{"id":8749,"date":"2026-03-03T12:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/the-one-that-got-away-carrick-returns-to-tyneside-with-man-utd\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T12:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T07:20:02","slug":"the-one-that-got-away-carrick-returns-to-tyneside-with-man-utd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/the-one-that-got-away-carrick-returns-to-tyneside-with-man-utd\/","title":{"rendered":"The one that got away &#8211; Carrick returns to Tyneside with Man Utd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/c20993v4lgpt\">Ciaran Kelly<\/a>Newcastle United reporter<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published47 minutes ago<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comments\">35 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is a journey that Michael Carrick won&#x27;t forget.<\/p>\n<p>The Geordie had been driving up to the North East back in January when he was offered the <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\">Manchester United<\/a> job until the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Carrick was not about to hog the limelight as he attended a family event alongside, among others, close friend Chris Hood.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It doesn&#x27;t shock me, but nothing was mentioned,&quot; Hood said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Not one of us knew even though it was bandied around and there were plenty of people around him who were thinking: &#x27;Will it be him?&#x27;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;But Michael was there for his family and to see his friends. He was there to make the most of that precious time.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Such time is now in short supply, of course.<\/p>\n<p>Carrick is very much a <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\">Manchester United<\/a> man as he prepares to take his side to St James&#x27; Park for the first time as a manager on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>But the boyhood <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle United<\/a> supporter has not forgotten his roots.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;He understands he is what he is because of what made him,&quot; Hood said.<\/p>\n<h2>&#x27;He credits the boys&#x27; club with so much&#x27;<\/h2>\n<p>Take the legendary Wallsend Boys Club, for instance.<\/p>\n<p>Carrick followed in the footsteps of Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley and Steve Bruce as one of a staggering 97 players from the club who went on to become first-team professionals.<\/p>\n<p>But the &#x27;Boyza&#x27;, where Carrick spent countless hours honing his skills, had to be demolished in 2012 due to damage caused by high winds.<\/p>\n<p>It meant a generation of youngsters in the area missed out on the chance to use the indoor facility like Carrick did in his formative years.<\/p>\n<p>However, funding provided by Carrick&#x27;s foundation has enabled the club to employ a general manager, John Percival.<\/p>\n<p>Percival, in turn, has been instrumental in raising the capital for a new community hub, which was built in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>This is the tangible legacy of Carrick&#x27;s bond with the area as chairman Steve Dale explained.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Michael is still intrinsically linked because he credits the boys&#x27; club with so much that was positive about his childhood,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;He was motivated to try and do that himself through the proceeds he raised at his testimonial. That&#x27;s why he created his own foundation.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;But the whole ethos behind it was to try and make sure youngsters had a safe place to go and meet their pals where they enjoyed being challenged and, ideally, got involved in football and fell in love with the game like he did.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Why Carrick chose West Ham over Newcastle<\/h2>\n<p>Carrick&#x27;s love of the game was quickly apparent when he was profiled on the BBC&#x27;s Saturday morning children&#x27;s television show Live &amp; Kicking in 1995.<\/p>\n<p>Seated in front of the camera in a <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle<\/a> shirt and surrounded by posters of his idols, including Beardsley, viewers might have felt he was destined to one day represent his boyhood club.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle<\/a> had even attempted to pull out one or two stops to convince Carrick to join.<\/p>\n<p>Beardsley presented Carrick with a cake on his 13th birthday at St James&#x27; Park while the youngster was invited to play in the prestigious Milk Cup youth tournament a year early.<\/p>\n<p>However, that trip to Northern Ireland left a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons after a few of the players &#x27;borrowed&#x27; a Mini and drove it around a car park.<\/p>\n<p>Carrick ultimately felt more comfortable at <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/west-ham-united\">West Ham<\/a> &#8211; a long way from home &#8211; after spending time touring a host of suitors across the country.<\/p>\n<p>Although local talents like Lee Clark, Steve Howey, Steve Watson and Robbie Elliott had made the breakthrough into <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle<\/a>&#x27;s first-team squad, at the time the club did not even have a reserve side.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, at <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/west-ham-united\">West Ham<\/a>, there was a clear pathway &#8211; and Carrick never looked back.<\/p>\n<p>This future England international went on to play for the Hammers and <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/tottenham-hotspur\">Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> before joining <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\">Manchester United<\/a>, where he won 18 trophies, including five Premier League titles and the Champions League.<\/p>\n<h2>&#x27;Raising the level of player a long-term project&#x27;<\/h2>\n<p>Times have changed at <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle<\/a> since then.<\/p>\n<p>Sean Longstaff, Elliot Anderson and Lewis Miley are just some of the midfielders from the North East who have come through the club&#x27;s academy system in the past few years alone.<\/p>\n<p>Longstaff made 214 appearances for <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle<\/a> before moving to <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/leeds-united\">Leeds United<\/a> last summer, while Anderson was only sold to <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/nottingham-forest\">Nottingham Forest<\/a> in 2024 due to the club&#x27;s desperate need to raise funds to avoid breaching profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).<\/p>\n<p>Miley is still front and centre, however, and remains the academy&#x27;s crown jewel.<\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old was even symbolically handed the captain&#x27;s armband by team-mate Kieran Trippier in <a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle<\/a>&#x27;s win against PSV Eindhoven a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Eddie Howe said at the weekend that Miley had &quot;all the talent in the world&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge now is for the academy to unearth and nurture several more like him in the years to come following a period of huge change behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The facilities have dramatically improved,&quot; Howe said. &quot;In my visits to the academy now it&#x27;s unrecognisable from the building we first saw, so that in itself will help the players, who are now being looked after much better than they were.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;In terms of all the off-field things and psychology, there has been an array of things that have been improved. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;They have had different managers there with the 23s, which has been a little stop-start, but hopefully we can get some continuity for them in that sense. We need to expose them to the best coaching possible because I&#x27;m a big believer in their development through coaching.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;They then need opportunities ultimately, but I can only give opportunities to players that I think are good enough and raising the level of player is a long-term project there.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/premier-league\">Premier League<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">Newcastle United<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\">Football<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/teams\/newcastle-united\">\n<p>Latest Newcastle news, analysis and fan views<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/send\/u211220947\">\n<p>Ask about Newcastle &#8211; what do you want to know?<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The one that got away &#8211; Carrick returns to TynesideImage source, BBC and Getty ImagesImage caption, Michael Carrick has made the joint-best ever start as a Premier League manager after picking up 23 p&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}