Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: How Snooker and the West End led 'Baby Beckham' to Everton

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall had a predicament and wasn’t sure how to proceed. Back in 2020, Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers set up a pool tournament for his players and, after winning the year before, was seemingly confident of defending his crown.

However, unbeknown to him, one of the youngsters in his squad was quite the player. You see, Kiernan’s father Terry started taking him to snooker clubs when he was about four or five and by the age of 12, he was beating the adults.

So, when it came to drawing the gaffer in the first round of the Foxes’ pool competition, he had to weigh up how to play against the man who ultimately held his football dream in the palm of his hand.

“I thought, how do I go about this? Do I let him win or try my hardest?’ Dewsbury-Hall told The Times. In the end it was an easy choice.

“I beat him 2-0, battered him,” he remembered. “He was alright about it but I could tell in the back of my mind he wasn’t happy. A week later, I was at Blackpool on loan and he had a bye into the next round. Clever management, to be fair.”

It’s no surprise Kiernan opted to go for it and clear up. After all, if his Dad dared beat him at the baize when he was a kid, he wouldn’t speak to him for an entire day.

It’s that relentless desire to win, no matter the opposition, which will buoy Evertonians about the new midfield signing who has joined the club in a reported £25million deal this summer.

Joining from Chelsea, Dewsbury-Hall has put pen to paper on a five-year contract and already knows what Everton is about, describing the club as one of the biggest in the country while lauding the passionate fanbase during his unveiling interview.

Two days after Kiernan was born in Nottingham back in September 1998, the Toffees came to town to take on Forest at the City Ground for a midweek Premiership clash under the lights. The Blues won 2-0 that Tuesday night thanks to a Duncan Ferguson brace and, as it happens, the forward’s second strike, a low hard drive into the top corner with his left, is the sort of shot Dewsbury-Hall can regularly produce with his wand of a left boot too.

It was in the Leicestershire market town of Shepshed, a half hour drive south, where Dewsbury-Hall, who was kicking a ball at only 18 months, grew up. As a little lad, he would boot a Thomas the Tank Engine ball high over the roof of his house, before running around to the front to kick it back again.

Mum Vanessa, who still has the ball all these years later, was alert to Kiernan’s talent from an early age and set about aiding her son’s development in any way she could. One of Dewsbury-Hall’s earliest football memories was coming home from school around the age of four and seeing a giant inflatable goal his Mum had set up for him in the back garden.

“I just remember seeing that and being the most excited little kid in the world,” he told Chelsea’s official website. “From then on, I’d just spend hours and hours in the garden with about 20 footballs, just shooting into the inflatable goal, a massive yellow one. I just had such a love for it and can remember how excited it made me feel.”

Kiernan’s Mum soon started searching the area for coaching sessions. Kiernan’s skills even caught the attention of the Loughborough Echo who dubbed him ‘Baby Beckham’ when the local paper ran a story on the family’s hunt to find him a club.

“I was really young at the time and my mum would ring all these different clubs and ask if I could join,” he told Sport Bible. “They always said I was too young but this newspaper came round my house one day and did a little feature. They were watching me in the garden, taking pictures of me playing. They must have looked at it and thought ‘oh, he's actually alright!’”

At the age of six, the budding footballer joined hometown club Shepshed Dynamo. The non-league side was managed by future Leicester City boss Martin O’Neill back in 1989 while former Premiership striker Julian Joachim also featured for the team a decade ago.

“I remember that first year feeling so much joy and happiness going to play on a Sunday morning with my friends,” he told Chelsea’s official site. “At Shepshed Dynamo I played with the year above. I was a striker back then. In the first year, I scored like 40 goals. That was the point I realised I probably had something a bit different from the other lads.”

Even after making it as a professional, Kiernan made sure to return for games and show his support for the community.

"My surroundings and where I grew up was humbling," he recalled after signing for Chelsea. "It wasn’t flashy but it was a good, honest upbringing. That has made me the person I am today. My mum always used to say to me the one thing you can control is your manners and the way you treat people and respect people. That’s always stuck with me.

"No matter which way I go in life, I will always be that same person. My mum will never let me forget that! It’s the way I’m wired. That’s the main thing that moulded me. It’s why I like going back to my roots. It keeps me home-centred, no matter where I am."

It was while having a kickabout in Loughborough that Kiernan was first spotted by professional outfits. Briefly training with Derby as well as the Foxes, it was Leicester he decided to join in 2006.

“I started taking him to summer camps and training sessions in the area,” Mum Vanessa told The Athletic. “He first played at Derby Road playing fields when he was seven. That was where it all started. He got picked up there and started training at Leicester in six-week blocks and stayed there the whole time.”

Gaining a scholarship, he would spend five days a week with the Foxes and so his mum and stepdad Rick would drive and take him to training for every session. Vanessa would have a nap in the car while her son played because ‘it wasn’t worth driving back to Shepshed and all the way back again’.

