He made his debut for Wales, helped his Grandad earn a cool £125,000 and scored a couple of belters for the Liverpool under-18 side; it hasn’t been a bad few days for Harry Wilson.
The 16-year old made the headlines last week after becoming the youngest ever player to play for Wales at 16 years and 203 days old when he came on against Belgium, a feat that commanded even more attention than usual because of the fact that it helped his Grandad Peter Edwards pocket £125,000, having made a £50 bet that he would play for Wales when Harry was only a toddler.
Edwards actually tried to make a similar bet with the same bookmaker (William Hill) when Wilson was in the Liverpool academy as a 12-year old but the bookmaker sensibly refused on the basis that he had already made a bet and that his grandson was well on his way up the ranks at that stage.
Edwards, who was able to retire from work a year early because of the windfall, was obviously convinced that the boy was a bit special from an early age and the signs that he could go on to become the next big thing from Wales are certainly encouraging.
For one, making their international debut at a ridiculously young age did Gareth Bale (16 years, 315 days) and Ryan Giggs (17 years, 321 days) no harm, even if by playing him last week, Wales were also ensuring that he couldn’t declare for England, where his Grandmother was born.
Regardless of the reasons behind it, Wilson’s international debut was bound to come sooner rather than later because he has been making waves at the Liverpool academy for some time since signing for the club in 2005.
The fact that he is predominantly left-footed with bags of pace means that comparisons with Giggs and Bale will be inevitable but his performance for Liverpool under-18 against Blackburn earlier this week did nothing to discourage them, as he scored a brace and set up another with some devastating attacking play that the Blackburn defence simply couldn’t live with.
With all due respect to Wales, Liverpool have far greater resources available to them right now so a senior debut at club level might have to wait for some time yet; it should be remembered that Wilson was born in 1997 and if that doesn’t make the vast majority of our readers feel old, we don’t know what will.
That said, Raheem Sterling was given a chance not long after his 17th birthday and Liverpool have never been slow to encourage the progress of young players so Wilson’s promotion to the senior ranks might not be that far away after all.
Besides, with all the talk surrounding a young and prodigious left-footer at Manchester United at the moment, the Reds might be keen to show that they have one of their own ready to make an impact at the highest level.
It seems likely that we’ll eventually be hearing his name on a more regular basis and if we were betting men, we’d wager that it will be sooner rather than later.
