Quote Originally Posted by J R Hartley View Post
Exactly. I dont mind Jordan actually, he doesnt sit on the fence like some pundits, but the likes of him have no empathy with council estate kids. He was brought up in a leafy suburb in London and his old man had a few quid. He wouldnt understand the struggles of someone like Morrison, or Rashfrord, Sterling,etc.

When I was younger a boy I knew from the Gellidaeg estate got invited down to Swansea for a weeks trial when he was 16. Never turned up. Everyone call him a waste of space, how could he pass that chance up.etc but the truth was he had no father, his mother was struggling and quite simply they couldnt afford the bus fare to get him down to Swansea every day. Hes dead now too, the drugs had him. Had he been able to go for the trial who knows how his life would have turned out.
I'm lucky in that I had a good, settled upbringing, have never been into drugs and wasn't too much into drink at the age of sixteen. Yet, with all of these advantages, I think I would have found the thought of a week's trial at a club, even one as close as Swansea where I could, presumably, come home every night, something of an ordeal and I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have been able to do myself justice when it came to football.

Thinking about Craig Bellamy, the very fact he was able to cope with a move to Norwich (I've been there once and it took almost as long to get there as it did when I went to Edinburgh!) at sixteen tells you he had every chance of making it even if he hadn't been born with the talent he had.

It's hard to see how Morrison will suddenly become the player he could be (although he's still only twenty eight, so I suppose there's a slight chance he could do) and, if he doesn't, he's going to spend the second half of his life thinking of all of the opportunities he missed - that will be bad enough for him, he hardly needs others hammering home something that he must already know himself.