It was an amazing show of faith and dedication to ensure her son’s football dream became a reality and Kiernan showed similar levels of commitment.

“I am so proud,” beamed his Mum during his maiden Premier League campaign. “He gives 150 per cent. He is so hungry to play. He has never once said he didn’t want to train that day or that he didn’t want to do it. He will always do that bit extra.”

Kiernan’s Mum also has a scrapbook detailing all of his achievements from day one. Featuring everything from newspaper clippings to write-ups, the next pieces will be added now the midfielder has made a move to Everton.

Excelling to become a Premier League star, coming up through the youth ranks wasn’t all plain sailing for Dewsbury-Hall. Growing up, he was always ‘the smallest kid’ and between the ages of 12 and 16, the youngster noticed he wasn’t developing at the same rate as his team-mates.

“I had some dark moments at home with my mum, asking why this was happening. ‘Is there something wrong with me? Do I need to go and see somebody?’ It was upsetting,” he revealed an interview with Chelsea.

“I was renowned for having battles with the biggest lad in our age group at Leicester, it was like David and Goliath.”

Mum Vanessa was a constantly reassuring figure and would tell Kiernan, ‘Look, I know it’s the hardest thing in the world right now, but you have to be patient. It’s going to happen, and it’s hard for you to imagine it now’.

“When you see all your friends growing up, and you’re not, you’re vulnerable. She would say, “Please trust me” and in the end, it did change. They were my most challenging years.’

Kiernan was able to turn his lack of physicality into a positive because it forced him to improve the technical side of his game. He had to think quicker to compensate for the fact he was being outmuscled and outrun. ‘If I didn’t, I would be forgotten about,’ he reflects.

Mum was right and the growth spurt came when Dewsbury-Hall was 17 and he now stands at 5’9.

Despite worrying about his height when he was growing up, his idol was actually a midfielder who was small in stature but had a giant impact on the game. Dewsbury-Hall has watched countless videos of Paul Scholes and described the midfielder as ‘the master’. He insists there is not a YouTube clip of the Manchester United star that he hasn’t watched.

“He was someone I looked up to growing up,” Kiernan told Sport Bible. “I was always trying to get little things off him and add them to my game. He was always the main man for me. He must have had five or six eyes in his head. Some of the things he used to do, you’d think, ‘how did he see that?’

“He was my idol. It’s always been him, and it always will be. Everything he did was unbelievable. I think he is one of the best midfielders of all time.”

Then there was the influence of N’Golo Kante, a diminutive midfielder who helped Leicester City win the Premier League against all the odds. That 2015/16 season, Dewsbury-Hall was a ballboy at the King Power Stadium and was responsible for cleaning the Frenchman’s boots, a responsibility he took extremely seriously.

“He was flying at the time,” Kiernan recalls. “I thought, I need to make sure this guy's boots are absolutely spotless everyday because if he starts playing bad, I don't want anyone to blame it on his boots being dirty or whatever.”

Later training with Kante, being on the same pitch as the title winner had a huge impact on Dewsbury-Hall.

“I was a young lad going into training with the first team and I just couldn’t believe how good he was. He was everywhere. He didn’t give you an inch,” he remembered on Tubes and Ange’s Golf Life.

“When I got the ball, when I was with players my age, I’d have a bit of time and could get my head up, but as I get the ball, bang, he’s there. I’m thinking: ‘Is this what it’s like if you want to get to the top?’

“Being able to train with him made me realise that was the level I had to get to. From what he’s gone on to do, I realise how good he was. He deserves everything he’s got.

“He was so nice. He’d clamp you and then pick you up, there was no animosity. He’s one of the most humble guys in the world but one of the best midfielders.”

Industrious on the pitch, Kiernan was studious off it and did everything he could to better himself while hoping to impress his academy managers. He tried to come first in all of the running drills while at school he got a distinction star for his BTEC and A*, two As and seven Bs in his GCSEs.

The new Everton signing admits waiting for his opportunity with Leicester was tough. Making the grade with the Under 23s at the age of 18, he was still in the side three years later.

“I couldn’t catch a break,” he told The Times. “Nobody in my position ever seemed to get injured. I was stagnating. I was thinking ‘I believe I’m good enough - but do other people? Is there something missing?’ There were tough periods.”

He put the doubts to one side though and kept going.

“I thought ‘I’ve been here half my life, I’d regret it if I chucked it away now. All those years of sacrifice, losing a lot of your childhood - to just bob it off now, how stupid would that be?”

Then in January 2020, his chance finally came after working hard to convince Rodgers he was ready to play. Dewsbury-Hall made his competitive debut for Leicester, coming on as a 68th minute substitute in a 1-0 win at Brentford in the FA Cup. Then, in the space of three days, he had joined Blackpool and made his first league appearance, scoring a consolation in a League One defeat at Wycombe Wanderers. Kiernan would go on to make ten appearances for the Tangerines.

The 2020/21 campaign would mark a real breakthrough for the midfielder. Playing for Leicester in the League Cup against Arsenal, he then sealed a season-long loan move to Luton Town in the Championship.

