The Footballer Who Sacrificed His Career For Crime

The Footballer Who Sacrificed His Career For Crime
Nile Ranger was once England’s most promising wonderkid but his career washed down the drain when he became one of England’s most reoffending criminals. At the age of 19, he was a star for one of the Premier League’s biggest teams but years later he found himself playing in the 8th tier of football.

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Nile Ranger was once England’s most promising  wonderkid but his career washed down the drain   when he became one of England’s most  reoffending criminals. At the age of 19,   he was a star for one of the Premier League’s  biggest teams but years later he found himself  

Playing in the 8th tier of football. Let’s dive  into the life and career of Nile Ranger who was   born in West London on the 11th of April 1991.  His earliest memory is getting kicked out of   Primary School for abusing teachers and fighting  students. Nile’s mother felt she had no control  

Over her menaced son and would take him to church  to teach him good manners and his only role models   were friends as his dad didn’t really care  for Nile. From birth, Nile always played   with a football and he attended local clubs before  being picked up by Crystal Palace at 10 years old  

Playing in the same team as Wilfried Zaha and John  Bostock. Despite the tough competition around him,   Nile worked his way to be the best in the academy  however his behaviour at his new secondary school   got so terrible that they constantly sent letters  to the Palace academy and he was released after  

Two years. That’s because in Year 7, Nile would  steal phones from students in his school before   heading to Finsbury Park to sell them off within a  new-found gang. This new income as well as his mum  

Giving him £2 a day for pocket money was actually  spent at the bookies where he’d go with his cousin   to play slot machines, an addiction that will  haunt him later. At 13, Nile’s mum Karen was  

Called into school to sit with him in class so he  wouldn’t mess around. It didn’t work. In Year 9,   he was kicked out for good after burning a  classmate with a Bunsen burner. No school   would take him, a prelude for his later life, so  Nile enrolled in a special school for kids with  

Behaviour problems, which he recalls felt like  a mini prison. Nile was surrounded by bad boys,   whom he became close with outside of school.  Knowing he had no future in the ‘real world’,   football was the only thing Nile could make a  living from, and he returned to the game joining  

A semi-professional team called Broadwater Farm,  where there was a decent standard of football and   somewhere to channel his pent-up energy. At least,  that’s what should have happened. Nile was still   mixing with the wrong crowd, and one night was  among a gang of lads who robbed a nearby high  

School. This would be the first of many-many  times Nile would be arrested. He was bailed for   seven months and put on curfew – but that still  didn’t stop him. He constantly flouted the curfew   to rob more houses to which his Mum grassed on to  the police, and was soon brought back to prison  

For further robberies. They fitted Nile with an  electronic tag but he found a way of slipping it   off using some fairy liquid, to loot more homes.  Back in football, Nile joined a new semi-pro club,   Romford FC, and also enrolled at a top London  football academy run by Danny Shittu. The hours  

In-between playing football were spent either  robbing houses, gambling or taking substances, and   it was inevitable that those worlds would collide.  After one training session at his new academy,   Nile stole every mobile phone in the dressing  room and was caught red-handed by Danny leading  

To him being banned. That should have been the  moment Nile turned his life around, but instead,   he went on the rampage with his gang of 6, all  armed with knives. Once, they all hopped on a bus   and started robbing phones by any means necessary.  After looting the top deck, they’d jumped off,  

Board another bus and carry out the same attack. A  15-year-old Nile ripped a phone out of an elderly   lady’s hands before being caught and arrested by  police. Nile was charged with armed robbery and   was bailed again, pending a date for a trial. This  time it was serious. While waiting for a letter  

To arrive in the post, he continued to break the  curfew. On one successful afternoon, he came away   with a laptop worth £700 but was then caught  in possession of a stolen iPod and arrested,   yet again. Nile was 15 and his mum was considering  chucking him out as police were constantly around  

His house. He begged her for another chance, so  in 2007 he was sent to a college football academy   with links with professional clubs throughout  England. Nile’s college played a pre-season   match against the Southampton academy and he came  off the bench, scored twice and won them the game.  

