When William Troost-Ekong wanted to set up his own foundation, there was only one place it could be located. Having first visited his father’s home town of Uyo in Akwa Ibom state as a child, the Nigeria captain was given a particularly special welcome when he returned last summer for a charity tournament he had organised.
“My surname, Ekong, really resonates with them because it’s from a very specific place,” says the former Watford defender, who plays for Al-Kholood in Saudi Arabia, the eighth country he has lived in during a career that began in Tottenham’s academy after he attended a state boarding school in Hertfordshire. “I had a chance to visit my late grandparents’ house where they still had loads of pictures of us from when we were kids. The last time I was there, I was about four years old, so to get back there again and to now have a better understanding of what that actually means was something really special. You connect with that in a deeper way.”
