them. They always say: you don’t need to. But you feel like there’s an onus to repay them. But you can’t really do that with money.”

Has he tried?

“My mum, she loves a bargain hunt. You can’t buy her anything expensive. I remember I bought her a diamond bracelet for her birthday. I was being a nice son! She told me to take it back. I asked her if she was joking. She said: I don’t want it.”

She sounds formidable.

“Formidable, yeah… At the World Cup I carried my mum’s Caribbean sauce around with me. She makes her own and I brought it to Brazil – I needed to have it there. We’re very down-to-earth; it’s the nature of my family. We came from nothing.”

It was Sturridge’s grandfather who moved the family to Birmingham from Jamaica. “He was thinking: opportunity.” Within a generation there was a Sturridge on Match Of The Day – Daniel’s uncle Dean, a prolific goalscorer for Derby County. Michael, Daniel’s dad, played for Birmingham City’s reserves. I ask Sturridge if he remembers a lot of football chat at family gatherings.

“Not really. At the time, it was [talk about] crime. ‘Oh-my-God someone got this done to them.’ Robberies.” Their part of Birmingham, Hockley, was troubled then. “A lot of gun crime, drug selling. Every city’s got rough areas. For me, Birmingham is home.”

Does he go back?

“Always. You go there now and see young guys, looking over thinking: ‘Who’s that, in that car?’ And that was me! When I was younger. That was me, looking at someone in a new car. I’m one of them and they don’t realise it. If you grow up in a rough area, there’s only certain things you think you can become. Everyone wants to be a footballer. You don’t have many saying doctor, or lawyer, because they don’t think they can become that. People have to realise they can be anything in life.”

Except, in all likelihood, a footballer. The odds are minuscule. Was he aware of that as a child?

“It’s enjoyment at that age. You’re a kid, you’re more worried about having fun with your mates than making it as a professional. At a young age – honestly? – I wanted to be a wrestler. It’s true. That was my dream, to be a wrestler, and I genuinely believed I could do it. I loved the Undertaker, the Ultimate Warrior…”

“I’d better leave you while you change,” I say.

“I was thinking that,” says Sturridge, laughing. With the ease of a man who has spent his life in congested dressing rooms, he was climbing out of a pair of designer sweatpants – only pausing mid-drop to consider the etiquette. “You sitting there on the sofa,” he says. “It would be a bit weird.”

Burgundy rollneck, £195, by Gant Rugger, from mrporter.com. Sweatpants, £28, asos.com. Air Max 90 sneakerboots, £140, nike.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Photograph: Desmond Muckian for the Guardian

Away from Sturridge’s dressing room, I speak on the phone to one of his oldest friends in football, Micah Richards. Both were born in the same Birmingham hospital, and both spent their teens at Manchester City. Richards first met Sturridge when the striker was at the end of his I-want-to-be-a-wrestler phase, beginning to inch towards the Premier League. Richards was a defender and he remembers encountering a kid, on day one, who came with baggage.

“His uncle Dean had a big name in the game at the time, so [Daniel] had a reputation to live up to.” And did he impress? “I knew from the first day I trained with him,” Richards says, “he was going to be what he is now. The only thing I’m a bit disappointed with is that it’s took him so long.”

Richards recently moved from Manchester to play in Italy, for Fiorentina. The pair remain good friends and every Friday, Richards tells me, they engage in playful rap battles using a messenger app on their phones. Richards knows better than to try to call Sturridge for an actual chat in the runup to the weekend. “He doesn’t answer his phone the day and night before a game,” says Richards, chuckling. “And if he doesn’t score a goal, he won’t speak to you after it, either.”

In the long, unpredictable game of snakes and ladders that is a career in football, the friends have yet to excel at the same time. For a long time it was Richards, installed at a young age in Manchester City’s first team, who got the critical raves and the international call-ups. Sturridge sat through matches on the bench or played for the reserves. He left City for Chelsea in 2009 but there, too, spent a lot of time on the sidelines. It was only after a move to Liverpool last year, and a 25-goal season, that he became a star. By which time Richards was out of favour in England and ready to move abroad.