Weeks later Nile’s academy coach got a call  from Saints, offering Nile a trial. He trained   with the youth team and was offered a two-year  scholarship within days. Southampton was seen   as a fresh start away from the naughty area. They  paid £95 a week and put him up in a lodge with the  

Rest of the academy players, where he became good  mates with Bradley Wright-Phillips, Nathan Dyer   and David McGoldrick. Nile was the top scorer in  the entire academy, bearing in mind Southampton’s   academy was one of the best in the entire UK. In  the evening, Nile grew a habit of sneaking out to  

Nightclubs. Eventually, the landlady grew wise to  his disappearing act and told the club, which led   to a fine. Southampton didn’t know anything about  Nile’s troubled past, and the academy director got   an unpleasant surprise when the club received a  letter from the Crown Prosecution Service ordering  

Him to stand trial over armed robbery. In court,  the club told the judge about his talent and how   he’d begun to mend his ways, but the damage was  done. Nile was sentenced to four months in a  

Young Offender Institution. He was locked up for  23 hours a day, although tried to stay sharp by   playing for the prison football team. After just  two months of his sentence, Nile was released   and so went back to Southampton, where the club  moved him into his own flat with his mum so she  

Could keep an eye on him, Nile admits he received  special treatment in this situation as the Saints   were keen for Nile to turn pro due to his insane  potential, something which will become more and   more clear throughout the video. In the academy,  he started scoring goals again, but hit the  

Self-destruct button when he was caught on CCTV  stealing the first team’s boots and training kit,   as well as the kitman’s box of roses. The reason  for this theft was so Nile could give this kit   to his friends up in London, probably to impress  them. Then Saints boss Nigel Pearson, a man you  

Don’t want to get on the wrong side of was furious  with Nile and showed him the door. He and his   mum moved back up to London where his friends  encouraged him to get back on the robberies,   at the same time, Nile’s phone was constantly  ringing from clubs who weren’t bothered about  

His disciplinary issues and just wanted to sign  a talented young star. He recruited an agent who   got him a trial at Swindon, where he enjoyed being  back in the academy environment. He recalls other   players would steal his stuff but that didn’t  phase him as in a friendly he scored an overhead  

Kick and they offered him £300 a week, but before  he could accept, his agent called and asked him to   meet at a nearby Burger King. There was a two-year  contract on the table from Newcastle worth three  

Times as much, plus a £20,000 signing-on fee.  On paper, it was a no-brainer, but he was in two   minds about living so far away from home. It took  a lot of persuasion from Executive Director Dennis  

Wise to get him to sign. In Newcastle, Nile stayed  in digs with two other youth-team players and had   a very strict landlord, who insisted that they all  ate at the dinner table every night and went to   bed at certain times. The routine helped him, and  he soon started scoring goals for the under-18s  

And reserve team watched by Kevin Keegan and some  of the senior lads. Keegan was so excited to have   a player of this potential, football’s next star  and so he called Nile up to train with the senior  

Team. The first time Nile ever met him, he didn’t  know what to say and ended up blurting out, ‘All   right, Keegan!’ He laughed, but sinisterly warned  Nile that he was to never call him that again,   just ‘gaffer’. Months earlier he’d been in prison  – now he was getting changed next to Alan Shearer  

And Michael Owen. It was mad. Nile kept his head  down and Adam Thompson spoke to him and said ‘Pack   your stuff, you’re involved in the first team  squad and travelling with them to Arsenal at the   Emirates Stadium’, the team he grew up supporting!  Newcastle travelled down on a private jet,  

And he remembers Owen and Nicky Butt placing  £500 bets on whose bag would appear out of   the luggage carousel first. It was a different  world, Nile learnt that again when he appeared   late to Newcastle’s morning walk to which Keegan  gave him hairdryer treatment in front of the rest  

