Dion Dublin has told FourFourTwo that he shared a house with a major British actor shortly after signing his first professional contract at Norwich.
The former striker kicked off his career at Carrow Road after leaving school in 1985.
Although he initially failed to break into the Canaries’ first team before moving to Cambridge, Dublin returned to retire with the East Anglia outfit almost 20 years later, after scoring 111 Premier League goals and winning four England caps.
While his first Norwich spell may not have had many highlights on the pitch, the 49-year-old does at least have an excellent anecdote from his time off it, recalling the days when he lived with future Snatch, Transporter and Italian Job star Jason Statham.
Speaking in the April 2019 issue of FourFourTwo magazine, out Wednesday, Dublin says: “I signed my first professional contract at Norwich as a 16-year-old – I think it was a three-month deal worth £80 per week, and I thought I was absolutely minted!
“I was living in Great Yarmouth with my brother, Ash, who was a DJ and owned a nightclub at the time.
“Let me tell you a story that not many people will know: we lived with Jason Statham. He and my brother were best friends and they played in a few bands together.
“We’d have a few jams, but I was never on their level! He was a good housemate – he didn’t have any bad habits, although I’ve not been in touch with him for a long, long time.”
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Dublin himself has been no stranger to television screens, becoming a host of daytime auction-renovation staple Homes Under The Hammer in 2015. He explains that it all came about after the show got wind of his property portfolio.
“When I was still playing, I purchased a few properties,” he says. “The production company found out I had a bit of a portfolio going on and approached my manager, Jo, to see if I’d be up for doing a dummy run. It went well, thankfully, so here we are!
“I’d probably say recording my first episode was more nerve-wracking than making my Premier League debut, because playing football was my job, my life and my skill.
“When you’re trying to present for the first time, it takes you a while to get it perfect.”
Read the full One-on-One interview with Dion Dublin in the April 2019 issue of FourFourTwo magazine, which also features exclusive chats with Virgil van Dijk, Ander Herrera, Lucas Moura and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Plus we hail some of the greatest centre-backs of all time, watch the East End team made up entirely of Brazilians and head to Thessaloniki to watch a table-topping bout between PAOK and Olympiakos.
Joe was the Deputy Editor at FourFourTwo until 2022, having risen through the FFT academy and been on the brand since 2013 in various capacities.
By weekend and frustrating midweek night he is a Leicester City fan, and in 2020 co-wrote the autobiography of former Foxes winger Matt Piper – subsequently listed for both the Telegraph and William Hill Sports Book of the Year awards.