Splatter print jumper, £210, by Marc by Marc Jacobs, from matchesfashion.com. Coat, £100, asos.com. Sweatpants, £55, nike.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Photograph: Desmond Muckian for the Guardian

It’s not a secure life. I ask Richards if conversation between the friends is ever awkward, their fortunes seesawing, and he tells me no – footballers aren’t like that. Football isn’t like that. “It’s rough with the smooth,” says Richards. Sturridge says: “Everything comes and goes.” He impresses it on me during our afternoon together that top-end football isn’t quite the round-the-clock glamour festival I seem to assume. A hat-trick, a post-match massage, then a night out on chilled premium brand? Not if you want to play next time.

The English league demands such a degree of athleticism now that first-teamers can’t easily afford to piss around in their spare time. As Richards puts it: “If you go out twice a week, and go out late, you get found out in the stats.” Admittedly, Sturridge says, they have their fun. “Everybody has their hobbies… some people have their vices.” But he talks me through an average mid-season day in his life.

After the 8am alarm there’s a 15-minute drive to the training ground. Maybe a club-made omelette before a morning of training, or gym work, or both. He’s home and done by the early afternoon. Then? “On the couch. Near enough the whole rest of the day. Watching DVDs.”

That’s hours!

“Yeah. There’s an argument to say: keep yourself occupied. Do something. But what about my legs, and them getting tired? It’s important to put your feet up, not be walking around. Come Saturday you’ll be tired without knowing it.”

I put it to Sturridge he must be rare. Other players aren’t putting in the same amount of sofa time, are they? “Rare? No. The majority of footballers are the same. People look at footballers as being flashy, but we’re [hard-working] people, too. Others work nine to five – we just do less hours. What do you do?”

I work nine to five.

“And after that?”

I go home. Help put my kid to bed. Have dinner and watch an episode of something. Bed.

“Same as me! Without the kid.”

Rose-sleeve sweatshirt, £150, by Our Legacy, from mrporter.com. Sweatpants, £55, and trainers, £120, both nike.com. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Photograph: Desmond Muckian for the Guardian

We talk for a bit about girlfriends. At least as recently as the spring, Sturridge was with a model, Jourdan Dunn. He mentions a previous long-term relationship that lasted five years but “you end up moving on, becoming single. There’ll come a time when I’ll settle down and be with someone again. For now I’m focused on my job.” I ask if girlfriends have to pass any sort of mum test – if there’s a family-entourage filter – and Sturridge looks at me as if I haven’t understood him at all. “They ain’t going to bed with your partner,” he says. “It’s got nothing to do with them. It’s about someone who has a bond with you. Someone who makes you feel like you can be whatever you want to be in life.”

Not long ago, Sturridge had a thought along these lines, about the sort of woman he found attractive, and he tapped out a few words for Twitter. “Need an ambitious lady with inner beauty,” he wrote. The tweet made headlines in three newspapers. “Sturridge is looking for love,” was the Mirror’s take, “but he doesn’t want a Wag.”

For all his talk about living a near-enough average life, he doesn’t. His banged-out Twitter aphorisms get half a page in the paper. Last summer he achieved the most elemental of playground ambitions, scoring a cracking goal in a World Cup, and when I get a cab from the Merseyside studio I pass Liverpool’s stadium where a 20m-high poster of Sturridge, in all his glowing-polyester glory, hangs on an exterior wall. Over the course of our afternoon together he’ll have earned my annual salary, more or less.

Still, he is keen to stress the basic limitations of his world, the DVD marathons on the couch and his mother’s Caribbean sauce, not the payslips or the Porsche (the make of which I have to prise out of him). He’ll cheerfully admit to wearing glow-in-the-dark rosary beads to allay ancient childhood fears. Sturridge underplays his lot – and that’s rare for a footballer, I think.