At 15 years old, Luther Wildin was playing grassroots football with little thought of making a career out of the game. “I just played Sunday league football when I was younger and mainly played just for fun, I never took it too seriously and never thought about becoming a footballer one day,” Luther told LFE. “I was fortunate to play in a good team that won a lot, and I was always presented with opportunities to go on trial, but I never had the self-confidence to go for it. My dad would always tell me they were good opportunities and that I should go for it, but I always just said no.”
His older brother Courtney, however, was in the academy system from a young age and possessed a burning desire to go as far as he could. “I always wanted to get into the highest level of football that I could,” said Courtney. “At 13 I was picked up by Coventry City, and that was exciting. I spent two years there but was eventually released which hit me quite hard. However, four months later whilst on a family holiday I received a call and was told that Aston Villa wanted to offer me a trial, and six weeks later I signed.”
Courtney went on to sign a scholarship at Aston Villa, and it was then that Luther began to open up to the idea of trying to take the next step himself. “It wasn’t until Courtney got his scholarship at Aston Villa that I began to think about it. I could see that Courtney was earning a bit of money from it and that opened my eyes to it and made me think that it was a possible career for me. I went to Forest and Villa and didn’t get offered anything, so I thought maybe it wasn’t to be. Fortunately, I went to Notts County soon after and was offered a scholarship.”
Fast forward to the present and Luther has played 250 games for Stevenage and represented Antigua and Barbuda on the international stage. “When I was 15 years old and still playing Sunday league, I never thought I’d get to where I am today,” he admits.
Since joining the League One club in 2018, the 26-year-old has played under six different managers and proved a mainstay in the team under each one. He says the key to his success is down to his work ethic. “It’s all about discipline and keeping up with your standards, making sure that no matter what is going on around you, you’re still giving the best account of yourself because you never know when a manager is going to go, and a new one is going to come in. I’ve always managed to stay professional and keep my standards high. Even with small things like pre-season running, since a young age, I’ve always done everything possible to win every run and they’re the type of things I’ve always prided myself on. I think that mindset has always given me an edge going into every season.”
In Courtney’s case, after spells at Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday, he found himself in the non-league echelons of the football pyramid and would go on to represent several part-time clubs. It was during this time that he was presented with the opportunity to become a model and make a name for himself in a completely different industry. “It was all out of the blue, to be honest. It was never something I thought I would end up doing, but it came at a good time for me having recently stepped aside from professional football. I was transitioning into part-time football which meant I was about to have a lot more time. I got a message from who is now my agency and asked to meet up. We had a meeting, I signed for them shortly after, and then in the same week had my first job. Before I knew it, I was traveling around Europe and America working with brands like Nike. It was incredible.
“It helped me massively in terms of the transition out of full-time football. I didn’t have time to think about what I was going to do workwise whilst playing semi-pro as this opportunity just landed on my lap and I began to make good money and really enjoy it.”
However, in 2018, with his modelling career in full flow and playing for non-league side Coalville Town, the then 22-year-old was hit with the devastating news that he had leukemia, a type of blood cancer. “In the six months leading up to my diagnosis, I began to suffer from night sweats which was something that I had never experienced before. It seems silly now, but I just put it down to it maybe being an infection of some sort as I was really busy at the time. I just ignored it, but then I began to experience a weak bladder. Again, I just put it down to working loads and maybe my body had picked up the flu and it was trying to get rid of it. Two days before I was diagnosed, I had a match and before the game, I told my manager that I wasn’t feeling right. I felt very lightheaded and lethargic, so I didn’t play. The next day was Luther’s birthday, and I woke up with a swollen lymph node under my neck and it was at that point I thought something wasn’t quite right. My girlfriend is a nurse and told me I needed to go and get checked, so the Monday morning I went and got my blood checked. Later in the day the doctor rang me and told me they had found something irregular in my blood and that I needed to head into the hospital with an overnight bag. When I arrived with my mum and my girlfriend, they told me that they thought I had leukemia. The next morning, I had my biopsies done, etc, and was officially diagnosed, and from that point, life was going to look very different for me.”
