Clint Dempsey will never be one of these American soccer exports who spirits off to England and lets a little too much “England” creep into the voice and the lexicon.
The Tottenham Hotspur and U.S. international does acknowledge that his personal arsenal of, uh, “big boy soccer words” may have expanded due to hanging out with so many passers and trappers from England and other lands. Their “words of emphasis,” we’ll call them, are a little different than ours, you know.
Otherwise, Dempsey may live in London and play his gritty brand of soccer at White Hart Lane in the northern reaches of that wonderfully storied megacity, but never look for him to relinquish hold on his roots.
In time arranged by Spurs and the United States national team, I talked to Dempsey on Saturday. (This is the second of three parts of the interview.)
Q: You signed with Fulham early in 2007, so at this point you’ve spent the bulk of your adult life living in England. At this point, do you relate to things more like a Texan who takes long visits to England, or more like an Englishman who likes to visit Texas and the States?
Oh, no. The only thing that is difficult when I get back home is getting adjusting to that heat and humidity in Texas. When I get back home, around my family, and my fishing, I’m always a Texan. I’ve got a “Texas” tatted on my elbow. I feel like I’ll be a Texan until I die. Definitely, and American too. I’m not switching up at all. I’m not going to have my accent change. And I’m definitely looking forward to going back to the States one day.
“Every now and then, there might be a word here or there, like some British cuss words that I may have picked up in the locker rooms. But for most part, I feel like I haven’t changed. I stay who I am.”
Q: It must be nice when some of your family gets over to England to see you play around White Hart Lane. How often does that happen?
They get to come up there a pretty good number of times. My mom and dad will come up two or three times a year, for about two weeks at a time. My brother and sisters, they’ll probably get to come up for a week every year. When I’m in North Carolina, they will come up for a week there. And when I’m in Texas, I get to see them four or five days, but it’s difficult with work and stuff like that. But we do our best to make sure we all see each other as much as possible.”
Q: You said earlier the schedule has you re-joining Spurs for that trip into Hong Kong around July 18 or so. You got into the team so late last summer, the thought of getting an entire preseason with manager André Villas-Boas and all your Tottenham teammates must sound quite nice?
Oh, yeah. It’s always important to get a full preseason with the team and to get on the same page with each other. You want to start the season on a good note, try to get those wins, get yours stats up, because you want to start the season good individually and collectively … I’m looking forward to that, getting into a team already kind of settled and not playing catch-up like last year, getting that full preseason under my belt and hitting the ground running right from the start of the season.”
(MORE: Part I looks at Dempsey’s summers away and his ‘chill’ time)
(MORE: Part III looks at Dempsey’s upcoming season with Spurs)
