Times article:
Make the most of your talent and you won't end up bitter
By Rick Broadbent
A message to you, Rooney
IT IS a tale of two strikers. A tale of two Waynes. They are linked by
name and deed, but separated by a generation and the vagaries of fate. Now one
of them is getting his teenage kicks by living out a schoolboy fantasy while the
other drives a wagon for a brewery. It is a long way to fall from the top of
Wayne?s world.
Wayne Rooney?s winning goal for Everton against Arsenal last Saturday has
established him as football?s newest wunderkind. He has won over pundits and
cynics alike with his burgeoning talent and the road ahead is paved with gold.
At the tender age of 17, his future looks secure.
Meanwhile, on a cold, drizzly street in Stockport, Wayne Harrison delivers
Robinson?s beer to a pub. The bitter cargo may seem apposite.
In 1985, Harrison was the name on everyone?s lips. He had made just two
appearances for Oldham Athletic, then in the old second division, but promise
coursed through the 17-year-old?s veins. Manchester United, Manchester City and
Aston Villa were interested, but he chose to join Liverpool, the team he still
supports. The £250,000 fee was a record for a teenager and he appeared destined
for international honours. But the next big thing faded to footnote status
thanks to 25 operations, a shattered greenhouse and a Bradford City goalkeeper.
?It was 1991 and Graeme Souness, the manager, called me in,? Harrison said. ?He
told me the doctors had said I wouldn?t play again. It was soul-destroying. My
head was spinning and I didn?t know what to do. To think that was it. I got in
the car and just drove around for four hours.?
Some black years followed during which, by his own admission, Harrison did not
do much. More operations ensued and there were dark days. ?It?s not like now,
where everyone is earning big money,? he said. ?I knew I had to do something and
it was tough for a bit.?
He disappeared from football?s fickle theatre. In a transient world, he soon
became the forgotten man as other prodigies came along to dazzle the headline
writers. In October 1995, he turned out for Offerton Green reserves in the
Stockport Sunday League and provided a glimpse of what might have been with a
strike from the halfway line. One man and a dog were impressed, but the pain in
his bad knee meant football soon became impossible.
Even the most prescient of pessimists could not have foreseen the way Harrison
would suffer after his move to Liverpool. Joe Royle, the manager of Oldham at
the time of his transfer, still enthuses about his ability. ?He was a natural
goalscorer,? he said. ?The way he timed his runs was magnificent. Bill Urmson
was our youth coach then and he didn?t have to tell Wayne much. The kid was
going to be a player.?
Harrison struggled to settle at Anfield. Liverpool were the European champions
and, within five months, Kenny Dalglish, his boyhood hero, was his manager.
Harrison admits that he did not even read the contract, but such starry-eyed
naivety was understandable. ?People will compare Rooney to Wayne, but they are
very different,? Royle said. ?Wayne was a boy when he went to Liverpool; Rooney
is a man at 17.?
Joe Fagan, the Liverpool manager who signed Harrison, believed that his talent
could be nurtured rather than neutered by his daunting surroundings. He
remembered the virtuoso performance that had helped Oldham to a 4-0 victory over
Liverpool in the FA Youth Cup.
He also knew of the 35 goals Harrison had scored for Oldham?s junior and reserve
teams and how he had made his first-team debut just six months after signing
apprentice forms. But the intense competition and an avalanche of injuries
conspired against him. ?I had a lot of problems with my groin, then I had a
hernia, knee trouble, a bad shoulder, you name it,? Harrison said. ?On a
pre-season tour, I was larking about, got into a scuffle and fell through a
greenhouse. I slashed my arms badly.? That there was an ambulance strike at the
time seemed typical of his capacity for calamity.
The run of bad luck reached its nadir in May 1990. Harrison, by now 22, was
impressing in the reserves and there were signs that he might be ready to repay
Liverpool?s investment. A collision with the goalkeeper during a reserve match
against Bradford quashed those hopes. The ligaments in his right knee were
irreparably damaged and Harrison?s career was over. ?I felt sick when I tried to
get up,? he said. ?I knew it was bad because I couldn?t feel it. It was wobbling
from the inside.?
Several operations later, Souness summoned Harrison to his office for that
fateful meeting. The injuries were so bad that Harrison could play only a cameo
role in his testimonial match between Liverpool and Oldham the following year.
Now, after 12 operations on his right knee, he cannot even help his friends out
in their local league matches.
He still lives in the house he bought in Stockport when he was a football
starlet and still loves the game. ?Nobody recognises me these days, but I?m not
bitter,? he said. ?I wish I?d never gone to Liverpool and that I?d had more
luck. It was nobody?s fault, but you do think about it all sometimes. Steve
McManaman was my friend and look at him ? he plays for Real Madrid. But I?ve
been at the brewery now for 5½ years and I love it.?
Rooney and Harrison could scarcely lead more different lives. One is 17 with a
glittering future and the other is a 34-year-old with fading memories. But the
pair were cut from the same cloth and the drayman?s story is a cautionary tale
of how the sweetest dream can turn sour.
