I’VE LOVED sport all of my life. Growing up, I wanted to play sport at an early age.

When I was six or seven years old, my father played footy, but there wasn’t an Auskick back then. I wanted to play, so I played soccer and that’s when I started playing team sports.

I played soccer in the winter and then cricket in the summer.

That continued through my primary and high school years.

But where did football fit into this?

Footy didn’t really come into the equation until I nearly left high school.

When I started making representative sides in cricket and soccer, I used to travel across the mainland - and even overseas. I played soccer in New Zealand for example.

At 13 or 14 years old, I started making state sides. From there I played in under 14s, 15s, 16s and 17s cricket and soccer sides.

With cricket, I played in the state under-15 team and got picked to play for Australia. I played in the under-15 World Cup team and traveled to England.

I captained the under-15 Australian team and really started to think seriously about my cricket. At that time, I was also OK at soccer and started making representative sides.

I played senior state-league soccer against men at 15. I played for Launceston and Georgetown. I started going all right at that and I made representative sides.

I was in Sydney playing in an under-15 national championship when a talent scout from Manchester United approached my coach.

That’s when Manchester United asked me to go over and trial with it.

Although I said ‘yes’, Mum and Dad didn’t come over with me.

So as a 15-year-old, I was a raw kid leaving home. I was in grade 10 at the time.

It was January, 1996 when I went over. I flew over the other side of the world by myself.

I was greeted by a guide with a sign saying ‘Brad Green’ and the first thing that I did when I stepped off the plane was head to ‘The Cliff’ (Manchester United’s old training ground).

The first thing I did when I walked through the door was head into Alex Ferguson’s office. So I’ve traveled across the other side of the world and the first thing I’ve done is meet Sir Alex - as he’s known now!

We sat there and had a chat for five minutes. He found out where I was from and asked questions about Tasmania, yet he would’ve had thousands of kids come in over the years and do that.

It really struck a chord with me that the first thing you do is meet Alex Ferguson - and just spend five minutes with him.

I got to trail out with Manchester United’s youth team.

It starts with under nines, under 12s, 14s and 16s, then youth and senior sides.

I was trialing with its youth team, so I had nothing to do with the seniors and reserves as such.

I was training with the youth team for about two months and got billeted out and was staying with another young guy. I did everything they did. It was full-time.

They had 15 or 16-year-olds playing soccer full-time and going to school on a Thursday. That’s what they did. It’s like being an AFL player. So it was an eye-opener and it’s like a traineeship.

I would walk in at 7.30am and head to the cafeteria, along with the seniors and reserves players. So the likes of David Beckham, Gary Pallister, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Peter Schmeichel were there in ’96.

I shook their hands and I remember shaking their hands and having no conversation with them. I was in awe of them, yet I was a metre away from them.

As part of your traineeship, you would clear away their cutlery, because it was part of the youth team’s responsibility to clean up their dishes and wash them.

You would also clean their change rooms.

So the seniors would have their own change rooms, as would the reserves and youths. And you had to make sure it was tidy.

At the end of each day, you had to make sure everything was clean, including their boots.

It was a traineeship that even the likes of Beckham and Scholes would’ve done.

The training facilities included an indoor and outdoor pitch for when it snowed.

The set-up was amazing and in some ways I took it for granted.

Overall, I trained every day and played a few trail games.

Basically after two months, I was told I was an OK player, but not any better than a local player. Effectively, it was cheaper to have a local English boy, rather than me.|

They also didn’t know if I would make it at the highest level.

I was then sent to a club called Walsall, which is a feeder club to Manchester United.

I spent three to four weeks there and by this stage it was about two and a half months that I had been away from home.

It was akin to being at the Melbourne Football Club and then being sent to a local club.

As a 15-year-old, I went from comfortable surroundings to being really home sick.

They were different clubs and had different structures.

After three weeks, I was really home sick, but Walsall sat me down and said they wanted to offer me a contract.

I was on the phone to Mum and Dad and said: ‘I want to come home, I’ve had enough’.

Dad said he would come over and help me stick it out, but I was adamant I wanted to come home and finish school.

I wanted to come back and finish year 11 and 12.

I thought if I still love soccer enough I’ll give it a go after I finish school. I also thought if I don’t finish school and don’t make it over here, then what I am going to do?

Manchester United and Walsall were really good and nice about it.

So in the end, that was it. Walsall offered me a contract as a youth player and I turned it down.

To be continued ...