Six years ago Curtis Anderson helped England win the Under-17s World Cup – now he works as a financial advisor.
Anderson was the goalkeeper for the Young Lions when they came from 2-0 down against Spain to win 5-2 in Kolkata, India in October 2017. Back then he was a Manchester City academy player and was close friends with Phil Foden, who scored twice in the final to win the man of the match award.
That squad, which was led by Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper, also contained Chelsea duo Conor Gallagher and Callum Hudson-Odoi, Arsenal ’s Emile Smith Rowe, Crystal Palace ’s Marc Guehi, Manchester United's Jadon Sancho and Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White. But while those players and many others have gone on to have successful careers in football, Anderson has faded from view.
Now 22, Anderson was released by the seventh-tier, semi-professional club Lancaster City this summer. He now works as a financial advisor and is pondering his next step in football.
Speaking to The Times, Anderson has explained why he went from earning £100,000 a year as Man City’s third-choice goalkeeper to dropping down the leagues. “I went from loving football, ages eight to 18, to thinking, ‘This isn’t what I thought it was’,” he said.
Anderson was doing well while at City, where he played with up-and-coming stars like Foden and Sancho and managed to catch the eye of Pep Guardiola. But looking back now he believes his downfall started when he decided to leave City midway through the final year of his contract.
The idea was to sign for Blackburn Rovers in the January transfer window, but the move failed to materialise. Instead he went over the Atlantic to join second-tier US side Charlotte Independence in 2019. The manager he’d signed for, Jim McGuinness, was sacked within three months of his arrival and things did not work out.
He next signed for Wycombe Wanderers, but again things didn’t go to plan. He was sent out on loan to Walton Casuals and Eastbourne Borough before leaving last January.
Anderson moved back up north to join Lancaster, be near his family and live with his girlfriend. It was while playing for Lancaster that he started working at a small financial advisory firm.
He has now left Lancaster and, while he is considering what to do next in terms of football, Anderson is happy to have some stability in life. He prefers to take a glass half full view of his career, although watching the World Cup was difficult, with so many of his former team-mates on show.
“You could look at it and say it’s quite sad, up and down, it’s not great,” he said. “But at the same time, whether you put it down to luck or not, I grew up with Phil Foden, who’s won the Premier League five times – he’s the same age as me.
“Whether it’s unlucky, unfortunate, wrong decisions here or there, people not helping, whatever you want to call it, it’s not great. I sometimes struggle with how I feel about it.”
