ON October 28, 1988, Ricky Junior Otto was sentenced to four years in prison aged 20 — the last of his five jail terms.
He accepts he was a thug, bully and out-and-out menace to society — a product of a violent culture which ruled with fear growing up in Hackney, East London.
But following the time he served at Wandsworth, on this occasion for armed robbery, Otto walked out on January 25, 1990 an entirely different person to the one who arrived.
And, remarkably, it was two inmates serving lengthy sentences who provided him with a lightbulb moment that changed his life forever.
Now 56, Otto revealed: “It was these two guys — one was doing 24 years for murder, the other 17 for manslaughter.
“They had watched me playing football in the gym and realised I had a talent and expressed this in the most incredible way.
“They told me something that day I have never forgotten: ‘Don’t serve the time, let the time serve you’.
“From that moment I understood what they meant: ‘Don’t just sit in prison doing nothing but rather start preparing yourself now for when you are released’.
“After that I became a gym orderly and started to prepare myself mentally and physically for a life after prison. It was just the kick up the backside that I needed.
“When I walked out of Wandsworth in 1990, I knew it was a new beginning — with football being my escape into a new world.”
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The former winger said: “My immediate thought was to re-engage with my old team-mates who were now playing for amateur side Haringey Borough.
“After a few games I got injured and I was sent for treatment at non-league Dartford. I ended up playing four games for them.
“My performances caught the eye of Leyton Orient management duo Frank Clark and Peter Eustace.
“They knew of my past and did not judge me but offered me a week’s trial, which was the opportunity of a lifetime that I’d been dreaming of while serving my time.
“The trial was successful and I signed my first professional contract ten months after being released and just a couple of weeks before my 23rd birthday. It was the best birthday present ever!”
After playing in the reserves and learning the game, Otto eventually got the chance to make his league debut when he was made sub for Orient’s fourth-tier game at Fulham in 1991, just 15 months after his release.
He continued: “It was the last game of the season. I played the last 15 minutes, I should have scored too. But I was on the pitch playing and I had this wonderful feeling of achievement.”
The following season he played 32 league games for the O’s, scoring his first goal at Hartlepool in September 1991.
Otto said: “It was flattering that Barry Fry — then with Barnet — had watched me play against his side in the London Cup final and was clearly impressed.
“When Barry joined Southend in April 1993 he signed me for £100,000. I don’t think I played in a better side at the start of the 1993-94 season.
They knew of my past and did not judge me but offered me a week’s trial, which was the opportunity of a lifetime that I’d been dreaming of while serving my time
Ricky Otto
“Had Barry not been headhunted by Birmingham I genuinely believe we would have gone on to make the play-offs in what was the Championship at the end of that season.
“We had such a wonderful camaraderie, with wins against big clubs with multi-million-pound budgets like Sunderland, Derby, Stoke and Middlesbrough. We were flying!”
Otto’s next move was to link up with Fry again at Birmingham — this time in an £800,000 switch to St Andrew’s.
His greatest football memories include his stunning equaliser against Liverpool at Anfield in the 1995 FA Cup and playing for City in the Football League Trophy final the same year — when his assist provided the extra-time winner for Paul Tait in front of over 76,000 fans at Wembley.
Otto said: “I remember travelling on the coach to Wembley with a sea of Birmingham fans walking towards the stadium.
“I had that pinch-me moment where I couldn’t believe I was going to be playing at Wembley.”
After Birmingham, Otto played at Charlton, Peterborough and Notts County on loan.
It was while he was with County, under Sam Allardyce, that he suffered a cruciate ligament injury which ultimately ended his career.
I remember travelling on the coach to Wembley with a sea of Birmingham fans walking towards the stadium.
I had that pinch-me moment where I couldn’t believe I was going to be playing at Wembley
Ricky Otto
He said: “I did manage to play again but I was never the same player. I’d lost that yard of pace and I always had that twinge of pain when I was playing.”
After ten years, he knew his career was over.
He added: “Having left school with no qualifications this was a period when I had think what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
“Of course, I could have slipped back into my old ways before football but I knew I had to build another chapter to my life.”
Instead, he trained as a probation officer, later creating his own consultancy working with offenders and those at risk of offending.
Ricky said: “My work has enabled me to engage with some of the country’s most prolific offenders.
“Being able to relate to their journey, I am able to use the same old adage that was spoken into my life when incarcerated: Don’t serve the time, let the time serve you.
“For nearly 20 years I have primarily worked with adults. However, over the last two years I’ve been working with Walsall Youth Justice Service as a Resettlement Disproportionality Officer.”
Even more remarkably, father-of-three Ricky is a committed Christian and, after passing his degree in Theology, is Pastor of ARC Birmingham Church. He is currently studying for a Masters degree.
Yet in reflection of his extraordinary 56 years, Otto readily admits: “Without a shadow of a doubt, football saved my life.”
