“I was young at the time, but I knew it was a special team.
“To win the FA Youth Cup… and bear in mind, I was an Under-16s player at the time! I was pulled out of school for it. I was the only Under-16 in the squad, and Trevor Webb, our Head of Education, had to get permission to take me out of school to travel all over the place.
“The players we had at the time… Richard Garcia was an U18, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick were U17s… it was a special group of players, and it’s testament to the Club that a lot of them went on to do great things.
“I do believe that they made the person I am today. I didn’t know it back then, but looking back, everything West Ham instilled in us – being a good person, working hard and as part of a team – I just took that on in my later life.”
From the age of nine to his early 20s, football was Louis Riddle’s life.
Originally from Ware in Hertfordshire, the affable Riddle was part of a generation which needs little by way of introduction.
While playing alongside the likes of Cole, Carrick, Leon Britton, Jermain Defoe and Glen Johnson during his time at the Academy, Riddle was quite the player himself, representing England at all youth levels until the age of 18.
Initially a speedy forward, before slowly morphing into a promising left-back over the course of a decade at Chadwell Heath, Riddle looks back fondly on life in east London.
“I was always a striker, but in my first year of being a professional, they went and signed Jermain Defoe from Charlton, didn’t they?!” Riddle laughed. “I think in my first year I did manage to score more than him, but he did play up in the first team a few times!
“My own age group still meet up once a year, minimum. We go into the West End in London and all meet up – Joe Sealey, Dean Cleaver, Glen Johnson, Anton Ferdinand… it’s like being 16 again!
“The late, great Peter Brabrook was massive in my life. Him, Tony Carr and Paul Heffer – who’s 74 now and still at the Club – really helped me out on and off the pitch."
Yet in the final game of the 2000/01 FA Premier Reserve League season, just as Riddle hoped to kick on with his teammates, the teenager sadly suffered a broken leg.
“That stuffed me, really,” Riddle admitted. “I wasn’t the best technically, like some of the players – my best mate Leon Britton was a technician, he was unbelievable – but me, I was really quick.
“When I broke my leg, I broke it at an angle, so they had to put a pin in there. It made my left leg only slightly smaller, but the knock-on effect it had…
“I wasn’t as quick because I kept getting injured, whereas before that, I never did. Looking back, it didn’t finish me, but I was never as quick.”
Released by West Ham in the summer of 2002, Riddle had several offers on the table, choosing to move home to play in non-league for nearby Stevenage, before short spells at Braintree and Cambridge City – but a calling elsewhere was on the table.
“Getting released was a hammer blow, but I’m a big believer in fate and that everything happens for a reason,” he smiles.
“I played for Stevenage for 18 months, but I think the drop was too big for me to get my head around at such a young age. I wasn’t big-time, but I just couldn’t adjust to the robust level of the game at such a young age.
“In 2004/05, I decided not to play anymore. I did a degree at the University of Hertfordshire for two years, and in the meantime, as I was short for money, I played in non-league, which was brilliant. I fell in love with football again and had a really good time while studying.
“Before my third year of studying, I had a gap year just to refresh my brain, and I had a friend in recruitment who told me I’d be good at it. He said: ‘All you’ve got to do is talk to people, meet people and get them into jobs!’
“I applied to a couple of places, finally got my first proper job in recruitment as a trainee in 2006, and never looked back really! I progressed from there to start my own business in 2013.”
Discovering his second calling elsewhere, it’s clear that the good-humoured energy and positivity Riddle first discovered in football persists in his new career.
“I always think that, with the recruitment business, that’s my second chance to do well for myself,” he explains. “I’m grabbing it with both hands and by working hard every day. It’s brilliant.
“In football, I used to love being on the coach on the way to games, or the changing room,– that banter with the lads. Back then, it was all about interaction and playing games, making people laugh and pulling pranks – if I’m being honest – I was a bit of a joker!
“Putting that into the office environment, I think my company’s flourished because we work hard, and we play hard. In some offices, you can go into quite a quiet and monotone environment, but we keep it like a changing room on a Saturday afternoon!”
And as well as celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the 1999 FA Youth Cup win three years ago, Riddle has returned even more recently in an even more recent role.
“I was at Chadwell Heath last week for the first time in a while,” he joked. “My son plays in goal for Stevenage’s U10s. Cor, it’s changed a bit since I was there – for the better, obviously!
“My weekends are consumed by that now! Every Sunday my son’s at the Stevenage Academy, and on Mondays, Tuesdays or Thursdays. It’s quite a commitment, which I didn’t realise back in the day, for parents travelling all over the country!
“I dunno how he’s become a ‘keeper though… but each to their own!”
A riddle for Riddle to solve, just as he did in his career…