Of the boys, nevertheless Nile arrived at the  Emirates with starts in his eyes and was told   he was on the bench. 67 minutes into Newcastle’s  3-0 loss, Keegan asked Nile to be ready and warm   up. He didn’t play though. Weeks later, Keegan  resigned with Joe Kinnear taking charge. Kinnear  

Never really had a relationship with Nile so he  was dropped but scored 15 goals for the U18s and   7 for the reserves. His career reached a new high  in March 2009 after being called up to the England  

U19 team. At the 3 Lions, Nile made his debut  against Czech Republic, scored against Bosnia and   Herzegovina and played in the Euro Finals against  Ukraine; these achievements were hollow as Nile’s   time with England was remembered by him proudly  exclaiming he punched teammate Andros Townsend  

In the head after an argument, Nile knew he was  in the wrong and also claims it’s one of the only   times he has said sorry, the incident was put  behind them and Nile returned to Newcastle with   new interim-boss Alan Shearer rewarding the lad  with a new three-and-a-half-year deal, I must be  

Clear that wasn’t for punching Townsend of course!  This shiny new contract was worth £10,000 a week   and included a string of bonuses if he scored  goals and made a certain number of appearances,   Nile of course went shopping for flashy trainers  and expensive tracksuits. He was still only 18  

And hadn’t made his Newcastle first-team debut.  That changed in August 2009, though, when he came   on in the 89th minute of a Championship game at  West Bromwich Albion. It took him until December   to score his first goal, away at Coventry, but he  added a second in a January victory over Crystal  

Palace at St James’ Park. Nile made 30 appearances  that season as Newcastle won promotion back to the   Premier League at the first time of asking, people  really started to notice Nile as a wonderkid,   top talent. It’s not common to see a player  really hit the ground running at that age:  

He felt like the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ as he’d  leave the pitch to standing ovations and spent   all his money on nights out, which his mum told  him to save for a mortgage, as he was renting out  

A Gateshead flat. But that didn’t paint the full  picture. Off the pitch, he’d been in trouble with   new manager Chris Hughton, who’d been appointed  at the beginning of the 2009-10 season. Nile   turned up late for training more than once after  pressing snooze from staying up late the night  

Before and was also spending far too much free  time in casinos. He gambled £30,000 in two months   and borrowed £70,000 from Hatem Ben Arfa, Steven  Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini to pay off debts.   The club found out and Mike Ashley had to ban him  from every casino in Tyne and Wear. Ashley was  

Trying to help, but Nile didn’t listen and fought  with security guards to be allowed access to the   tables. He argued it’s not a big deal if he lost  because he was on a well-paid 5-year deal anyway.   Club captain Coloccini sat Nile down and warned  him about the dangers of gambling. Mark Viduka  

Was a positive influence too, often advising  young players to save their money. Alan Smith was   another good role model who drove a battered old  car despite his big earnings. But a 19-year-old   Nile thought he was too established to listen to  anybody’s advice. A £96,000 promotion bonus landed  

In his bank account and so he spent a chunk of it  on a brand-new Range Rover, which he kitted out   with his self-given nickname ‘Power Ranger’. It  soon caught the gaffer’s eye. Andy Carroll then   got hold of the car keys at training and parked  it right outside the player’s entrance. The gaffer  

Warned Nile to spend his money wisely and not  let it go to his head, but it went in one ear   and out the other. Nile was still doing his bit on  the pitch, and scored in a 4-3 League Cup win at  

Chelsea in September 2010. After the game, he was  pulled aside by a club official who showed Nile   a picture of him posing with a weapon which the  papers were going to print the next day. Nile’s   WhatsApp profile picture was him posing with  a BB weapon, and someone had sent a screenshot  

To a journalist. Police were swiftly around  Nile’s house to investigate to which he showed   them the pellets. The club fined him two weeks’  wages, but that was pocket change compared to the   new five-year contract he was given just three  months later. Newcastle had shown him loyalty  

