How Liverpool got their hands on a tiny teenager from QPR's academy
How Liverpool got their hands on a tiny teenager from QPR's academyMark Anderson was driving into Eastbourne Borough FC’s Priory Lane office thinking about the letter that changed his life.
“My brother needs to take quite a bit of credit for Raheem,” Anderson says as we sit in the quiet corner of The Sports Bar & Grill next to Eastbourne’s stadium. “When I get that feeling I would gamble my house on it, I would climb the highest mountain, I would swim the ocean.”“We build dossiers and write reports and sometimes you don’t hear anything at all. In the system there’s millions of reports on players, but not a lot get looked at.Anderson was sitting in his office not long afterwards when McParland, Liverpool’s academy director, called and said Sterling was about to sign for them.
“I didn’t find him as a young kid, but I found him at that age and was happy to put my neck on the line and say sign this player, do whatever you’ve got to do, he’s 100 per cent for me. Anderson decided to leave Manchester United – “one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in life and football” – and after a brief spell talent spotting for an agency went to work for a hospice as a manager.
Unperturbed, Anderson has thrown himself in the job, his official title head of recruitment but operating more like a director of football. He is overseeing the recruitment not only of players but staff, coaches and physios.
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