At the age of 15, the Merseyside prodigy who played alongside Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher was England's top scorer for the England under-16 team in the 1993-94 season.
Jamie Cassidy had the footballing world at his feet and was living every football fan's dream - today he was jailed for 13 years for running a cocaine empire.
Only a handful became Premier League regulars with the rest playing at a lower level or dropping out of professional football completely. Some became physios others went into banking and construction. One is a senior clerk in a barristers' chambers. Smiling at the camera, chest puffed out in his England shirt, there was no clue then that he would go from a young talent with seemingly boundless potential to a dangerous drug dealer.
Tragically, one of their number, Michael Millett, would go on to lose his life within a year of the team photo being taken. The England left-sided player was being chased by most of the top clubs in the country but plumped for Alex Fergusons's Manchester United. He was a hero for his local club in Suffolk but moved to Arsenal as a rival for David Seaman - but he never hit the heights expected.He later moved to Manchester City where he remained on the books of Manchester City for four years, but never made a first-team appearance. He then stayed on as a coach.He begin his career as an apprentice with United and turned professional in 1996. He remained at Old Trafford until being released on a free transfer in 2001 - but never played for the team.
Prosecutor Richard Wright KC said Cassidy played a 'managerial role,' receiving a wage from the 'business' which was run by his older brother, Jonathan, 50, and his associate Nasar Ahmed, 51. Outlining his client's fall from grace, Mr Greaney told the court: 'Jamie Cassidy was a footballer of exceptional talent and promise. He was signed by Liverpool at the age of nine. With Jamie Carragher he was awarded one of 16 places at the FA Centre of Excellence.
How a Liverpool prodigy once picked over Steven Gerrard swamped Britain's streets with cocaine: Inside the dramatic rise and fall of 'certain future international' Jamie Cassidy who turned to organised crime when injury left his football career in tattersIt is an academy famed for producing some of England's most talented players of recent times.
At the age of 15, Cassidy was the leading scorer for the England under-16 team in the 1993-94 season with six goals, including three in the European under-16 championships.A few years later he, alongside teammates Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen, was a key player of the Liverpool team that won the club's first FA Youth Cup with a 4-1 win over two legs against a famously good West Ham team, featuring Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard.
Cassidy's life took a different path. This week, now 46, he has been jailed for being involved in an industrial scale importation of cocaine from South America to Europe. From the Netherlands the drugs would be hidden in modified vehicles and brought to Liverpool, where Jamie would distribute it to associates across England and Scotland.
Despite joining the Liverpool Academy aged 12, his career began to take a downward turn after a series of injuries.Jamie Carragher, who became a Liverpool defensive legend with 508 first-team appearances from 1996 to 2013 is just two months younger than Jamie. In his 2008 autobiography he said Cassidy would have been a 'would have been a certain Liverpool regular if he hadn't suffered so much with injuries'.
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