My first memory of football was probably playing with a ball in my Nan's front room, which at the time felt massive. It was a very busy household and there was always someone to play with. As I grew up I began playing with my friends in the park before Everton signed me when I was six.
I also enjoyed athletics as a kid and I only remember getting beat once - and that was when I fell! I was running 11.5 seconds for the 100M by the time I was 13. I eventually had to choose between rugby union, football and athletics. I was a good rugby union player and was a winger, it was a difficult decision to stop playing but I just enjoyed playing football more.
I enjoyed a fantastic time in the Everton Youth Academy and was voted by my fellow team mates as the under-16s Player of the Season in 2004. In the following season I scored a number of goals at reserve level prompting my manager David Moyes, to draft me into the first team.
At the age of 16, my first goal for the Toffees followed shortly entering me into the record books as the youngest ever goal scorer in the Premier League, beating the previous record held by James Milner by 86 days.
It was a crazy experience. i had been on the bench a few times before the game and because of my age there had been a lot of fuss about when I would make my debut and score my first goal. The game itself was against Crystal Palace and at the time we were three goals up, so it was a good game to come on in to. I ended up getting a goal and all the commotion that followed was unbelievable. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and thinking was that real?
My form continued to blossom and after doing well at under-19 level I was called up by Stuart Pearce for the under-21s
My debut, when I was 18, was in the European Championships against Italy and I came on for ten minutes at the end of the game. I was very young at the time, probably one of the youngest in the squad, but it was a great experience and a very proud moment of my career.
This memory was shared as part of the Huddersfield Town v Derby County npower Championship match on 15th September. The Football Memories match raising awareness of dementia.http://www.htafc.com/news/article/club-news-dementia-match-364516.aspx
Memory added on September 17, 2012
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