‘Jesus, we need a 14-year-old to come on and create chances,” Robert Cornwall remembers thinking as he recalls the night Evan Ferguson made his Bohemians debut in a friendly against Chelsea. The schoolboy striker’s impact came as little surprise to teammates such as Cornwall but it was not good for their ego to be outdone by someone about half their age.
Just over four years on, Ferguson has become one of the Premier League’s most exciting prospects. A hat-trick for Brighton against Newcastle in September confirmed his status and after scoring last Sunday against Fulham the 19-year-old will be hoping to add to his tally at Everton on Saturday, having scored there in a 4-1 win last season against a side managed, as on his debut, by Frank Lampard.
It was a big day when Bohemians welcomed Lampard’s Chelsea to Dalymount Park, allowing fans to see one of the Premier League’s elite sides up close. It looked as if Chelsea would secure victory through a Michy Batshuayi goal but the Bohemians manager at the time, Keith Long, had an ace up his sleeve and brought on Ferguson with just over 20 minutes to go. “The mood changed from, ‘We have a big friendly against Chelsea’ to ‘Who is Evan Ferguson?’” Cornwall says. “He ran the show.”
Ferguson dummied the ball to help Eric Molloy to equalise late on, a sign of the intelligence he offered despite his age. Cornwall and his teammates had witnessed for a while what Ferguson could do in training.
“Our manager was very good at bringing up young lads,” Cornwall says. “He was a familiar face. I think he was 13 or 14 and he’d been brought in on a recovery day for passing drills but everyone was talking about him. Then he came up more regularly when he was 14 and was training with us. The size of him when he was 14 … he was the same size as me, 6ft, but a little bit skinnier. He was a man even when he was 14.
“When he could hold his own, he got into the team and it all went from there. He got his debut and was training with us constantly and holding his own, which was a bit mad.”
The journey from being a promising talent to Premier League starter has been a short one. He moved to Brighton aged 16 and soon made his competitive debut in a League Cup victory over Cardiff. Last season was his real breakthrough, making 19 league appearances and scoring six goals, and his debut for the Republic of Ireland.
Cornwall, as a centre-back, should in theory have had the job of teaching Ferguson how to cope with the rigours of coming up against senior professionals. It did not quite work out that way. “After he signed to leave, a couple of the lads were doing interviews about him and they were saying I was one of the stronger players on the team as a centre-half, and it was one of my attributes, and they were saying I used to get bounced off and put on my arse by Evan,” Cornwall says.
“The thing that caught me was when we were training and doing small-sided games, it was his movement. He kept checking his runs, going to the back post and when the ball came in, he was in front of me all the time.
“He kept going front post, so the next time I thought I’d go there and use my body, so he naturally went back post and I just couldn’t get him. I said to him: ‘Ev, your movement is unbelievable, keep doing it.’ I thought it would have been an easy training session against a 14-year-old but the movement was the main thing, but then you saw the finishing, left foot, right foot, everything was a snapshot, always challenging the goalkeeper by going bottom corner. I was just shocked by how developed he was at that age.”
Ferguson made four competitive appearances for Bohemians but everyone knew he would not be there for long. The Premier League was the natural next step for a player who rejected plenty of offers before deciding Brighton was the right place to progress. Ferguson’s footballing father, Barry, started his career at Coventry but spent much of it at home in Ireland, and kept his son’s feet on the ground while the noise went on around him.
“There was a bit of stick for the club at the time saying a 14-year‑old shouldn’t be training with the first team or in the dressing room with a bunch of adults, but it wasn’t like that at all because he was so level‑headed and so calm,” Cornwall says. “When he came training with us, he never had the attitude of being the big dog, he just came with a positive attitude and put his head down to work and show his talent, that has helped him go so far.”
Fears Ferguson would become a “big-time Charlie” and forget about his Bohemians roots were unfounded. He still keeps in touch and those who were there on that night against Chelsea are unlikely to forget it.
