There’s a famous image on a Liverpool FC training pitch of seven of the Reds’ homegrown talents posing together to commemorate the opening of the Academy in 1998.
Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler had led the way for Liverpool for most of the nineties, as the Reds enjoyed a golden age of youth development.
Dominic Matteo, David Thompson, Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen all followed in the duo’s footsteps, while Steven Gerrard was just bursting onto the scene to complete the septet, with the opening of the Academy supposedly ensuring many more would make the breakthrough.
Yet in truth, it wasn’t until Jurgen Klopp’s arrival at Anfield in 2015 that Liverpool finally started to properly reap the benefits of their youth set-up and regularly see players capable of stepping up and making a long-term impact on the first team.
Sure, there had been some homegrown talent that has broken through in the past two decades under Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers.
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Yet the likes of Neil Mellor, Stephen Warnock, Jay Spearing, Martin Kelly, Jon Flanagan, Andre Wisdom and Jordon Ibe were never around for long. And the one that could have been, Raheem Sterling, swiftly upped sticks for a chance of regular silverware at Man City.
The fact that Matteo, Thompson and Fowler were all sold by Houllier within three years of The Academy opening, following McManaman out of the door after his Bosman switch to Real Madrid, probably wasn’t the best advert for the youth ranks at the time as the Frenchman started to favour overseas talent ahead of the club’s own.
And that was later demonstrated by two transfers in the 2001/02 in particular which annoyed Academy staff and were labelled ‘nonsense’ by Reds legend Carragher.
Gerrard was not alone in stepping up to the first team in 1998, with defender Stephen Wright also joining him at Melwood. And while he understandably hadn’t made the same explosive start as Liverpool’s would-be greatest ever player, there was no reason to believe why he wouldn’t be the next player to cement his senior status after progressing from the youth ranks.
Born in Bootle on this day in 1980, the 42-year-old, who is the son of former Liverpool kitman John Wright, joined the Reds on a youth contract in 1996, spurning the advances of boyhood club Everton, and turned professional the following year.
Impressing on loan at Crewe Alexandra in 1999/00, he was handed his senior Liverpool debut against Stoke City in an 8-0 League Cup win in November 2000.
But after enjoying a breakthrough first half of the season in 01/02, his Reds career ground to a halt following the controversial arrival of Abel Xavier from Everton and he was sold to Sunderland in August 2002 for an initial £1.5m in a deal which could have risen to £3m.
"Stephen is at an age where he has to play regular football," Houllier told the club's official website at the time.
"Going to Sunderland is an opportunity for him to do so. If I was selfish I would have kept him here, but I thought about him and about his career because he is a good lad. I wish him well."
Carragher was not a fan of his former manager’s decision.
“Houllier and Benitez knew they were never going to get someone of his (Gerrard’s) ability every season, but they still had plenty of quality local players to work with,” he insisted in his 2008 autobiography.
“Stephen Wright was one of those who showed promise when he broke into the side, but Houllier later sold him to Sunderland, replacing him with Abel Xavier. I can understand why that annoyed Academy staff.
“Wrighty was one of those who’d give you that extra 10 per cent commitment, and with the right coaching and quality players around him he could have stayed at Liverpool for a lot longer.
“Replacing him with Xavier was nonsense from both a football and business point of view, precisely the kind of decision that has been and is being replicated across England: a promising English youngster makes way for a foreigner with a reputation (not all good) and plenty of experience who’s no better.”
Wright never wanted to leave Liverpool. Originally out of contract in the summer of 2002, he had signed a new three-year deal, much to the delight of interim boss Phil Thompson, only a few months earlier.
"Stephen has done extremely well and I'm very pleased he has signed this deal," Thompson told the club's official website. "We are all very happy with his development. He has come in at a vital time and shown he has a great temperament.
"There were rumours of other clubs but I think that was just scaremongering. I never had any doubt he would sign a new contract with us."
Yet the then 22-year-old chose to reluctantly leave following a conversation with Houllier that summer.
