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Christian Atsu’s faith is an important aspect of the 26-year-old’s life. He attends Hillsong church’s Newcastle campus, just off Westgate Road, and that’s where the Ghanaian international brought UNITED for a chat about religion, family and football. There, we got to know the Magpies winger a little better…

The shutter clicks once more and the photoshoot is over. Christian Atsu is not the type to seek the limelight and the flash of the camera seems at odds with his unassuming nature; you suspect he is a little relieved there are no more pictures to take. He offers a handshake and a smile as he takes a seat on the balcony at Hillsong church and revisits the moment he knew he’d been prematurely thrust into adulthood.

“One day, I went to church. If I went to church one Sunday, then the next Sunday maybe I would not go. At this time I was not even 16 years old. Then the pastor told my mum something. I was very young, but what he said was very painful to me,” says Atsu, now 26, his quiet voice cracking a little. “He said, ‘if you are this age and you don’t know what is good or bad, then maybe you will not grow again’.

“I took this as a bad comment, but for me, I think it was a good thing. I realised that ‘He has seen me as a grown man. I can make a decision’. It’s what you are doing, what you believe in, how you think. I felt that what you can go through can help you become a man quickly.”

Atsu, born in Ada Foah on Ghana’s south east coast, was moulded by his surroundings. One of ten children, his father Immanuel died when he was 12 and eventually his family couldn’t afford to send him to school. His time at Feyenoord’s West African academy meant he spent a lot of time away from those he would like to have held closest. “At this stage, I was doing a lot of things by myself,” he says. “I could make my own decisions.” The teenager was already a man.

Gradually, that harsh but familiar landscape changed. It was “a lot of fun” to start with, but his brothers and sisters began to depart the family home to move away or marry, until it was just Atsu, his mother Afiko and two other siblings. “I couldn’t even speak with (the others) for maybe two or three years, because everyone needed to focus on their own lives. This is the life in Africa – everyone needs to focus on their own lives.”

It seems a sorry tale but Atsu, modest and humble, insists he is at ease discussing the impact these events had on him and his beliefs. He glances upwards and takes a deep breath. “When my father died I was at the academy. My brother told me after his death that we, his children, should worship God and nothing more on this earth. My last words from my father were so strong. His words were so strong to me: that I needed to do more for humanity – worshipping God and doing more for humanity.

“As far as I’m concerned, God brings people into our life to help us move forward. This is what has been happening to me. I’ve been praying to God to bring people into my life to help me move forward, and it has been happening to me. Even in my worst times, I got to know good people who try to help me move forward.”

He has found some of those people at Hillsong’s Newcastle campus. When Atsu joined Newcastle on loan from Chelsea in 2016, he needed somewhere new to go to worship. Sammy Ameobi brought him here, to Westgate Hall, a 115-year-old building which houses a theatre-like auditorium, with a stage at the front and an upper tier decked with seats. It’s being renovated as Atsu speaks; the ornate ceiling is getting a lick of paint from workers on scaffolding. One recognises him and asks for an autograph for his son.