It’s ironic that former Tooting & Mitcham United teenager Michail Antonio should have ended up at West Ham in a £7m deal on deadline day.

Because just a couple of weeks ago, the Hammers were the subject of a fascinating LinkedIn post by Simon Bywater, whose son joined their academy programme at the age of nine and was seen as a star of the future before being thrown on the scrapheap aged 19.

In summary, Mr Bywater wrote: “I want to warn other parents going down the academy football route. You will hear so much storytelling and false promises.

“Trust nothing you are told and always have a plan B outside football.”

More than a decade ago, Antonio’s mum took the opposite approach. Offered the chance to go to Tottenham as a 14-year-old, she stepped in and told him his education must come first.

Instead he played for Tooting & Mitcham Juniors before making a goalscoring debut for Tooting’s senior team at the age of 17.

Then manager Billy Smith knew he had a potential star on his hands, comparing Antonio to Ian Wright, an analogy that looks even more relevant now.

Like Wright, Antonio has had to wait until his mid-20s to reach the top flights. Having signed for Reading when he was 18 he had loan spells back at Tooting and with Cheltenham and Southampton in the third tier and Colchester United – before making an increasingly big impact following permanent moves to Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest, who he left on Monday.

There is no doubt the academy system has benefits, and the clubs do work to ensure youngsters are in the best position should they not make the grade.

We will never know if Antonio would have made the grade at Spurs or joined the vast majority of academy players, like Kieran Bywater, in seeing their dreams shattered in their late teens.

But whatever the lure of Premier League clubs, Antonio has proven there is more than one way to the top. And in his case, it seems that mum knew best.