Aaron Cresswell has been talking about his early days in the game and it’s clear he didn’t have things easy.
He has recalled being released by the Liverpool’s academy side at just 15 years old before going back to playing for his Sunday league team, which eventually got him spotted by a scout at Tranmere Rovers.
Speaking to The Telegraph about his Anfield departure Cressie said: “My dad told me in the car – I couldn’t get my head around it at first. They pull the parents to one side and tell them, ‘It’s not to be but it’s not the end. I was devastated.
“As a kid, you are in a bubble of playing for Liverpool. It was all I had done for two years and I had enjoyed it so much.
“It wasn’t about a job, or thinking, ‘I won’t make it’. It was about playing for the club I supported. Everyone around me was a Liverpool fan. It was just purely for the love of football.
“My dad said, ‘It is not the end of the world. Go back with your mates. Just play with a smile on your face and enjoy it’. That’s what I did. I went back with the lads.”
“You ask any of the lower-league clubs and it’s all about discipline,” Cresswell said of his time at Tranmere and later Ipswich.
“I think that is why, when you see the young kids getting released from the big clubs, they don’t realise how hard it is to go into the lower leagues. It doesn’t get easier.
“The kids that go there have never seen anything like it. You don’t get your kit cleaned. You have to do things for yourself.
“It shows a bit of respect to the senior players and gives you a grounding. When you come to train with them, you feel like it’s a privilege. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Now after a tough climb to the top the 2015 Hammer of the Year is hoping and praying for an England start on Friday night against Scotland and said:” “I just want to enjoy the experience and do my best in training and, if I can do that, then I hope I can achieve my dream of pulling on an England shirt, which is what I’ve wanted to do ever since I started playing football as a little kid in Liverpool.”