Jack Christian Rodwell was born on the 11th of March 1991 in Southport, Merseyside and played for local club Birkdale United during his school years before joining his boyhood club Everton's youth system at age seven. He made his under-18s debut at 14 and his debut for Everton's reserve team at the age of 15. At youth level, he started out as having the potential to become a top centre back early in his professional career, but was primarily deployed as a defensive midfielder once in the senior team. After Wayne Rooney, people had begun speaking in hushed tones about this promising teenager. Jack broke a record on his senior debut becoming the youngest player to represent Everton in Europe, when he came on as a substitute against Dutch team AZ at the age of 16 years and 284 days, as the club won 3–2. Opportunities after that were rare, but he did come on as a sub for the last few minutes at Sunderland to register his official debut in the Premier League and, when he turned 17, he was able to sign his first professional contract, a 2-year deal on the 17th of March 2008, after spending six years in the reserve team. Held in high regard by many, he showed enormous promise for the future, as a defender or midfield player, but his development appeared to slow after he turned 18. In July 2010, despite intense speculation that he would move to Chelsea or Manchester United, Jack gave Everton fans a massive boost when he signed up for another five years at Goodison Park. With great things expected of him, season 2010-11 didn't go according to plan when he picked up an early injury that kept him sidelined for almost two months followed by two more months on the subs' bench, and he just never got going properly after that. Regaining his fitness, he started to figure with some regularity as David Moyes began to rebuild his team but his resumed progress was stalled again in the 2011-12 campaign, first when an over-zealous Martin Atkinson wrongly showed him a straight red card for a fair challenge on Louis Suarez in the Goodison derby, and then by a succession of frustrating hamstring injuries that severely disrupted his season. However he had done enough to convince then manager Fabio Capello to hand him his full international debut in a rare England win against Spain and he appeared destined to play for Team GB in the London Olympics as he helped spearhead the marketing campaign for the re-formed Great Britain team. With the 2012-13 campaign less than a week away, in August 2012, he signed a five-year contract with Manchester City for a fee of £12 million, which could rise to £15 million. Upon joining the club, he said: "I relish the opportunity of playing with some of the best players in the world and continuing my development." This move to Man City would prove to be premature, ill-advised and disrupted by injuries as, in the subsequent seven seasons, he would go on to claim an unwanted record for most Premier League games without a win, suffered relegation, and trialled unsuccessfully in MLS and at Roma..
After making just five Premier League appearances for Manchester City during the 2013-14 season, he accepted a £10m ($13m) transfer to Sunderland as he went in search of regular game time, but struggled to impress at the Stadium of Light. He became the poster boy of the Black Cats' financial carnage as the Netflix fly-on-the-wall documentary 'Sunderland Till I Die' depicted the repeated attempts made by hapless executives to offload Rodwell and his £70,000-per-week salary. Having been depicted as one of the villains of the piece, Rodwell was unsurprisingly irked by the perception that he was both greedy and lazy, unwilling to do anything at the club other than collect his hefty pay packet. He said, "I feel like I got made a scapegoat without doing anything wrong, really. I was ready to play but, for whatever reason, I wasn’t ever picked, things like that happen in football." His Sunderland contract was cancelled in June 2018 and he would go on to trial unsuccessfully with Watford before Everton allowed him to train with the Under-23s under David Unsworth. Further spells followed at Blackburn Rovers, where he played more than 20 games, and Sheffield United, where he played only three games across 18 Covid-ravaged months before he was released by the Blades in 2021.
Still only 30 in late 2021, after not playing for 16 months, he took up a new challenge, moving to Australia with his Australian wife and son, saying: "Physically, when I’m fit, I'm a young 30. I haven't actually got loads of miles on the clock and I can carry on. The chance for Australia came up and we made the decision as a family". On the 18th of November 2021, Australian A-League club Western Sydney Wanderers announced Rodwell had signed for the club on a one-year deal after training with them for two weeks. He was then named as captain of the A-League All-Stars team in a friendly with Barcelona in May2022 before signing for Sydney FC in August 2022 on a two-year contract. with the Sky Blues although his first season with the club twas beset by constant reoccurring injuries,
Jack Rodwell would, in all likelihood, have spent the summer before leaving Everton playing in two major tournaments – the 2012 European Championship and subsequent Olympic Games – but for the onset of the hamstring problems that would plague one of the most naturally-gifted English ball players of a generation throughout his career. His career decline has arguably become the Premier League's ultimate 'what might have been' tale as between 2013 and 2017, he went 39 league matches without a win – a record streak of 1370 days.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/06/footballs-nearly-men-robin-friday.html
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