“It wasn’t a decision I wanted to make. I wanted more of it at Liverpool,” he admitted.
“But I became second or third choice and the manager told me Sunderland had put a transfer deal together.”
Yet Houllier seemingly had higher hopes for Wright when first calling him up to first team training along with Gerrard just days after being appointed sole manager.
According to some, it was the defender the Frenchman had earmarked for a potential senior call-up when on a scouting mission to the newly-opened Academy at Kirkby, only for Gerrard to catch his eye.
And while both players would soon get the nod from Houllier, Jamie Redknapp recalled it was the defender who his old boss had referred to as ‘the one’.
“I remember at training one day, Gerard Houllier brought over two young players to join in with the first team,” the former Liverpool captain told The Lockdown Tactics podcast.
“One was Stephen Wright, who went on to have a good career and played for Sunderland, and the other was Stevie, who’d have been 16 or 17 at that time.
“Gerard said he (Wright) was the one. Both of them joined in. Stephen Wright played right-back. Stevie played in the same midfield as me and I think we were up against Paul Ince and Patrick Berger.
“I’ve got the ball, passed to Stevie, hoping he would give me it back and I could ping it out to the left winger, or something.
“But he took the ball in and on the half-turn he just hit this pass, straight through the air and into someone’s feet. And I thought ‘wow, this kid can play’. Just two minutes later, he’s smashed into Paul Ince, and then he is driving past people.
“Gerard Houllier came up to me at the end and asked what I thought of the right-back?
"I said ‘right-back? What about the kid in midfield? He’s unbelievable. He’s in a different class, the best I’ve seen in years. He is a winner’. I said ‘If you can’t see that then you don’t know football’".
It perhaps didn’t help Wright’s chance for first team football that he was following in the likes of Carragher’s and Owen’s footsteps while trying to make his own breakthrough alongside Gerrard.
The duo were called in together by Steve Heighway and Dave Shannon when they were informed Houllier wanted them to report for first team training at Melwood for the first time.
And they were both full of nerves and desperate to make a good impression.
“The two of us were really close and spent a lot of time together off the field,” Gerrard wrote in his 2006 autobiography. “We were both buzzing and could hardly sleep. Me and Wrighty just talked and talked. We felt as if we had made it as pros…
“Going into Melwood that day, I was s******g myself. Wrighty and I arrived ridiculously early.
"Those big steel gates were open, but few cars were inside. We went in, and walked cautiously towards the pavilion. Wrighty and I knew where the dressing room was, but we stood outside it for a few minutes, plucking up courage.
“Eventually, I turned the handle and went in. The room was empty. The kit-man had been in, laying out each player’s training stuff. Wrighty and I looked along the pegs to see if there was any spare kit for us. None. Our hearts dropped.
“F**k it, Wrighty, they don’t know we’re coming,” I said. “S**t,” he said. We felt like trespassers.
“I looked at Wrighty and said, “The first team are going to come in and say, “What the f**k are youse doing here?”
“We were just about to make a break for it when the door opened and the stars began rolling in. Robbie, Macca, Jamie. Thank God for friendly faces. Wrighty and I knew them and they had always been brilliant with us.
““You down here for good now?” said Jamie. “Well done.” Macca laughed. “About bloody time!” Robbie joined in. “Bit late, aren’t you?”
“Wrighty and I relaxed. Maybe they were expecting us after all. “Get your kit, and get in next to me,” said Jamie. Christ, I’ve arrived. I thought, as I sat down next to one of the country’s most famous footballers.
“But then one of the coaches came in and signalled for me and Wrighty to sit down at the far end with all the s***e, the fringe players and the old guys. No pegs, hardly any room.
"We folded our clothes up and bundled them together on the bench. So what? I didn’t care that my spot in the dressing room was cramped. This was it, lift-off, time to train with the first team. Get on with it. Get out there.
