At 16 you joined Crewe’s youth academy, a club renowned for producing talents like David Platt and Danny Murphy. How did that come about?
I was playing for my county when [current England assistant manager] Steve Holland scouted me and invited me up to Crewe. The coaching looked very professional and there were first-team players milling about. That definitely caught my eye and made me feel like I was at a special place.
You were linked with Manchester United and Liverpool. How firm was the interest from those two giants?
To me it was paper talk and the club would always play everything down. They’d tell me that nobody was interested, but I was even linked with Juventus at one point. My mum cut out and kept that story. It was all part of being a Crewe graduate, as they’d
