“It’s heartbreaking,” Rico Henry says as he thinks back to his childhood and remembers trials ending with clubs telling him he was too short to become a footballer. “Especially when you’re young. You can’t do anything about it. But I sort of knew it would work out. I had a lot of pace. I looked up to left-backs like Jordi Alba, who’s short. Marcelo and Ashley Cole weren’t the tallest. I always believed in myself. I knew there were other players in the same position who were a similar height to me.”
Brentford’s 5ft 7in left-back laughs and says being rejected by Aston Villa, Birmingham and West Brom spurred him on. “I was 11, 12 years old but teams were saying I was too timid and not big enough,” Henry says. “It gave me more fire. You’ve got to learn from it. You can’t get too down. You’ve got to keep going. I think maybe the way I played, going into tackles, I was probably not as aggressive as I could have been. I learned as I got older to be more aggressive in certain situations. It was hard but I got through it.”
Henry, who has developed into one of the best left-backs in the Premier League, maintained a good perspective. He points out that his teammate Ethan Pinnock and the Leicester striker Jamie Vardy were late bloomers. Henry had time on his side. He joined Walsall and embraced playing at a lower level. “The right step,” he says. “You see a lot of youths go into top clubs and they can’t progress, they can’t get minutes. When I was 18 I was playing first-team football.”
Dean Smith managed Walsall and gave Henry a chance. “League One was really tough,” he says. “It was physical. I learned a lot. I was playing reserves before. Dean Smith came up to me after a game against West Brom and said: ‘Listen, go home, you’re starting tomorrow.’ I was nervous. Excited. I remember going home and telling my dad. As far as I remember the game went well. I was around the first team after that, so it must have done.
“That’s exactly what I needed at the time – someone who believed in me and trusted me. I knew he [Smith] loved me when he brought me to Brentford. That’s what you need when you’re young – a manager who believes in you.”
Henry joined Brentford in 2016. They were a Championship side and he thought they were a stepping-stone club. He soon realised he was wrong. On Wednesday night Brentford went to Chelsea and won 2-0. They are ninth in the Premier League before hosting Nottingham Forest on Saturday and have a chance of qualifying for Europe.
Brentford know how to maximise their resources. They did not panic when Smith went to Villa in 2018. Thomas Frank was an inspired appointment. The Dane led Brentford into the top flight in 2021 and has built a young, hungry side. Brentford flourished after winning promotion and have kept standards high this season. “They say the second season’s the hardest,” Henry says. “But we’ve stayed together. The gaffer said: ‘Don’t take your foot off the pedal.’
“We’ve been amazing against the top six. Against the lower teams we need to do more. We’ve had draws where we could have won. It’s just putting the game to bed sometimes. Maybe it’s game management. The dark arts, maybe a bit of time-wasting. I saw Arsenal the other day. Gabriel [Magalhães] took a shot on the head and just went down. Stuff like that kills a game. It’s smart from him. We’ve got to do what we can to win.”
Henry, who has had to overcome long-term knee and shoulder injuries, describes himself as a bad loser. Frank calls the 25-year-old a defender who would run through a brick wall for the team. Henry is sharp and tenacious but he knows he has room for improvement.
“The manager wants me to get involved more attacking-wise,” he says. “Get crosses in and get goals and assists. I’m trying. There’s times where I could have had an assist if the lads had put it in the back of the net. But I’ve got to put more crosses in. It’s that end product I need.”
More output in the final third would boost Henry’s hopes of an England call-up. He was disappointed not to make the last squad. “I knew I was being talked about in the media,” he says. “It’s going to be tough with Luke Shaw and Ben Chilwell ahead of me. It did hurt in a way because I think I can play at that level. But I’ve got to concentrate on Brentford and keep doing what I can.
after newsletter promotion
“One of my big dreams is to play international football. To play in a top-six team in the Premier League has always been a dream. I’m not there yet. I want to play in Europe. I want to play in tournaments.”
Henry, who is also eligible for Jamaica, played alongside Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori and Dominic Solanke at youth level for England. He was gutted when injury stopped him being part of the squad that won the Under-20 World Cup in 2017. He hopes a strong end to the season will give him a shot of making Gareth Southgate’s squad for their Euro 2024 qualifiers in June. He has the skillset to play at international level. The role of full-back has changed since Henry’s youth.
“It’s more up and down, more attacking, and that’s what I want to do,” he says. “We play two formations: sometimes back four, sometimes back five. I try to get forward in both. I like wing-back because I can get in the box more. But I just want to help the team.”
Henry thinks of those shortsighted rejections again. “Back then it was more long ball,” Henry says. “But I don’t mind. Looking back, it’s obviously laughable. But it’s helped me progress.”