Rod Stewart: From Brentford Football Club to Eel Pie Island and beyond
Rod Stewart longed to be a footballer. But when that failed he thought he might as well try and make it as a musician instead…
Rod Stewart has always maintained the greatest things in his life are his family, football and only lastly, a singer. Football was always his first love and he dreamed of being a top player. He is famously quoted as saying: ‘I’m a rock star because I couldn’t be a soccer star. What I do now is all my dad’s fault, because he bought me a guitar as a boy, for no apparent reason.’ He taught himself to play when he was 12, inspired by the music of Lonnie Donegan.
It was in the early 1960s when he realised he wasn’t going to make it as a footballer. And, after giving up an apprenticeship with Brentford Football Club, Rod turned to what he was good at and became a full-time musician.
He was one of the early visitors to Eel Pie Island, taking the tube from Archway down to Waterloo and then getting the overground to Twickenham. One night he went to see a band – they were sitting on stools and singing the blues. They were The Rolling Stones. He says: ‘It was the place I began to understand the power of rhythm and blues.’
His first big break soon came in 1964 when, aged 19, British blues legend Long John Baldry heard Rod singing outside Twickenham railway station and asked him to join his band.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Awards, albums, Halls and Walks of Fame, Rod has them all – along with a personal life that’s hit the headlines almost as many times as his wild, footloose and fancy-free rocker day antics.
Born Roderick David Stewart in Highgate, London, the youngest of five children, he was delivered at home during the WWII, eight years after his nearest sibling. As the youngest of the Stewart clan, he was spoilt, and has recalled his childhood as being ‘fantastically happy’. He is among the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 250 million records worldwide. He has been married three times and has eight children from five different relationships. Rod married his third wife, photographer, model, Loose Women presenter and fully-qualified volunteer special constable Penny Lancaster, in 2007. They have two sons.
Acts of kindness
Rod gained a new league of admirers when in January he rang into Sky News to express his anger at the terrible state of the NHS. He said he’d ‘never seen it so bad’, adding: ‘There are people dying because they cannot get scans.’ He then pledged to pay for ’10 or 20 scans’ for people who weren’t able to go private like him – something that may have saved his life when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer back in 2017, but he survived because it was caught early. He fulfilled his pledge and paid for a day’s worth of MRI scans for patients at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, in order to reduce NHS waiting lists. ‘I don’t need the publicity,’ he said. ‘I just want to do some good things, and this I think is a good thing. If other people follow me, I would love that.’
War effort
It also emerged that in 2022 he’d rented and furnished a house in Berkshire for a family of seven Ukrainian refugees after he and Penny were reduced to tears watching the horrors of the Russian invasion on TV. He also hired three trucks filled with supplies for refugees and had them driven to Ukraine, then used the trucks to transport sixteen people to safety in Germany.
Urging others to follow his lead in doing good things, he said: ‘I am now a knight. I should be using my power to do something for people.’
The greatest showman
There may be no more sex, drugs, smashing up sets and trashing of hotel rooms, but there’s still plenty of rock ‘n’ roll left in the 78-year-old as he continues his current tour. The Londoner is fiercely proud of his Scottish ancestry and is delighted to be returning home to Edinburgh Castle for two shows in July with his UK Summer 2023 Tour, part of his Global Hits Tour. ‘I’m impatiently awaiting this summer, playing at a variety of special venues – football, cricket and rugby stadiums, estates and castles! We’ll all be dancing under the stars.’
For details and dates of Rod’s UK Summer 2023 Tour, visit robomagiclive.com/rod-stewart-uk-tour
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