When Alex Scott stepped onto the pitch for his local team debut against Phoenix Sports before just 55 fans in 2019, his coach at the time predicted, “we haven’t seen the best from this youngster.”
This statement proved to be something of an underestimation.
Now aged 22 and an established top-flight player with Bournemouth, the playmaker has just received his maiden call-up to the full Three Lions team.
His rise from eighth-tier talent to potential international star is a proper throwback, a story seldom seen in the modern era.
What’s next? A major tournament?
“Back then, there was no chance of making it as a professional football player, let alone playing in the top division and playing for the national team too,” the player said in a recent interview.
“It has been a incredible half-dozen years of my life, and things have changed drastically for me and my family.”
But in what way did Scott, referred to fondly as the ‘Grealish from Guernsey’, end up at this level?
Developing in the lower tiers
His path in football has not been a conventional one.
He was part of over four years in Southampton’s youth system from the age of eight, skipping school every Friday to travel by air from his island home on Guernsey to the mainland so he could train and play for the Saints’ youth teams.
Prior to he turned 13, though, they released him. Bournemouth were willing to offer him an opportunity and he remained with them for a while, but, by the player’s own admission, his heart was not in it.
Rather, he opted to remain on Guernsey and play for his hometown club.
“My form had dipped and flying over weekly was starting to feel a bit too much,” he explained.
“I just wanted to relax at my home with my mates at the weekend because I had missed almost several years of that experience. Getting that slice of youth again was something I really required.
“Building a bit of confidence by coming back and taking part in island football was huge for me. It was probably the most crucial factors that led me where I am today.”
When he was just 16, the teenager made history as the youngest player in Guernsey’s history when he came on as a 57th-minute substitute in their league fixture at the opposition.
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping because I was trying to work out how I could include him in the side because he’s that good,” Guernsey boss the coach stated at the time.
“People have witnessed that – his possession of the ball is outstanding, the way he runs with the ball, he’s pure quality.”
Making a comeback to the professional game
Second-tier club Bristol City – chaired by islander their owner – had been tracking Scott’s development after an promising start in men’s football and gave him a try-out in late 2019.
“It was hectic,” recalled the player. “The first day I trained with the under-18s, the second day I trained with the senior squad, which was a complete shock.
“On the Wednesday I featured for his local side in the capital, returned home and by Friday, I took the field for the youth team and scored a hat-trick. From that point a done deal for me to put pen to paper on a contract.”
Within a year and a half, even well before his 18th birthday, he was making his senior debut against Luton.
He went on to make eighty-three league outings for the club while still a teenager, often being deployed as a wing-back – and sometimes in attack as a number 10 – such was his versatility and versatility. Despite his youth and playing out of position he was their best player.
Thanks to his ability to carry the ball forward, and with his socks down to his ankles, he picked up the moniker ‘the Guernsey Grealish’, a reference to Manchester City and England attacking midfielder Jack Grealish.
At the end of the 2022-23 season he won the second tier’s best young player award, was chosen in the league’s team of the year and was named the club’s player and young player of the Year.
“No doubt, I think he’ll play for his country and I think he’ll go on to the top of the game,” his former manager, Scott’s manager at Ashton Gate, remarked previously.
Within 90 days later, he signed for the Cherries for a understood fee of £25m.
Securing his big move
Scott endured a difficult first season with the club, having to wait until the autumn to make his top-flight debut after a knee injury in the summer, and then finding himself in and out of the starting XI.
His following season was equally disrupted, this time by a knee operation which ruled him out for nearly four months.
“There was quite a good run at the close of the previous campaign, which was good to have, then I fractured my jaw,” said Scott.
“It was almost another obstacle and it was shaping up as a pretty bad year for the first half.”
But he was then called up by the national team for the U21 Euros – and managed to get himself fit for the tournament.
He went on to start five of the England U21s’ six matches as they claimed victory in the competition in Slovakia, developing a formidable partnership in the middle with Elliot Anderson, who in turn has excelled for the first team with the national coach.
And he has begun this season equally as strongly for Bournemouth, playing in every game to help them to the top five in the standings.
“Representing the England senior team would be among the most special moments of my career,” Scott stated earlier this season.
“The responsibility is mine, I must continue developing as a player, keep enjoying football, improving day on day, and hopefully I catch the eye of the national coach and get my chance.”
