Ranger’s promising occupation almost ended before it had begun.
He signed for Crystal Palace aged 10, but was exempt two years later for misbehaving in class.
Aged 15, he was sentenced to 11 weeks in a minor offenders’ institution for his part in an armed robbery in north London.
“We weren’t going around shooting or stabbing people,” he says. “We wanted to get some money quick, so we said, ‘Let’s take people’s phones away.’
“I thought one of our entourage had a knife, but I don’t know why because he didn’t use it. We looked like idiots.”
There is regret for the damage he caused.
“Armed robbery is horrible. I didn’t need to hurt them,” Ranger adds. “I was just interested in getting the products and working out.
“Now that I’m older, I think I must have caused trauma to people. I was a lunatic at times. I don’t know what else to call it.”
Ranger was a highly promising player earning £110 a week at Southampton’s academy when he was sentenced, but the club supported him after his fall and moved him into a flat with his mother, Karen, so she could keep a share perceptible. about him.
“My mother has had to come to meetings at every club I’ve been to to discuss my behavior,” he says. “It’s been like this since my school days.”
Ranger was eventually banned from Southampton when he stole boots, training equipment or even a staff member’s gift box.
The place where his father once was when all this was happening?
“He was around, but I lived with my mother,” Ranger says. “Dad was in my life but what is he going to do? Hit me in the face? He could only talk to me.
“I’m my own man and he did everything he could to reason with me, but I just didn’t pay attention to him.”
Ranger joined Swindon Town on a trial before Newcastle came calling with a two-year deal and a £20,000 signing-on fee.
The 17-year-old headed to the North East hoping to put his troubled past behind him and make a name for himself playing alongside the likes of Fabricio Coloccini, Andy Carroll and Alan Smith.
“I went from nothing to a thing,” he says.
