You will see them side by side on your television, but 25 years ago, Micah Richards and Rio Ferdinand crossed paths in Leeds when they ate the city’s best Caribbean food.
Ferdinand, then the world’s most expensive defender at Leeds United, and Richards, then a 13-year-old boy growing up in the area, were regulars at the Chapeltown home of Maureen Wilkes. She served home-cooked Caribbean food from her own kitchen, while customers could either take away or eat at her dining table.
Former Manchester United defender Ferdinand — who won the Premier League six times and the Champions League once — mapped out the scene on his podcast in December 2023, when Aaron Lennon, a fellow former Leeds player who is friends with Maureen’s nephew, was a guest.
“Shout out to Maureen’s,” he said. “I don’t know if she watches. She used to have a house in Chapeltown. First thing when I went (to) Leeds, ‘Where can I get a haircut? Where can I get good Caribbean food?’.
“Someone said, ‘There’s a lady called Maureen, cooks in her house’. ‘What, in her house?’. ‘Yeah, you eat in her kitchen or you get takeaway’.
“I drove in this estate, went in there, sat in her living room, waiting for my order.”
Maureen has since shared a photo of Ferdinand, alongside Michael Duberry, another Leeds player of that era, dining at her house. The England international was in his early 20s during the 20 months he spent at Elland Road between November 2000 and July 2002.
On his podcast, he said he would have been driving an Aston Martin or Ferrari at the time. Lennon, who would have been in his early teens, recalled the buzz that rippled around Chapeltown when Ferdinand’s car pulled up to Maureen’s house.
This is where CBS Sports’ Champions League pundit Richards comes in. Speaking to The Athletic now, Maureen remembers Richards, who grew up in Chapeltown, as one of the youngsters who would flock to her house when Ferdinand would turn up.
“Micah used to live on my street, before he got to where he is (in football and on television),” she says. “He was a normal young boy in the area, and every time Rio came to the house, he used to run down the back street. And look where he is now.”
These anecdotes are just examples of why Maureen’s food has been at the heart of the Chapeltown community since the early 1990s. She remembers serving from her home in 1990 until she finally set up a physical location in 2003, on Roundhay Road.
Maureen outside her restaurant in Leeds (Beren Cross/The Athletic)
By the time Ferdinand had arrived in the city in 2000, she was well-established.
“He used to get his hair cut by a barber up the road, and they used to get food from my house,” she says. “He wondered where they got food from.
“He used to always come around, get food and lick his fingers. Him and Michael Duberry. There’s others that came, but I can’t remember their names. They were the good old days.”
Chapeltown is one of the more deprived areas of Leeds. The sight of luxury cars with six-figure price tags was not a regular occurrence in streets like the one Maureen lived in.
“It was so weird because as soon as their cars drew up, everyone would know if it was Rio or Michael Duberry because of their big, posh cars,” she says. “Young kids would come down the back street, come in my house, get food, and sit down or wait outside.
“It wasn’t just Ferdinand at the table. I used to have different customers sat around this table. They’d be having a little conference, talking, laughing, joking and eating.”
It all comes back to the food. That is what has made Maureen’s a go-to destination in the city for Caribbean dining. She has cooked food for more footballers down the years than she can remember.
Richards, who went on to play for Manchester City and England after moving out of Leeds, still pops in to see her when he visits his parents. He used Maureen’s in early January to film an interview with boxer Ishmael Davis, who grew up in Chapeltown.
“Micah came in here about four weeks prior to that,” she said. “I said, ‘What are you doing here?’. He said, ‘I’m just passing by, I came to see my mum and my dad’. He got some food, and then I got a phone call to ask if they could film in here.”
Maureen, who is 67, references the influence of her mother, Eulalie, now 91, when she’s asked where the passion for food came from and how she came to be serving food from her home in the 1990s.
“My mum was a good cook,” she said. “I used to always love to cook and bake cakes. There was this builder who asked me if I could cook some food just to see how these workers would get on with it.
“That’s how I started. I started to cook for them on a lunchtime and they loved it. Then I cooked for the community centre. Then I thought, ‘Let me try from home’, and it took off.”
Word of mouth spread through the community. She served food at the community centre and spent that decade looking for a proper premises, but was never able to get anything over the line until the Roundhay Road move.
“I eventually got my own place, which is this one, in 2003, and it’s just gone from strength to strength,” she said. “The amount of times I wanted to give up. It’s hard work. Everybody thinks it’s easy, but it’s hard.”
Maureen continues to put in 12-hour shifts. She had knee surgery this week. This is her passion, a way of life rather than an occupation.
“It’s a 12-hour shift, but if you love your job, love what you do, you don’t mind doing it,” she said. “I don’t think I could work for anybody and do the 12-hour shifts.
“This is me. This is my thing. I would do it for myself, but not for anybody else. I enjoy it, I still do after all these years.”
In 2021, she was nominated for Lorraine Kelly’s Kindness Award at the Women of the Year Awards in London. Her daughters had secretly put her name forward because of the free food she had given out to people who could not cook or feed themselves during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Food is something to be shared in her eyes. Being around her family is everything to her, eating together. She has six siblings, four children, 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
“Even now, my house is always full of family,” she said. “Every Sunday, my house is full of the kids, the grandkids. I just like that feeling of family orientation. It’s lovely. My Sundays are not Sundays without family being around, as much as they get on my nerves sometimes (smiles). I love it.”
After all these years of serving to help others, Maureen finally has one eye on retirement and travelling. One of her nephews, helping in the kitchen as The Athletic visits, could be one candidate for taking on the business when she sets sail, but nothing is decided yet.
Her legacy, for one thing, will be secured forever.