But Nile only repaid them with hassle. After  another midweek night out, he drove home with   his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Police  stopped and breathalysed Nile – who was over   the limit and locked in a cell until the morning,  handed a £3,000 fine and banned from driving for a  

Year. Alan Pardew succeeded Hughton, who had been  sacked in December 2010, and grew tired of Nile’s   constant lateness as a result of him staying up  all night playing FIFA online with his friends   in London, Nile would also take long power naps  after training every day which ruined his sleep  

Schedule. He was made to train with the academy  kids as punishment. To make things even worse,   he ended up in court after knocking out two men  who had racially abused and then tried to attack   him in the city centre. When officers tried  to arrest Nile, he panicked and shoved them  

Away – so got charged with assaulting the men and  the policemen. Nile pleaded guilty and thankfully   CCTV footage supported his story, meaning he was  given a 12-month conditional charge. After this,   the FA fined him £6,000 for a separate incident  in which Nile was making homophobic comments on  

Social media, a platform where his go-to pose  is the middle finger, what a role model! Also   on social media, he came under fire for spelling  his name out using 20-pound notes which was seen   as childish and a disrespectful flex to those  who support him. In October 2011 he went on  

A Halloween night out to Newcastle’s Church  Square dressed as a prisoner and argued with   his ex to which officers saw and arrested  him because of his bad reputation of being   intoxicated and disorderly. He then went from  one prison outfit to the next! At training,  

He phoned up sick when he was actually hungover  and would be forced to see the physios who smelt   strong drink on him. Newcastle had washed their  hands with Nile, sending him out on loan at   Barnsley and then Sheffield Wednesday, he scored  the goal that pretty much got the Owls promoted  

To the Championship and to celebrate he took  his shirt off and his vest read “I’m a changed   man” – if only the man had taken his advice eh!  Nile was growing frustrated at Newcastle and   lashed out at fans on Twitter after they started  booing the club after a loss against Reading,  

And that’s when True Geordie kicked off his  career by posting a viral rant [CLIP]. The   Toon Army had rightly turned on him, even  spray painting his garage and after that,   there was no way back. Fortunately for Nile, Alan  Pardew granted him one last chance and for once,  

Nile trained well and seemed to be back on a good  path again. In the middle of a training session,   Nile got a text message from his girlfriend saying  she was leaving him and going back to London. Nile  

Told the coaches a family issue has popped up  in London and he jumped in his Rover and chased   her to London where he smashed her door in and  got arrested. Alan Pardew was fuming as he was   lied to. After working hard to get back into  the team, and issue after issue cropping up,  

Nile decided to throw everything away and just  go clubbing all the time to give him something   to do. While out one night, Nile meets a girl at  a club, they exchange numbers and he meets her  

Another day, they get close but she doesn’t want  to do anything as she already has a boyfriend so   Nile calls a cab, everything that did happen was  consensual. Nile said it’s fine she doesn’t want   to engage with him but the boyfriend doesn’t need  to know. After this encounter, Nile gets a knock  

On the door and police inform him he is arrested  on suspicion of r—e. He sat in custody worried his   career is finished as he finds out it’s all  over the news. It truly was one thing after  

Another with Nile who was just about to get back  into the team: Newcastle had shown enough loyalty   therefore they terminated his contract. Teams  didn’t want to come near him, especially after   bad-boy Nile picked up further intoxicated-related  troubles with the police as well as refusing to  

Apologize after crashing his Range Rover into a  mother’s written-off parked car which left the   woman unable to take her sick baby daughter to the  hospital. Nile had a criminal record longer than a   shopping list and a r–e charge looming over him,  but after spending five months as a free agent  

With some interest from Premier League side Hull  City, Nile signed a 12-month deal with League One   Swindon Town on £4,000 a week. By this point you’d  think he’d have learned his lesson – you’d be   very wrong my friend! But before we get into that,  please like the video and subscribe to the channel  

As it helps me a lot! Nile scored 5 goals in his  first 11 Swindon Town starts, he was regular and   very good. But then he went missing. Nile didn’t  want to go in anymore as he was not in the mood  

