War memories still raw for Kolarov

Manchester City can go top of the Premier League table if they beat Everton at Eastlands on Monday but for Aleksandar Kolarov football success will always be put in perspective.

Kolarov’s journey to the top tier of English football started in war-torn Serbia, where he grew up as a boy.

“Players from Serbia are very hungry to work,” he told Manc, the official Manchester City magazine. “We all want to do something because every one of us has some story in their life.”

Those memories from 1999, where as a 14-year-old he trained with boyhood heroes Red Star Belgrade during a three-month NATO raid on “strategic targets” that also led to civilian casualties, remain vivid.

“I don’t have nightmares but I remember everything,” he said.

“You just want to play football but you can’t because there are bombs in the city.

“The first couple of days you have fear for something. Then every day is the same.

“Bombs fell near my house. The windows blew in. There was a military airport near my house so that was a target.

“They bombed bridges, everything. There were concerts on the bridges. But I didn’t go. I played football.”

Now the 25-year-old hopes to add some silverware at City, where the fall-out from Argentina striker Carlos Tevez’s transfer request threatens to disrupt the big-spending club’s fine start to the season.

But City defender Micah Richards said of Tevez: “He will be playing. I’m sure he will be in the starting eleven.

“We need him in our team if we want to achieve what we want to achieve. He’s our main man and our captain.”