Like many pro athletes, Kalvin Phillips went through a lot growing up to be where he is at today. On the pitch the midfielder had a skyrocket rise to the English national team due to the guidance of former Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa.
Under Bielsa, Kalvin Phillips flourished, and it helped the 27-time capped England star land a major move to Manchester City. Not bad for a player who played six seasons in the Championship.
Off the pitch Kalvin Phillips has had to deal with an absent father who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence. In a new Amazon Prime documentary Kalvin Phillips: The Road To City, the England player speaks on the hardships of knowing his father is in a jail cell.
Kalvin Phillips on his convict father
“My drive is probably from not having a father figure there. I’ve always wanted to make my mum proud. Dad was in and out of prison. It affected our relationship because we didn’t see him all the time. When he went away, we knew he wasn’t coming back for a while, which was the worst thing.”
Kalvin’s mother Lindsay Crosby shared what the family went through, “I tried to hide a lot of things from the kids because I didn’t want them to think that this was OK. I used to say he’d gone to work because I didn’t want them to think it was normal to behave like that.”
Mark Phillips is in prison for a series of drug-related and violent crimes, the documentary concludes with Kalvin seeing his father in prison for the first time in seven years.