For football. He was demotivated by the case,  always waking up in a bad mood then was dropped   multiple times for turning up late to training  or not turning up at all. When he was playing,   opposition fans constantly heckled and chanted at  Nile about his case, which himself and the club  

Are of course embarrassed about. There was some  good news when he was cleared of his charge in   March 2014, but was arrested once again, Nile was  intoxicated on a night out in Liverpool and stood  

At a taxi rank waiting for a lift to his hotel.  He jumped in the first car that came but the taxi   driver said ‘I don’t want you in my car you’re a  rapist’. Nile got out and smashed his car window,  

He got back to the hotel got into his room and  officers were standing at his door. Just one   month later, he was breaking entry into his own  flat in Swindon when his female companion started  

Arguing with him trying to tell him the key was  in his pocket, he hit the female friend in the   face 3 times blaming it on being black-out  intoxicated. From the next day, he cut down   on drinking completely. When someone went to fix  the door, they found the CCTV footage which was  

Posted all over the internet and Swindon Town said  ‘you’re out, good luck, you need to fix yourself’!   Nile felt low and depressed after being labelled  a woman beater. Many people turned against him;   clubs wouldn’t touch him. It was the first time  he was properly disciplined and felt truly bad  

For his actions, another month later, Nile  was arrested for being intoxicated behind the   wheel of a vehicle after falling asleep on the M4  motorway. Given his love for a bet and night out,   joining Blackpool FC three months later wasn’t a  great decision – but Nile was desperate and they  

Knew it. He was given a deal worth £150  a week and £3,000 a game if he played:   he scored two goals in 14 Championship appearances  between August and November, but he wasn’t happy   with the wage. Nile was living in a hotel attached  to the stadium, and his girlfriend left him after  

Finding out he’d cheated on her in Blackpool.  She drove back to London, and he sped after her   down the motorway for about 30 minutes before the  police pulled him over. Nile went back up north,   but after being left out of the squad for a  home match against Birmingham in early December,  

He went AWOL for genuine family reasons. The club  fined him every time he missed a training session,   but he didn’t care anymore. He only had a 12-month  deal and figured they wouldn’t extend it at the   end of the season. Strangely, they then activated  the one-year option in his contract and told him  

To return for pre-season. Nile turned up four  weeks late, by which point they’d already played   four friendlies. He was made to train on his  own, running up and down sand dunes on the beach,   but couldn’t get anywhere near Neil McDonald’s  first team despite issuing a public apology about  

His behaviour. Nile was eventually released from  Blackpool in February 2016. Nile didn’t play again   until August – his first game since November 2014  – after signing a one-year deal with Southend.   Nile’s contract was worth peanuts, but after  scoring two goals at Bury and another at Oldham,  

Phil Brown gave him a new three-year contract for  £3,000 a week. Brown probably regretted it when   he was charged with online bank fraud a few weeks  later. With another court case hanging over Nile,   he ploughed on, scoring in four successive league  games from mid-March to early April. But the joy  

Was short-lived. In May, soon after the season  had finished, he was sentenced to eight months   in jail after admitting conspiracy to defraud.  He spent 10 weeks in Pentonville Prison before   being released for good behaviour, but had  to wear a tag on his ankle for five weeks  

And was given a 7 pm curfew which meant he  couldn’t play in any midweek evening games.   In his first game after his tag was removed, he  scored and celebrated by taking his boot off and   shooting as if it were a weapon, apparantly  being inspired by rapper Big Shaq. Meanwhile,  

Southend showed great loyalty towards Nile and he  played 21 times during the first half of 2017-18,   but his contract was terminated in January  after they finally ran out of patience with   his attitude. Nile was lazy, unfit and didn’t turn  up for training because he realised, he was given  

Special treatment being a special talent, which  was unfair on the other players working their   socks off for a place in the team. He says he is  treated as the Osama bin Laden of football. Next,   he trained with Oxford United for several weeks  in 2018 but rejected a contract there because he  

