Football is kids’ stufff

Tuesday, 25/10/2011

by Tom Seymour

‘Remember the name, Wayne Rooney!’ sounded the now famous words from Clive Tyldesley, as the then 16-year-old striker thundered a curling effort into David Seaman’s goal. It was a record breaking day by all accounts.

On October 19, 2002, Arsenal were “the Invincibles” (something you may struggle to believe watching their recent form) and this piece of magic from the more-or-less unknown Wayne Rooney, then at Everton, ended a 30-game unbeaten run.

Secondly, Rooney became one of the youngest players to grace the Premier League and was the youngest-ever scorer, at 16 years and 360 days old. It sparked a trend in managers for including evermore youthful footballers in their squads; with highs like Rooney and inexplicable lows, such as Theo Walcott’s inclusion in Sven Goran Eriksson’s 2006 World Cup squad.

Everton continued the policy of blooding the youngsters when a youthful James Vaughan broke Rooney’s record (well actually it was James Milner’s by then) of being the league’s youngest goal-scorer, netting against Crystal Palace in 2005 aged just 16 years and 271 days old. For the youngest Premier League appearance though, you have to head to Craven Cottage, as Fulham’s Matthew Briggs holds that record at just 16 years and 65 days old.

However, compared to the rest of the football league, these players are positively geriatric. On Saturday, Derby County fielded Mason Bennett against Middlesbrough. They’d wanted to play him in the midweek draw at Reading, but he was unable to due to having school in the morning. This is because Bennett is only 15 and is in the middle of studying for his GCSEs.

Despite their young starlet Derby lost the game 2-0, although Bennett did hit the woodwork. A few inches lower and he could have made history. As it is, at 15 years and 95 days old, he’ll have to settle for being the second-youngest Football League player – leapfrogging Wrexham’s Ken Roberts and Bristol Rovers’ Albert Geldard, who are both tied at 15 years and 158 days old.

Playing schoolboys is a comparatively new phenomenon though, you don’t have to look that far back in the football history books to find who holds the number one spot. In fact, it was only three years ago that Barnsley decided to rewrite the record books by naming Reuben Noble-Lazarus in their squad to face Ipswich Town. Aged just 15 years and 45 days old, Noble-Lazarus was barely into his 15th year on the planet, when he was introduced to life as a professional footballer.

With Mason Bennett and Reuben Noble-Lazarus as examples, it doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to picture the image of a footballer younger than 15-years-old, strutting their stuff in the English Football League. Managers will have to ensure that it’s either a weekend kick-off or the school holidays though, because a note reading ‘I wasn’t in yesterday as I had Carlisle away’ may not go down well.

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