Tomkins: From the East End to south London – via Amarillo

For the casual onlooker, James Tomkins’ formative introduction to life as a professional footballer was his debut at Goodison Park in 2008. In reality, that moment was two years earlier, in the function room of a hotel in near the Millennium Stadium.

West Ham were preparing for the FA Cup final, and manager Alan Pardew saw the perfect chance to ingratiate the most promising youngsters with the first team squad.

“He took me along for the experience. I’d not done an initiation – I had to do it the night before on the mic. I couldn’t eat a thing during dinner because I was so nervous to sing after.

“It was ‘(Is This the Way to) Amarillo’. I had to get it planned in my head. I was playing it in my ears the night before from my iPod, because I didn’t really know the words. But I thought it would be a song that everyone could help me out with – there were a few people that joined in in the end!”

They might be a source of fun for the older players, but initiations like these were crucial in welcoming a younger player into the team. After all, just to get to that point is some achievement.

“When you join an academy so young – I joined [West Ham] when I was eight-years-old – you see your mates get released. It’s almost like a survival thing really, where you want to be good enough for the next step and the next age group, and then the ultimate one is to play for the first team.”

For all the years of work to get there, Tomkins’ senior call up came at relatively short notice.

“We were all on the coach and we’d just pulled up to the game, and the manager hadn’t announced his team yet. He [Alan Curbishley] comes to the back of the bus and names the lineup. Obviously, we’d just got there so I didn’t have too much time to prepare, which was probably the best thing because I would have struggled to sleep if he’d told me the night before.

“Both nerves and excitement sort of fold into one; that nervous, excited energy. In the warm-up you just keep as calm as you can, because you’re going into a world where you’re playing in front of 40,000 people. I’ll never forget it.”

After 20 years at West Ham, moving to Palace [in 2016] was a strange experience for Tomkins – he had to keep his sat-nav on standby for the first six months to find his way to Copers Cope, so much was he used to driving to his former training ground – but after almost [seven] years he has become a senior figure in the dressing room.

But even now, with more than 300 Premier League appearances to his name, Tomkins feels the tension before kick-off.

“Over the years I’ve still had the same nervousness going out; it’s never changed for me. People say it gets easier with age but for me it’s still the same nervous energy again. Different from my debut mind you…”

It’s no surprise. Being a defender at the highest-level is a unique mindset; while the world fawns over the stunning goals and electric pace of Premier League attackers, defenders await each match knowing their job is to blot it all out.

“Experience can help,” says Tomkins. “Nowadays, especially for me when I started, you can see videos of strikers and what they’re about. Some things you can’t stop as a player but you try and put yourself in the right position and do the basics well, and you can build from there. If you can try and play to your strengths then hopefully you can come out on top.”

Strangely for someone who has made a career out of preventing goals, Tomkins' early days of youth football were as a striker. The switch in position also required a new frame of mind.

“As a kid all you want to do is score goals, and even if I score now that feeling is very unique and special. I had to learn as a kid: ‘hold on a minute, keeping strikers out is so rewarding.’ It took time because I was so used to trying to score goals, and it’s a bit of a shock to you, but after time you get used to it and you get into defending.”

So which does he prefer now: a goal or a clean sheet?

“I’d have to say keeping a clean sheet more,” he laughs. “You can score and still lose, but when you keep a clean sheet, it’s not necessarily all down to you, but you know that as a team you’ve been solid.”

And here we uncover the essence of Tomkins career to date, which we can trace back to that function room in south Wales and beyond: the determination to be part of a strong unit, and the unbridled competitiveness that comes with it.

It starts on the pitch: “You start defending not just from the backline, where everyone thinks you’re defending from. If you start from the front then work back, you’re defending as a team. Things like that are where Roy Hodgson has got years and years of experience and know what works for him.”

During the week, his pursuit of high standards is just as important.

“Most of the lads will tell you, I’m quite competitive,” says Tomkins with the hint of a smile. “I try and give everything I have in the games and in training."

In a league as competitive as this, that is no bad thing. Indeed, although his initiation at West Ham was nerve-wracking, it made him comfortable in his role as the newest member of the senior side.

It may seem like a baptism of fire, but there’s no doubt that come matchday the players will be tougher for it.

Now very much at home in south London, Tomkins has come a long way from the 17-year-old academy prospect, terrified of singing to his older teammates.

His role today is to call on that experience – and that rampant competitiveness – to maintain the standards at Palace. Not that he doesn’t miss those days: “The songs have kind of gone out… we should bring it back really.”

Would he be the first to get up there again? Well, maybe, and there’s no doubt what he’d be singing.

“It would have to be Amarillo again – that song will never leave my memory now!”