the Year three times, in 1999, 2003 and 2004. In February 2015, Campbell announced his ambition to be the Conservative Party candidate for Mayor of London in the 2016 election, but he was not shortlisted. Early life Campbell was born in Plaistow, London, to Jamaican parents Sewell and Wihelmina. He was the youngest of twelve children, nine of whom were boys. His father was a railway worker and his mother, Wihelmina, was a Ford factory worker. Despite growing up in a rough neighbourhood in a family with very little money, Campbell veered away from a life of crime due to his strict parents. Campbell attended the Portway Primary School in Plaistow, London and had secondary education at Lister Community School in Plaistow, London. He was a prodigious schoolboy talent and was part-educated at the FA's School of Excellence at Lilleshall, where he met table tennis player and later football agent Sky Andrew. Campbell had a short spell at West Ham United, beginning his career as a striker. He left the Youth programme at Upton Park after a coach joked to him that Campbell would be pleased to hear that the West Indies were beating England at cricket; Campbell took this to be offensive. Club career Tottenham Hotspur Following his experience at West Ham United, Campbell was reluctant to join another professional club's youth programme, but after two months of persistence from Tottenham Hotspur's chief scout Len Cheesewright, he eventually joined the Tottenham Youth team. Youth team manager Keith Waldon later recalled that it was his physicality rather than his technical ability which made him stand out as a good prospect for the future. At age 14, he was one of only 16 young footballers accepted onto a training programme at Lilleshall Hall. Waldon offered to make him captain of the youth team, but Campbell declined the offer as he wanted to concentrate on his own game. Campbell made his first team debut for Spurs on 5 December 1992 against Chelsea at White Hart Lane, scoring the goal in a 2–1 defeat after coming on as a substitute for Nick Barmby. Despite this start to his career, he was not picked by manager Terry Venables again throughout the remainder of the 1992–93 season. New boss Osvaldo Ardiles played him at left back at the start of the 1993–94 season in place of the injured Justin Edinburgh, before he was switched to