{"id":1225,"date":"2026-04-20T06:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T06:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=1225"},"modified":"2026-04-20T06:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T06:12:07","slug":"young-gun-bowen-phillips-young-gun-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=1225","title":{"rendered":"Young Gun: Bowen Phillips | Young gun | News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Our Young Gun series gets to know the academy youngsters kicking off their careers at the Sobha Realty Training Centre.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Bowen Phillips spoke to us recently about his excellent start at under-18s level and looking up to our first-team academy graduates. <\/em><\/p>\n

I grew up in Chingford and got into football around the age of six through my dad, older brother and grandad. My dad and brother played at a semi-professional level, and my grandad, Mick Payne, is a coach for England C, so I’ve been around the game my whole life.<\/p>\n

My dad is Jamaican, my mum is English, and that background has always been a pig part of who I am. <\/p>\n

I started playing for West Essex before moving to Globe Rangers, and it was during my time there that I was picked up by West Ham at the age of nine. I had already been involved in their development centre for a couple of years, so I was familiar with the setup. <\/p>\n

Growing up, I’ve always been a massive Arsenal fan, but someone I really looked up to was Cristiano Ronaldo. The way he glided past players and scored so many goals inspired me.<\/p>\n

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Towards the end of my time at West Ham, I felt like I wasn’t getting the opportunities to step up to under-18s level and really test myself. I went on trial at Southampton and Wolves, and there was also interest from Arsenal. <\/p>\n

I had a two-week trial (at Arsenal), felt I performed well, and ended up signing at under-15 level, which was an incredible feeling. It also helped that I already knew Josiah King from our time at Globe Rangers, so that made the transition easier. <\/p>\n

Since joining Arsenal, things have been really positive. I’ve had the chance to travel to Brazil for the Flamengo Adidas Cup, which was an unforgettable experience. <\/p>\n

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I’ve also had opportunities to train with the first team, which has been eye-opening. The tempo is very high, and Declan Rice really stood out to me in training. His technique is top-level, and he sets such a high standard. It was interesting because I had watched him play for West Ham under-21s when I was there. <\/p>\n

Now that I’m a scholar, my first season has gone well. I’ve played a number of games, scored for the under-18s and also had a good run with the under-17s programme, getting three goals in five games. <\/p>\n

At the start of the season, I also featured a couple of times for the under-21s, which has been great for testing myself across different age groups. I feel like I train at my best when I’m around the first team because you have to raise your level. If you don’t, you get found out quickly. <\/p>\n

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“It is motivating to see that opportunities are there for academy players.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Seeing players like Max Dowman coming through now, and previously Myles and Ethan breaking into the first team, shows that there is a real pathway at the club. <\/p>\n

It is motivating to see that opportunities are there for academy players. For the rest of the season, my goal is to keep performing well with the under-18s and push on towards regular involvement with the under-21s. <\/p>\n

Longer term, I am aiming to earn a first-team appearance and continue progressing as far as I can in the game. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Young Gun series gets to know the academy youngsters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}