It's good to see that Ronnie Wallwork is recovering from his stabbing incident. For those of you who didn't hear, last month by Ronnie Rimmer after a night out in downtown Manchester. I haven't seen much more news about Rimmer other than he is 20 years old. And since the attack seems to be unprovoked ( e.g. they didn't get in a shouting match, it wasn't a botched robbery) I wonder if he's not suffering from one or more mental illnesses. It's commmon for many of them to not manifest themselves until people reach their early 20s.
As for Wallwork he was hurt pretty badly after being stabbed in the hand, stomach and back. At the time he was on loan at Barnsley from West Bromwich Albion (both in England's 2nd division, the Coca-Cola Championship). It's good to see that he's recovering. It would be wonderful to see him step out onto the pitch and play again before the season is over.
Seeing Wallwork in the news isn't something that happens often. When I chat with people and they're gushing over some young player, Wallwork is one of the players I point out to them. Granted no one ever though Wallwork would be another Roy Keane or even Nicky Butt. But like many young players that are breaking into the first team a bit, especially at a massive club like Manchester United, people get pretty excited about them and assume they're destined to be at least solid first team players in the premeirship (or whatever top division league is involved). But I'll point out to them a few ex-ManU youth players that showed some promise. Terry Cooke and Jovan Kirovski (IIRC led the ManU reserves or reserve league in scoring one year as a player) are with the Colorado Rapids of the MLS. Danny Higginbotham was sold to Derby, then Southampton and now Stoke. Ronnie Wallwork was loaned out a few times before joining WBA on a free with West Brom loaning him out to Bradford City and Barnsley (he was on loan with Barnsley at the time of the stabbing). Jonathan Greening joined ManU as a promising 19 year old but a couple years later was sold to Middlebrough and then later to WBA. Or to look at non-ex-ManUtd player, look at Kevin Davies. Blackburn spent £7.5m to buy him from Southampton when he was 21. Within 2 years Rovers thought so little of him they were willing to sell him back to Southampton for nothing, only asking for Egil Ostenstand in return. Saints later loaned him out to Milwall and let him go on a free. Luckily for Davies he was able to make something of himself with Bolton since then.
The point of this is not to rain on people's parades. It's not to say they should never get excited over young, upcoming players. But it's just to add a bit of perspective to the situation and that while making it in the Championship or a lower table prem team is not being a superstar, it's still a success for players just to make it. For every Wallwork that's still around just fighting for a place in the colaship, there are 3 Joe Smith's that saw the first team and went on to play non-league while working as bricklayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment