JARROD BOWEN
WEST HAM, 25
Jarrod Bowen can’t even get a trim these days without hearing the same two words. His friends in Leominster, the Herefordshire town in which he grew up, bombard him with messages about it every weekend as well. In fact, well over 2.5 million people around the world have come to depend on him. Fantasy football is kind of a big deal.
You see, the forward doesn’t only play for West Ham – he belongs to almost a third of the nine million teams in the official Premier League fantasy game. Bowen is a cult hero. A phenomenon. A literal fantasy footballer. And he doesn’t really play it.
“I remember we were facing Crystal Palace and Norwich earlier in the season,” Bowen tells FFT. “I had so many messages from people saying, ‘It’s a double gameweek and I’ve captained you!’
“Even my barber was at it. He messaged me saying he’d triple captained me, and sent a screenshot after the Norwich game. I scored two and think I got 63 points for him that week. It’s actually a lot of pressure when you have all these messages saying, ‘We need you to score’. Funny thing is, I’m not into it. I’ve obviously made a team and bought myself, but I don’t ever go on