Felt the terms weren’t good enough. Rochdale then  offered him £1,000 a week after a brief trial,   but he turned it down because they wanted him  to live in an apartment with a new team-mate   and his girlfriend to make sure Nile didn’t slip  back into his old ways. In hindsight, they were  

Both really stupid decisions. After leaving  Southend, Nile moved back home with his mum   and played five-a-side a couple of times a week  just to stay fit. After having some proper time   away from the game and look back on his career,  Nile appeared on True Geordie’s podcast to talk  

About his career and clear the air, he worked to  make himself a clean image, but this was tarnished   in December 2020 when he was arrested and pleaded  guilty to failing to provide a specimen of breath   during a drink-driving incident on Christmas  Eve. The 30-year-old was kept in custody and  

Later admitted to obstructing a police officer.  The whole encounter was captured on CCTV, which   showed Ranger being aggressive towards staff.  The consequence was being banned from driving yet   again and ordered to pay fines. Whilst this took  place, Nile Ranger restarted his footy career in  

Sunday league at AC Barnet before joining Spalding  United in the Northern Premier League Division One   South East in the 8th tier, in which he was only  able to play one game for them. In February 2021,  

Nile was due a happy ending as he married his  girlfriend, had a son and was offered a route   back into professional football with Southend  United’s Phil Brown giving him that opportunity,   which he jumped at. Having entered into a  month-to-month contract, Nile made his debut,  

Albeit lasting only 11 minutes. In that  match against Salford City, he came on   as a second-half substitute but suffered a groin  injury, leading to his substitution. The severity   of the injury was such that he was deemed unlikely  to play for the rest of the season. In May 2021,  

Following Southend’s relegation to the National  League, manager Phil Brown disclosed that the   club had ‘severed all ties’ with Nile due to his  failure to attend physiotherapy sessions because   the club didn’t give him petrol money. A new  path was laid by Nile as he followed his dream  

Of starting a football academy, to educate young  players to not go down the same route he did and,   in December 2021, Nile inked a deal with National  League team Boreham Wood. He admitted he wanted to   start again in football at non-league level and  work his way up, like a Jamie Vardy, however,  

He also admits he doesn’t have an athlete  lifestyle, saying in Troy Deeney fashion:   “I should be minimum Championship right now. I  shouldn’t be having problems but I didn’t listen.   If I added nutrition to my game and behaviour, I’m  Haaland. But I didn’t want to listen. I thought  

I knew it all.” The duration of his new Boreham  Wood contract was not disclosed by the club and   he played less than a total of 10 minutes for the  side – appearing for them during their historic   FA Cup run. Nile’s last professional football  appearance was 1 minute long in the FA Cup 5th  

Round vs Everton at Goodison Park. In the match  before, he played 1 minute in Boreham Wood’s   win vs Bournemouth and since then, Nile has never  found a club, maybe due to the fact he admits even  

Today at 32 years old, he has troubles waking up  on time, which his wife gets onto him constantly.   In 2023, Nile hit the headlines again when he  angered fans by trying to sell tickets for the   Carabao Cup final between Newcastle United and  Manchester United at inflated prices to make a  

Bit of profit. When Nile officially retires from  football, he will be allowed access to a savings   account that he has always been paying into, which  his mum won’t let him touch yet as he can’t be   trusted with large amounts of money. Today, not  much is known about Nile’s life and what he’s up  

To however his social media does show him working  on coaching young players and playing himself in   a ‘celebrity power league’ called ‘Starz League’,  although Nile is not getting any younger and it’s   clear he is now playing at his highest level.  He admits it’s difficult training by himself  

As he struggles with self-motivation but he  is working on an autobiography and plans to   release a movie about his crazy life. Nile  seems genuinely remorseful and even at 32,   it’s not too late to turn his life around, which  I hope he does: it’s a great thing his life hasn’t  

Turned out like Paul Gascoigne’s who you can  learn about by clicking the video on your screen!