The following article was originally published in the printed programme for the Mousehole v Malvern match on 24th August 2024. To purchase back issues of Mousehole matchday programmes, visit our club shop.
“Annoying. Definitely annoying”
It’s not a word most of us would land on when asked to describe our best characteristic. But Mousehole forward Jack Symons sees it as his secret weapon.
“I try to get my body in the right places and go down, so I get a lot of free kicks. So I am probably quite annoying to play against. So yeah – I think it is definitely my secret weapon. Always has been, even in kids’ football. But yeah, I do quite like it.”
It’s a hot September afternoon and we’re sitting in the air conditioned Starbucks in Penryn, just down the hill from Jack’s home in Mabe. He’s nursing a hamstring niggle that has kept him out of action for a couple of weeks. One of many injuries causing the Mousehole coaching staff headaches at the moment. But as ever Jack – known to his team mates as Symo – is bursting to get back involved. He tells me he’s lobbying to start back in warm-up the next evening and then hopefully get game time in the next match.
Now 19, Jack has, to use his words, been terrorizing defences in Cornwall since the age of four or five.
“I think my earliest proper memory is playing in a tournament, I think it was down at Illogan. I remember having this tussle with another kid who was about my height. And we had this real game for however long it was. I think I scored a goal but what I do remember is taking him out. He annoyed me.”
Jack is not the tallest of players and has a youthful face that hides the mature football brain underneath.
“I’ve had it so many times. Teams always look at me and think I’m a small player. I’m not physically strong and that I’m going to be terrible or just easy to play against. And they would just kick me, basically. But, yeah, I think I do surprise them when I get them one v one and just beat them”
Throughout his life football has been a constant. Playing six days a week with teams, friends or more recently at Cornwall College. Sundays he spends watching football – Liverpool are his team and he cites Fernando Torres as having a major influence on him. And not just as a player.
“I used to love him, and then I did love Gerard as well, but I just I adored Torres as a kid. I had loads of Torres shirts. I used to copy his haircut. Whenever he got one, I had to get the same one”
Jack’s journey to the Mousehole first team has taken him via spells at Falmouth United, where his dad Drew was manager, and the Plymouth Argyle Academy where he was for five years up until he was 14.
His dad has been his coach since he was five, both as a parent and as manager of Falmouth United and Mousehole Development. The journey has taken the family through the highs and lows of football academy realities.
“At five, when I started coaching with him, they were just a group of young players just learning their craft. And you know, they will develop differently. But if you look at him back then, he was quite an aggressive football player at that age. And then he was picked up by Argyle, so obviously he listened and learned and took everything on as a young lad. But he had to put up with an awful lot really. He wasn’t allowed to do play with his local team when he was taken on by Argyle. But he still came and trained every week with his friends even though he was travelling to Ivybridge twice a week. But when it all ended rather brutally for him with Argyle, I think it made him stronger with a stronger mindset to deal with things.”
It was soon after that that he was picked up by Jake Ash at Penryn College where Jack was at school. He began training with Mousehole as a sixteen-year-old and immediately loved it. Playing “with a smile on his face again” as his dad describes it. He spent a couple of seasons with the development squad while also spending time with the first team, albeit often on the bench or on for brief appearances – a period Jack describes as “frustrating”. But it’s also taught him some life skills.
“Probably mostly patience, to be honest. You have have to be really patient to get the chances. And then it’s just sort of taking those chances whenever they come up, whether that’s a start now and again, or 20 minutes here and there. Yeah, I think patience has been the most important thing I’ve learned to be honest.”
This season however has seen him a regular starter for the firsts in the Southern League, something Charlie Davis – Jake’s Assistant Manager at Mousehole and also a former PE teacher at Penryn, says is well-warranted:
“Jack’s technical ability is second to none and his versatility is a real strength. I think it’s clear to see how he has matured over time and at just 19 years old his game awareness is brilliant. I truly believe Symo is amongst the very best in young talent within the Southwest, and it’s great to see him flying the flag for young Cornish footballers in the Southern league”.
It’s a sentiment echoed by fellow striker Hayden Turner, last season’s top scorer in the league:
“Symo’s a great lad, he’s been so patient during his time with us in terms of game time and that has paid off. For his age he is performing at a great level and he offers us as a team so much with the quality he has. He will definitely go far in the game.”
For now, Symo is enjoying his football more than at any time in his 19 years. He describes Mousehole as “the best in the business – for coaching, training, matchday experience. It’s fun as well”.
And as for Dad, the coach who’s been there throughout not just on the pitch but at home and on those long car journeys, this stage of his career is putting a smile on his face as well.
“We always knew he had the talent. He’s just needed that opportunity and someone to believe in him and the talent would always come out. So that’s kind of where we are. I just hope he develops, keeps working hard – which I’m sure he will. And you never know where it might take him. He’s still young, still lots to develop, still lots of things to learn. So yeah, really exciting times”
