Adrian Doherty was born on the 10th of June 1973 in Strabane, Northern Ireland the son of Geraldine and Jimmy Doherty, a former footballer himself. In 1986 he turned out for a Derry U14 representative side against Dublin’s top junior club Home Farm in a game that took place at the Brandywell before a friendly between the Candystripes and Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. With his dad Jimmy, a former Derry City winger, among a large crowd, Doherty junior put on a scintillating display and scored both goals in the 2-0 defeat of the all-conquering Dublin outfit who, up to then, had reputedly gone 50 games unbeaten. Clough’s assistant at that time was former Derry City player Liam O’Kane who set up the trial at which Adrian impressed. However, by this stage, Adrian was playing for the highly-respected Moorfield Boys Club in the city and while turning out in a game for them his performance impressed Arsenal’s Northern Ireland talent scout John Dillon. Trials at Highbury, and a follow-up approach to his dad Jimmy from Pat Rice, took Adrian to the brink of signing for the London club, but Moorfield manager Matt Bradley, a Manchester United fan, made it his business to let United's Irish scout know that the club would be crazy to miss out on a rare gem. A subsequent visit to a game in Cookstown, where Adrian was playing for Derry and District, by United scout Eddie Coulter took only 10 minutes before Adrian's talent was acknowledged and in August 1987, alongside the future successful manager Brendan Rodgers, he was invited to attend a trial. After ticking all the boxes during his trial at Old Trafford, the start of a new life in England began. Bradley has since said that Adrian was "the best young player that I have ever seen in Ireland in over 30 years of coaching and scouting."
Adrian though is the player nobody mentions when they talk of that group at Manchester United 'Class of '92'. He was on the opposite wing to Ryan Giggs and for a while Alex Ferguson and his coaching staff wondered whether he was actually the better player. He was "One of the fastest wingers many people have ever seen." according to Tony Park, co-author of 'Sons of United', a history of the club’s youth team. "The United scouts said he 'could catch pigeons' he was that quick."
Brendan Rodgers who played with him at Manchester United at schoolboy level has said, "Speak to Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, the Nevilles, they will all tell you he was the best player they ever played with at that level." Ryan Giggs has said that Adrian, at 14 or 15, was probably the most talented player in Britain, and the Strabane youngster was Sir Alex Ferguson's ideal player, adding: "Doc just didn't upset the manager. Being the type of player he was, a winger who was unpredictable and took risks, you would expect him to lose the ball from time to time, but honestly he would lose it very rarely. He was a freak. He was incredible." Gary Neville has also said that he was the best player he ever played with.
Adrian was also very gifted in music, was a writer, a poet and a very shy young man. He did not really follow football, preferring to write poems and the Bob Dylan lover would sometimes turn up to training carrying his guitar.
David Meek, the Manchester Evening News journalist wrote at that time: "Behind the scenes Doherty is tipped to make the kind of impact not seen since George Best was given his chance. Alex Ferguson is being urged by his back-room staff to play the boy from Belfast. His speed and skill have been a revelation in training. Doherty, a first-year trainee, is immensely shy but plays with courage to match his ability. He is a winger who can dribble at top speed and can shoot with either foot."
Tipped to make his first team debut against Everton, he endured a devastating blow in an 'A' team match against Carlisle United in February 1991 in which he suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury. It was a setback he could never quite overcome. It took several months to recover from the initial injury however, in a cruel twist, his knee gave up on him again in his comeback. He didn’t play much more for Manchester United after that with injury robbing him of the opportunity of footballing stardom and effectively ending his career. Although he played a couple of matches for Derry City, his heart wasn't in it and after a spell in Preston working in a chocolate factory Adrian moved to Holland and took a job with a furniture firm. His family were upset with how Manchester United handled Adrian, feeling that they could have done more to help and support him. One morning on his way to work in the furniture factory in the Netherlands he tripped and fell into a canal. He was pulled out by the emergency services but slipped into a coma. He would never wake up. On the 9th of June, 2000, a day short of his 27th birthday, Adrian Doherty died in a hospital at The Hague with his family at his bedside.
Oliver Kay's magnificently researched and superbly crafted book, 'Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty, Football's Lost Genius', is part affectionate and uplifting profile, part heartbreaking tragedy wrought from a career that promised so much, but delivered so little - thanks primarily, but not only, to injury.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/04/footballs-nearly-men-bojan-krkic.html
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