A group of local women finished their mochas and lattes in Bristol City’s club coffee shop just before lunchtime when one turned to the others. The new local celebrity was firmly on her agenda.
‘Have you seen Jaden this morning?’ she asked. ‘The boy happened to be in the right place at the right time, didn’t he?’
Well, not exactly. An unlikely star of Manchester United’s humbling at Ashton Gate, the 10-year-old ballboy Jaden Neale, was not merely in the right place when Lee Johnson hurtled down the touchline in jubilant celebration at Korey Smith’s historic stoppage-time winner.
Bristol City boss Lee Johnson lifted up ballboy Jaden Neale when the final whistle was blown
Johnson picked up Jaden as the party started at Ashton Gate on Thursday night
Ten-year-old Jaden has been watching Championship side Bristol City for most of his life
‘The manager was running down so I ran towards him as well,’ Neale told Sportsmail. Johnson picked the child up and swung him around in a moment of unbridled joy. The clip has since provided the internet with a feelgood video right before Christmas.
Not that Neale is overly fussed about the big day now. His Christmases all came at once on Wednesday night, the football club he has watched for six years – and whose academy he plays for – toppling a giant. And his excitement plastered across television sets up and down the country.
‘That’s my best Christmas present – nothing can beat that,’ he said, drawing smiles from his parents Laura and Mike.
‘I was really excited! I’ve met the manager a couple of times before, he’s nice. It’s the best game I’ve ever seen Bristol City play.
‘The atmosphere was really loud. It’s not normally that loud! I just couldn’t believe what I’d seen in the last minute.
‘My favourite player is Joe Bryan. I look up to him. I am a winger or a striker. I reckon they’ll go up this season – 100 per cent!’
Johnson is signing a framed picture of their embrace, which will sit alongside one of Aden Flint’s boots and Smith’s captain’s armband, both collected at other matches. ‘He’s got a little shelf going,’ Laura said.
Neale, who attends Parson Street Primary School a mile from Ashton Gate (his favourite subject is maths), is a confident kid. His dad Mike, a Commonwealth Championships Judo gold medallist in 2000, spoke about the tricks and flicks his son performs on matchdays over the last two years.
And it sounds like he’s earned his beloved Robins a point earlier in the campaign, preventing Millwall from searching for a winner in August. ‘Yeah, I just kept the ball,’ he grinned. ‘It was 0-0.’