Andrew Henderson: ‘Overcoming the adversity of my injury made me more determined to become world champion’

Andrew Henderson: World’s Greatest Freestyler

Andrew Henderson: one of the best Football Freestylers in the World today

Andrew Henderson is the World Freestyle Champion

Andrew Henderson is the current world’s number one football freestyle champion. The 26-year-old from Cornwall suffered a horrendous leg break back in 2009 but used that to catapult himself to football freestyle greatness. Henderson started doing freestyle tricks to aid his recovery and worked diligently on perfecting his freestyle skills.

“I grew up in Cornwall, now live in London. I have always played sports and played many different sports growing up. I played rugby for 10 years before at the age of 16 having a horrific leg injury, where I got told by the doctors that it was possible that I would never be able to walk again, let alone play any sport again.”

“I got 10 metal screws and a metal plate inserted into my left leg as I broke multiple bones in multiple places but still made a full recovery.”

“During the rehab process, I was so bored of not being able to be active so I started trying to balance a football on my head after seeing some TV ads of players doing it. I learned the headstall skill and then wanted to learn more skills.”

Back then, freestyle was scarcely on the public radar, but the rise of social media has sparked a huge growth, including the founding of a federation that now governs the sport in 102 countries.

“Freestyle helped me get back on my feet and it gave me the motivation to help me through the rehab process which all in all was a very depressing time.”

“Learning new skills gave me a lot of confidence and self-satisfaction, although that is a temporary feeling as I am never fully satisfied and always see room for improvement. I think this is because I look for harder challenges ahead. That is the mentality I have always had from an early age but overcoming the adversity of the injury made me even more determined to push for my goal of becoming a world champion in a sport that I loved.”

He won his first world title in 2011 and went on to become 4x world champion and 6x UK champion. Some of his freestyle career highlights include performing at Old Trafford and beating PSG superstar Neymar in a freestyle battle.

The sport is growing, and as it does so its relationship with mainstream football evolves.

‘All the very top players, they all recognize that they did this,’ said Daniel Wood, the president of the Freestyle Football Federation. ‘They freestyled or played street soccer. It’s self-expression, it’s trial and error.

‘Then they picked to play for a team. They went into that environment with confidence, a touch, and ability, and body awareness that other players, of a similar age, who are not freestyling, don’t have.’

As freestyle becomes more and more professional, that gap is only going to increase – and that means skillful youngsters going one way or the other.

But, more and more, they appear to be choosing the social media fame of freestyling.

PUBLIC FREESTYLE FOOTBALL CHALLENGE!!!

‘I think nowadays kids are seeing freestyle and saying “I wanna be a freestyler” – whereas I didn’t know it existed as a sport until I started doing it,’ adds Henderson.

‘Yesterday I was training out on the grass for about two hours and about 30, 40 kids came up to me in two hours of training, saying “are you a freestyle? I’ve seen your videos”. You’d never get that a couple of years ago.’

If you can master the extreme discipline of all those hours of solitary training, the rewards are spectacular.

‘I never thought when I broke my leg so badly, I would go from then to traveling to over 50 countries, showcasing my skills, doing commercials with Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Beckham, and winning world championships,’ Henderson concludes.

‘I never thought that would be something I’d be doing.’

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