Tom’s relation with Adidas and the keys to his success
Please tell us about your collaborations with Adidas. What was the trigger (first contact) for the first collaboration with them?
T: Adidas have played a major part in my success, a lot of the big events, connections with players and behind the scenes building of TNfreestyle have been made possible thanks to them.
I started just wearing their boots before being noticed by the brand and I was lucky enough to be invited to a couple of events and later to my first ever real shoot to launch their newest pair of boots. On this shoot I was able to make a name for myself by nutmegging one of the guys and ended up being the face of this ad. This was one of the most successful football posts on Adidas UK socials [and] really kick-starting my relationship with the brand.
I was later offered to sign to Adidas as one of the UK’s faces for their newest football boot project called “GLITCH”. They soon after told me I would have my own advert with The F2 who I looked up to. The shoot went great and after spending the day with Billy & Jez gave me some good advice, said I had something special and took my details saying they will be in touch, to this day I remember that being one of the most influential moments in my career.
They later invited me to represent them at the Wembley Cup where their team played in front of 35,000, it was throughout this series I started building my following, I won a challenge in the build-up episode to get Steven Gerrard on our team & The F2 went out of their way to post on Instagram shouting me out with some kind words and it was then my socials just went crazy, so many of The F2 fans started following me and checking out my videos showing me unreal support so even today I’ll always say I owe a lot of my success to them and Adidas.
Adidas really have been like family to me, they’ve supported me so much, gave me my first real chance to prove myself and since then countless opportunities. So many of the players and connections I have to this day are a result of the three stripes and some of the best life experiences I have such as pre-season tour with Manchester United, Linking up with The F2, The Best Awards have been thanks to them believing in my dream, growing up where I’m from no one ever saw a future for me making these videos so to see it paying off is a reminder to just follow the dream.