During his battle, Courtney kept a positive mindset and was determined to overcome the illness and get back to the life he was living before his diagnosis, but unfortunately, complications began to arise. “I’d received this news off the back of being in a really good position in life, very fortunate to be playing football, modelling, and earning some good money, being in a place I wanted to be. My main motivation during this period was having a mindset of recovering from it and going back to normal, but it turned out to be very different. I began to feel the effects of the treatment and I was told of the severity of my leukemia. It then started to be a case of ‘football and modelling might not be things I’ll be able to do when I recover’, then it was ‘I might not be very well for a long time’, and then it got to the point where I was beginning to think ‘I might not even be here in six months’. It was scary how fast the reality of it all changed.”
After little success with his first course of treatment, Courtney was told he required a more intense round of chemotherapy. Fortunately, his body reacted well to this, and he was placed into partial remission. He then needed a bone marrow transplant and discovered that Luther was a match for him and could be a donor. “In a moment where you can talk about your brother essentially saving your life, that will always stay true,” said Courtney. “When you hear that your brother has been diagnosed with leukemia, the only thing on my mind was thinking how I could help. To find out that our blood types were a match was a godsend and felt so right. It was a blessing that I was in the position to be able to help Courtney. We were just very grateful that we were able to get it done,” added Luther.
Thankfully, following his final round of treatment and a successful bone marrow transplant, Courtney came through the other side of his illness and was ready to get his life back on track. “I now have a different mindset. After my illness, I realised that life isn’t a given and waking up every day healthy is a complete blessing and anything on top of that is a bonus.”
The after-effects of Courtney’s illness meant that a return to football would prove difficult, prompting him to turn his eye to other opportunities. This came in the form of property investment, and now, a few years on, he and Luther have gone into business together. “I’ve always had an interest in property investment and started reading into it years ago,” Luther told LFE. “In the last couple of years, I thought there was no better time to start than now, so we started renovating properties, flipping them, and now we’re about to do an HMO conversion (House with multiple occupants), and that will be a massive project for us.”
The two brothers began to document their journey in property through their social media account ‘Wildin Ventures’ and this sparked intrigue from Luther’s colleagues in the football world. “We started documenting our property journey about a year ago and in that time, I’ve had loads of people in the game like current and ex-teammates wanting to find out more and gain some advice and I’ve been able to help these people, whether that’s by helping them maximize their returns from their current portfolios or guiding them on how they can build more wealth in the future. These are all things that I have learned from my experiences and going down a paid education route too.”
After becoming a line of advice for teammates and fellow pros further afield, Luther, alongside Courtney, decided to launch the ‘Players Property Partners’, a service that would help professional athletes embark on their own property investment journeys. “Eventually, I got to the point where I was offering these people advice, but I wasn’t providing the opportunity for them to get involved in investing. That’s when me and Courtney decided to launch the Players Property Partners service to athletes up and down the country and provide these opportunities to them.”
Courtney handles the majority of the nitty gritty side of the business to allow Luther to maintain full focus on his football career, something that provides a good balance for the two. “I try and cover as much of it as I can so Luther can continue to give 100% to his football career and until the point when Luther hangs his boots up this will be the case. It’s my job to make sure everything is running smoothly, for example, builders are doing their jobs, we’re on time with payments, etc. We’ve got a really good balance and that’s the reason why we’re efficiently making good progress.”
Discussing how he juggles being a professional footballer and business owner, Luther says his outside-of-football responsibilities have positively impacted his performance on the pitch. “Over the past year or two, I’ve been the most consistent version of myself and a lot of that is down to my ventures outside of football. I’ve been able to show the best version of myself, which comes from taking a bit of pressure off myself and my football career. I’m still as hungry and as driven as ever before, but I don’t have to think about it as much as I did previously. I can give my all every single day at the training ground but I’m then able to go home and switch off. Having interests outside of the game has had a positive effect on myself and my performance.”
Looking into the future, the Stevenage full-back is confident his transition out of the game will be a smooth and seamless one due to the off-the-field moves he’s currently making, and advises today’s crop of young footballers to do the same. “When I retire, I want it to be an effortless transition. I hope I can prolong my career for as long as I possibly can, but when the time does come, I want it to be seamless and I’m more than ready to go into property full-time. I also want to be in a position where I can give back to football and share as much value and advice to young players as possible.“
“Football is a part of your life, but it’s not all of your life. After training, rather than sitting on your PlayStation or watching TV, you can take a couple of hours out of your day to find out what you’re interested in. Understand that your life is going to kick in after your football career, so you might as well start realising what you want from life whilst you’re still playing.”
