The other side of the football crown ...

I found this on soccernet. I thought those who
remember him might be interested.

'Wonderkid' whose dream turned sour
By Carl Marsden

After being hailed as a 'wonderkid' way back in 1985,
Wayne Harrison's footballing fairytale quickly turned
from dream to nightmare.

Liverpool surprised many when they made striker
Harrison the most expensive teenager in world football
that year.

The Anfield side shelled out £250,000 for the services
of a 17-year-old who had made just two first-team
appearances for Second Division Oldham Athletic.

By rights, Harrison would now be coming to the end of
a glittering career with a healthy hoard of medals and
international caps. His pace and exceptional finishing
skills should have made him a household name.

But he was ultimately destined to make just one senior
appearance for Liverpool. And although the club showed
their faith by renewing his playing contract three
times, countless injuries, operations and lay-offs -
including one near-death experience - conspired to
produce a cruel outcome for player and club.

In 1991, Harrison was forced to retire after a
luckless journey from the brink of fame to despair.

'My transfer to Liverpool was signed and sealed really
quickly,' he recalls. 'I was very young and not even
interested in what the contract said. I supported
Liverpool as a kid - Dalglish and Keegan were my
idols, so it was a dream come true.'

Everything Harrison touched at that time seemed to
turn to goals. He had already scored 35 times for
Oldham's reserve and junior sides, progressing to
first-team level just five months after signing
schoolboy forms.

At the age of 16, he became the youngest first-team
player in the Boundary Park club's history, fuelling
paper talk of a big-money move.

Athletic's youth team coach at the time, Billy Urmson,
still raves about Harrison.

'We went to play Hull City's reserve side one day and
had only one senior pro in the side,' he says. 'Not
surprisingly, we lost 8-1 - but Wayne typically got
his goal, from nowhere. He was that type of player - a
quality finisher.'

Liverpool's interest in the youngster grew after he
tore them apart in an FA Youth Cup tie at Anfield.

'Wayne was simply unbelievable,' Urmson remembers. 'We
won 4-0 - we were 3-0 up after half an hour - and
Wayne scored twice. It was no surprise that they
followed up their interest pretty much straight away.'


Athletic's manager of the time, Joe Royle, was
reluctant to lose the player but had little choice.

'We were very much in a sell-to-survive situation,' he
says. 'Almost every big club in the country made
enquiries about Wayne. Although it took a long time
for him to settle, there were strong signs that he was
about to break through when tragedy struck.'

The youngster's Liverpool career was dogged by
injuries and misfortune, typified by an incident when
the reserve side went on a pre-season tour in the
south of England.

Harrison fell through greenhouse glass, cutting veins
in his arms. With ambulance services in the area on
strike at the time, he almost died from loss of blood
before a replacement army service could rush him to
hospital.

Harrison says: 'I have had 23 football-related
operations altogether - 12 of those were on the knee
that caused me to quit. Before that, I had a double
hernia, groin problems, cartilage on my knee and a
sore shoulder.

'Then I had started to string together a great run of
form for the reserves when the big injury that ended
my career struck.'

That fatal blow came in a game against Bradford City
reserves in May 1990. It was the final game of a
season in which Harrison appeared to be finally
putting injury woes behind him and reproducing the
form that had led to his dream transfer.

Not surprisingly, he can remember the incident as
though it had happened yesterday.

'It was just a high tackle from the goalkeeper,' he
recalls. 'He caught me at full pelt and I didn't see
him coming at all. I was running at full speed, trying
to latch onto the ball, and he just caught me.

'I remember feeling really physically sick, especially
when I tried to get on my feet. It was so painful.'

After the first operation on the joint, Harrison's
knee was never the same - he had irreparably damaged
cruciate and medial ligaments.

He says: 'It still gives me jip to this day and seems
to get steadily worse every year - especially as
winter and the colder weather sets in.'

Eventually, in 1991, the day Harrison had feared
arrived. 'Graeme Souness asked to see me and basically
told me the doctors had said they didn't think that I
should play again,' he says.

? Wayne Harrison
'I was utterly devastated - I was only 22 and my head
was in a real spin. I had to have further operations
on the knee, which got worse over time and, to be
honest, I didn't do much for three or four years.'

The player's plight was alleviated somewhat by a
testimonial game between Oldham and Liverpool in 1992,
but, sadly, Harrison was not even fit enough to turn
out on the field for a token few minutes' appearance.

After being tantalisingly close to a life of luxury
and fame, Harrison is now back in modest surroundings.


He works in his hometown of Stockport as an HGV driver
for Robinson's brewery, but is philosophical about his
former career and what might have been.

'The best way to look at it now is that I don't I
think anything can ever be as bad as it has been,' he
says. 'But I don't feel bitter. I am getting on with
my life again now.'