At 6ft 3in (191cm), it wasn’t just his height that made Vimal stand out at Barnsley, according to the club’s academy director Bobby Hassell – but it certainly helped.

“He came in at 15 years old, a really tall, gangly, skinny lad – didn’t look like a footballer at all in all honesty,” he says.

“It was his aggression really that was a stand-out for all the coaches.

“You don’t generally find 15-year-olds coming in and tackling like he did.”

In 2023, there were just 22 professional players with South Asian heritage aged 17 or over in England’s top four leagues.

With about 5,000 professional footballers in the UK, that represents about 1% of players.

Although still small, those figures, from the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), did show a 29% rise on the previous season – when there had only been 17.

“Whenever I’d step on to an academy pitch, I’d be the only brown player and obviously the only Tamil player,” says Vimal.

“It almost became normal to me – but that has to change.”

In 2021, the PFA launched its Asian Inclusion Mentoring Scheme (AIMS), which has supported Vimal in his career so far.

“It shows me how many brown players there are in the game,” he says.

“And it’s grown as well – it’s good to see.”