“On the training pitch, Gerard called us all together in a circle. He stood in the middle and pointed at me and Wrighty, the new boys. “These lads are here now,” said Gerard. “I have moved them up from the Academy.” That was it! Introductions over. On with training…
“Afterwards, Gerard kept me and Wrighty back. Neither of us had had a proper one-on-one with him yet. This was the first time he had addressed us. “You are here now,” Gerard began. “This is where it starts.
“'We are not happy with how you look. We want you bigger and stronger. You are very thin. Look around the first team dressing room and they are a lot bigger than you. You must get to their level.
“'We are going to put you on a different training regime from them. Don’t complain. Get on with it. If you are told to stay back, or get in early, make sure you do as you told. Eat what we tell you. Drink what we tell you.
"We want you physically ready for the first team. You are not far away.'”
Within a couple of weeks of Houllier being made sole manager, both Gerrard and Wright were named in a Liverpool matchday squad for the first time as the Reds lost 3-1 away to Celta Vigo in the UEFA Cup.
“Wrighty and me were on the plane!” Gerrard wrote in his autobiography. “We had not been at Melwood a month and there we were, checking in for a flight to Spain with the first team!
“...I sat next to Wrighty on the plane and told him, “We are just here to help with the kit. We’ll not get a kick.” Wrighty agreed… I was a kid fresh out of the Academy talking to players who had graced World Cups. Awesome.
“When it came to sorting out hotel rooms, Gerard split me and Wrighty up. I shared with Jamie (Redknapp)... I still didn’t expect to get closer to the pitch than the stands. But then I walked into the dressing room and found a shirt with my name and number on, 28.
"My own shirt. I belonged. I was now part of the fabric of Liverpool FC. It hit me then that I had crossed the threshold into an exclusive new world.
“Gerard named me and Wrighty as subs. European ties allow seven on the bench, so Wrighty and I had our chance. We sat there that night and watched Liverpool being given a lesson in possession.”
The following weekend Liverpool welcomed Blackburn Rovers to Anfield and Gerrard kept his place in the matchday squad. Lift-off, as Houllier had told him, he indeed was not far away.
Yet Wright was not included and he would make just one more matchday squad appearance, for the return leg against Celta Vigo, before finally making his Reds debut two years later.
“My heart went out to Wrighty, who wasn’t included, but privately I was overjoyed for myself. “I have a chance of being on the bench here,” I told myself. Two got left out of the squad, but I was picked among the subs.
"Gerard selected his subs on covering positions and he appreciated I could do a number of jobs: central midfield, right midfield or at right-back.
““The boss must have an idea of putting me on,” I thought.”
Gerrard would indeed make his debut against Blackburn, coming on as an 89th minute substitute for the first of what would be 710 appearances for Liverpool as they ran out 2-0 winners.
While he might have caught Houllier and Redknapp’s eye in training as a central-midfielder, his debut ironically came at right-back, Wright’s own preferred position, as he replaced Vegard Heggem.
“Liverpool won, so the atmosphere was good in the dressing room afterwards. Everyone shook my hand, patted me on the head and gave me hugs,” Gerrard recalled. “Wrighty came over and said, “Well done - you’ve now played for Liverpool.”
“I really appreciated that, because it must have been hard for Wrighty. For all his frustration at not yet getting a game, Wrighty was buzzing for me. Everyone was.”
Wright was Gerrard’s room-mate the following weekend when he found out he would be making his first Liverpool start. He didn’t know it at the time, but again it would come on the right.
“Gerard called me to his room. “Steven, you are starting,” he said,” Gerrard recalled. “My first start! I floated out of Gerard’s room, thinking, “F*****g hell.” I got back to my room, lay down on my bed but never slept a wink.
““I’m so nervous,” I told Wrighty, my room-mate. “I will be up against Allan Nielsen. He’s useful. I was convinced I was starting in the middle so would be facing Nielsen.
“The next morning, Gerard ran through the formation: 3-5-2. “Steven, you’re on the right,” the boss said. The implication sank in like a dead weight. Starting on the right meant one thing: David f*****g Ginola. As we left the meeting room, all the lads said, “Ginola! All the best””
Gerrard would make 13 appearances in 1998/99 before playing 31 times in 1999/00 as Wright left for Crewe on loan.