Hatters boss Nathan Jones, when pitching the switch to Dewsbury-Hall insisted ‘this is the most excited I’ve been about a young player in a long time’ and promised him, ‘You’ll be a Premier League player once you’re done with me.

Playing 39 matches and scoring three goals, Dewsbury-Hall was the club’s Player’s Player of the Year and Mum Vanessa insists he went to Kenilworth Road ‘as a kid but came back a man’.

Returning to Leicester, he turned up at the training ground a month before pre-season started in order to work out by himself and ensure he was ready to make an impact and continue his development. That hard work paid off, winning the squad bleep test, manager Rodger insisted he looked like ‘a new person’.

By the 2021/2022 season, Dewsbury-Hall had become a regular, lining up with Jamie Vardy, Kasper Schmeichel and James Maddison for the Foxes every week. Fans were singing his name to the tune of Wonderwall and Kiernan was living his dream.

What’s unique about his story is that he was 23 when he made his first start for the club, a relatively old age in football terms to make your bow. It showed his desire to succeed though, together with the faith Leicester had in him, a club he had played for since his days in Junior School.

Appearing against the likes of Manchester United and City, he remained grounded and, after games, would drive back to the family home in Shepshed where his Mum and siblings lived. Dewsbury-Hall was still living at home and would go to sleep in the same bedroom where his schoolboy trophies remained proudly on display.

When Leicester were relegated in 2023, Dewsbury-Hall stuck with the club to make sure the Foxes returned to the top-flight.

“I felt personally responsible for my part in that (relegation). I made it my goal to ensure we got back to the Premier League within the first season, as I know how devastating a position that can be for a club if it doesn’t happen.”

Playing 44 times, he scored 12 goals as Leicester earned 97 points to win the Championship title and earn promotion back to the big time.

Making his name in the Premier League, it’s a surname that many people have commented on. While some people may assume the midfielder is ‘posh’, his new team-mates at Blackpool were surprised to hear his East Midlands accent. The double-barreled name comes from his Mum’s surname Dewsbury and his father’s surname Hall.

Oftentimes, people compare his name to that of a stately home or wedding venue and the player admits he’s keen to find out if such a venue exists.

Speaking to The Times, he joked: “I’d like to visit there some time and take a photo. ‘Dewsbury-Hall is at Dewsbury Hall’.”

The midfielder’s new Everton team-mates can expect some classic tunes if Kiernan gets control of the pre-match music at Hill Dickinson Stadium as, inspired by stepdad Rick, he’s a fan of 80s icons like Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson, George Michael and Spandau Ballet while his Mum’s influence means he might also stick on the Ministry of Sound.

Dewsbury-Hall is also a fan of the arts, and admits going to West End shows is a ‘guilty pleasure’. Admiring and respecting those who can get up and perform to a large audience, he’s used that skill to boost his own game on the pitch.

“I’m a massive fan of West End shows and I have a lot of respect for that industry and the people in it,” Dewsbury-Hall told the EFL website last year. “I’ve got a lot of friends in that business and there are more similarities than you’d probably think.

“Their job is to entertain on stage and I’m here to entertain on the pitch, so I feel like there's a mutual respect and I can pick up a few tips and tricks from them, even though it’s a completely different way of life.

“I feel like in terms of my own story, I’ve been in the first team for a couple of years, so I’ve bedded myself in and now I would like to take on a lead role.

“I might not be the most talkative in the group, but I try to set an example on the pitch and I’m very keen to help anybody in any way possible.”

At Chelsea, who he joined in the summer of 2024, following manager Enzo Maresca from Leicester to Stamford Bridge, he made a total of 36 appearances, playing 15 times in the Conference League to help the Blues lift the trophy. Despite not being a regular on the domestic front, that won’t have knocked Dewsbury-Hall’s confidence.

“Always believe in yourself,” he’s said previously. “If you don’t, nobody else will.”

Throughout his career he has always backed himself and put in the work to ensure he could not fail.

“I am a player that has a huge amount of self-belief, and I think that is because of my journey and what I have had to face,’ he said in an interview with his now former club. “I have had nothing come easy to me. In the academy, some lads get fast-tracked, some lads don’t. I was never that lad. I never got extra bonuses. I had to work for every single thing I got and that moulded me into the person I am today. It makes me so determined and motivated to keep improving."

What is certain is Dewsbury-Hall has always had good people around him. From his mother buying him an inflatable goal and searching for opportunities, his father taking him to snooker and his stepdad driving him to training to the coaches who have guided him and given him his chance, these influences have shaped an exceptional character who is determined and ready to grow and succeed.

When building a new team, Everton manager David Moyes always looks for a good character. He’s found that in Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

Credits include The Times, Leicester Mercury, Chelsea Football Club, The Athletic and Sport Bible

An Everton season ticket holder and football writer, you can subscribe to all of Ell Bretland's work at https://ellbretland.substack.com