Kenwyne Jones once excelled so much in a Stoke City pre-season jump test that his head went through the ceiling.
The striker was known for his spring during his playing days but he shocked even his teammates one summer when he was put through his paces by Stoke’s fitness staff.
Peter Crouch has revealed what happened at Clayton Wood in his latest podcast, saying: “You’d do all your testing pre-season and they’d measure how supple you were and you did a jump test. I remember a jump test in the gym and I’m tall, I jumped, it was ok but I didn’t go anywhere near the roof. Kenwyne Jones went straight through the roof. I’ve never seen a leap like it.
“He used to do that back flip, he jumped and his head went straight through the ceiling. Straight through it. You know the ceilings like they have at school with flimsy squares, he went straight through the square. Unbelievable.
“I remember saying, blow me, I’m about 2ft taller than him so I’d better have a go. I did manage it but I had to try so hard to get my head through. It was an amazing spring. Unreal.”
Jones, now aged 39, broke Stoke’s transfer record when he joined from Sunderland for about £8.5 million in the summer of 2010 and he helped reach the FA Cup final in his first season.
Crouch said: “Les Ferdinand was one of the best I’ve seen as well and Kenwyne was a joke. You can improve it and I was shocking when I was 14. I was so tall that I never had to jump in my life and I’d be heading balls and be fine so I never learned how to jump.
“I often find with fast players too that their technique doesn’t improve. They don’t have to be as good as someone who has to manipulate the ball to get past people.”
Jones talked to the Sentinel about his jumping ability back in December 2011 when he had just scored his sixth header of the season, coming in the Europa League against Dynamo Kyev.
He said: .“I would like to be scoring from 30 yards every week, but heading is where the goals come from. With Jermaine Pennant and Matty Etherington playing well it’s great for strikers and I’ve always been able to jump quite high. If anything my bounce is getting better.
“I don’t really realise how high I am at the time, if it’s a big jump I wouldn’t know until I had seen it on TV. To me, it feels like I’m only jumping six inches off the ground..”
The origins of Jones’s mammoth jump can be traced back to his school days in Trinidad and Tobago, where his uncle, Philbert Jones, was an international football star. Uncle Philbert helped the Caribbean country to within a point of qualifying for the 1990 World Cup – and passed on his own stupendous back flip goal celebration to his nephew.
Jones Jr said: “You have to be fearless. My uncle and my dad (Pamphile) were my heroes as a boy. They both were both famous for playing football in Trinidad and I looked up to them.“
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