By the time Wright was handed his own Liverpool debut, as a half-time substitute in an 8-0 win away at Stoke, ironically two years to the day since Gerrard’s own debut, the midfielder had played 60 times for the club and firmly established himself in Houllier’s starting XI.
He would finish the 2000/01 season as a treble-winner, featuring in 50 of the Reds’ 63 matches that season, starting all three cup finals, scoring in the UEFA Cup final and being crowned PFA Young Player of the Year.
Wright was playing catch-up to his close friend and while he admittedly never stood a chance of stepping out from Gerrard’s shadow, he did enjoy some successes that many grow up dreaming of during his brief time in Red and that his team-mate had already achieved.
Handed his debut during Liverpool’s treble season, he made four appearances that year and is a UEFA Cup winner having been on the bench for the Reds’ 5-4 victory over Alaves in 2001.
And from his 21 Liverpool appearances, he did manage to score one goal.
15 years before Dejan Lovren’s famous late headed winner against Borussia Dortmund in front of the Kop, Wright managed the same feat against the Bundesliga outfit in front of the famous stand, coming in a 2-0 win on one of their early Champions League nights.
By doing so, he actually scored an Anfield Champions League goal before Gerrard, with the future Liverpool captain having to wait until his historic piledriver against Olympiacos in December 2004 to break such a duck.
"I am in the team and I want to stay here, " Wright said after scoring against Dortmund. "I feel comfortable at this level and I feel I have proved I can do a job for the side.
"Saturday was a bad day for me with getting sent off (against Charlton) but I tried not to let it get me down too much. It was great to bounce back with a goal against Dortmund but the most important thing was winning the game.”
Wright was hugged by caretaker boss Thompson as he left the field and the 21-year-old said: "Phil just cuddled me and said 'absolutely brilliant'.
"It was a great experience and a great feeling. It has all happened for me in the past couple of weeks really. I'm just loving it."
And his performance against Dortmund, in October 2001, earned the praise of both Thompson and team-mate Didi Hamann after the final whistle.
"Stephen has impressed everyone," said Thompson. "He has just got into the side, played his first European game last week against Boavista, and popped up with a goal like that.
"He's only a young boy but he has equipped himself magnificently already and he did it again in this match.
"Stephen Wright was absolutely magnificent,” said Hamann. “Everybody is so pleased for him. He has come in to play right-back for us in recent weeks and I believe he has a big future in the game.
"I don't really know what he was doing up in the penalty area at the end to score his goal. I suppose with Sami Hyypia out injured we needed one more player in the box for set-pieces and it was Stephen.
"It really should be me but it's hard to stop him. From now on he's allowed to get into the box for set-pieces!"
Wright later admitted he though his red card against Charlton had ended any hopes he had of starting against Dortmund.
“I remember the Saturday before I got sent off at Charlton away, so I didn’t think I would play,” Wright told ITV. “It was a bit of a strange time as it was just when Gerard Houllier, the manager at the time, had gone into hospital so Phil Thompson took over for a few weeks while he was in there.
“It was to take us through to the next stage, so it was a big game for us. I think Boavista and Dortmund could go through on the night. If Dortmund and Boavista won we would have been out, so it was a bit mental and we needed to win.
“I’d expected more from Dortmund at the time. They had some really good players like Jens Lehmann and a young Tomas Rosicky.
“Vladimir Smicer got the first and I think we were the better team overall. Obviously it took us until the last ten minutes for us to get the second but they were no great shakes.”
"No-one picked me up or was marking me," he recalled to the club website years later. "I just thought most crosses go near post and I'm thinking 'I'll just try to get near post' and ghosted in. The next minute I'm scoring a goal.
"It was strange. It was almost as if it was set up for me to score on that night in the way it happened.
"Everyone was delighted for me - a young homegrown lad scoring his first goal in the Champions League.
"My dad was the kitman at the time [so] he was absolutely delighted at the time too."
His appearance against Dortmund was Wright’s sixth of the season and 10th for Liverpool, but little did he know his Reds career was already over halfway over and it would both be his last Champions League appearance and final start of 2001.
He did earn a mini-reprieve, starting five games in a row in January and February, and keeping clean sheets in four Premier League matches in a row against Manchester United, Leicester City, Leeds United and Ipswich Town.
But after Xavier was signed from Everton and made his debut against the Tractor Boys, Wright would make just two more appearances for the club, being subbed shortly after Liverpool had fallen behind at Anfield in the Merseyside derby in an eventual 1-1 draw before making his last Reds appearance in early-March in a 2-0 victory away at Fulham.
Quickly falling out of favour, he would only make six more matchday squad appearances before being sold to Sunderland.
"I had some great times at Liverpool, but I didn't really get many chances under Gerard Houllier,” he later admitted when looking back on his Reds career. “It was the younger players who tended to make way.”
Signing a five-year deal with the Wearsiders, Wright made 28 appearances as the Black Cats suffered relegation in his first season at the Stadium of Light, with the manager who signed him Peter Reid, sacked just weeks after bringing in the defender.
Establishing himself as first-choice under Mick McCarthy, he but played a key role in their return to the Premier League as Championship winners in 2004/05, making 45 appearances in all competitions.
However, a serious knee injury just one game into the season sidelined him for six months following his return to the top-flight, with Wright sent off when making his comeback against West Ham in February 2006 before seeing his season ended prematurely by an ankle injury which required surgery.
As such, he made just two appearances as Sunderland were relegated back to the second tier.
Injury continued to limit his game-time both with Sunderland and on loan at Stoke City over the next two seasons, ensuring he made just three league appearances as the Black Cats again won promotion in 2006/07, before being released at the end of the following season.
A successful two years with Coventry City followed, with the defender named captain following Scott Dann’s 2009 departure, but a change of manager saw him released in 2010.
Dropping down the divisions, he signed short-term contracts with Brentford and Hartlepool United in League One, before spending two and a half seasons with Wrexham in the Conference - and won the FA Trophy with the Welsh side in 2013.
Wright then finished his career in Wales with seasons at Aberystwyth Town and Rhy in the Welsh Premier League, before dropping down to the Cymru Alliance and spending a year with Denbigh Town before hanging up his boots in 2017.
Serving as both youth team manager and first team coach with former club Wrexham following his retirement, he returned to Liverpool in November 2018 and is currently working as a Talent ID scout for the club, scouting Under 9-13s in North Wales, Cheshire and Wirral as he looks to help the Reds find the next generation who can follow in the footsteps of the likes him, Gerrard and Carragher.
And while he might not have enjoyed a career on par with the two Liverpool legends, he still lived the dream and you can never take away his Anfield highlight - scoring in the Champions League against Borussia Dortmund.
“As all my mates still tell me if you’re only going to score one, it’s a good goal to score. It was my first and the last. It was a good one at the time,” he recalled.
“It was my highlight for Liverpool. I’d been coming up through the ranks since nine years of age and playing for the first-team was all I wanted to do. The big lights come with European football and they’re things you only dream of as a youngster so it was a great feeling at the time.”
"I don't think I slept for a day or two afterwards," he later admitted to the club website long after leaving Liverpool.
"As soon as I'd scored, I think I slipped over and I'm trying to head for the Kop just to jump in it but Robbie Fowler and Stevie Gerrard jumped all over me and I just couldn't move.
"Because I was getting games in the first team, my mates were asking what I would do if I scored and one of the things I said was jumping in the Kop. It was what youngsters dream of and I got to do it.
"As soon as people say it, I can remember. There's different pictures. I get sent different shots of different angles where people have took a picture.”
"It's still in your head. It will always be in your head that moment - Jens Lehmann just in the goal, thinking 'it's coming towards me this...'."
