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Sad News Sean Highdale who is Liverpool ex super Star just confirmed dead,open for full story 👇

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3 months ago

March 24, 2024

Sad News Sean Highdale who is Liverpool ex super Star just confirmed dead,open for full story 👇

Sean Highdale should be in his prime as a footballer. At the age of 29 he should be fulfilling the rich potential that lit up the fields of Liverpool’s Kirkby academy during his formative years.

But rather than preparing for the new season, he’s working on his next property deal. These days, he’s a successful businessman and an Anfield season-ticket holder. He hung up his boots a few years ago after a spell with Aigburth People’s Hall in the Liverpool County Premier League.

His story is an extraordinary one. The fact he’s even alive to tell it is nothing short of miraculous.

Highdale, who grew up in the Halewood area of Liverpool, was a combative midfielder and captain of Liverpool under-18s. He was part of the squad who won the FA Youth Cup in 2007 and a highly-rated England youth international, where he shone alongside Jack Wilshere. He dreamed of following in the footsteps of his hero, Steven Gerrard.

He signed professionally for Liverpool when he turned 17 in March 2008 and the following month he was informed that he was being promoted from Kirkby to Melwood to train with Gary Ablett’s reserve squad ahead of the 2008-09 season.

“I was buzzing. I felt like I was on top of the world,” he tells The Athletic.

Within 24 hours he had come tumbling down.

A horrific car crash, in which two of his close friends died, left him in a coma and with life-changing injuries.

“I had a bleed on my brain, I broke my ankle, I broke my neck, I had to have a kidney removed and I dislocated my right knee, snapping three of the four main ligaments. I was in a bad way,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Highdale in hospital after the horrific crash in which two of his friends died
Medical staff told him to forget about ever playing football again. What followed is testament to the power of human resilience.

“As a little kid, I was always a mad Red. It runs in the family,” Highdale tells me as he sips a cappuccino in the Milo Lounge cafe on Lark Lane in south Liverpool.

Over the course of an hour and a half. he’s engaging company. Lean and tanned following a recent holiday in Spain, he looks like a footballer in his jeans and designer T-shirt.

“I grew up just off Macket’s Lane, between Halewood and Hunts Cross. I only ever wanted to play for Liverpool. I remember jumping up and down on the couch at home when I was told that I had a trial. I was seven and I was so made up,” he smiles.

“I played for Huntswood on Saturdays and Country Park (Trent Alexander-Arnold’s former junior club) on Sundays. I trained with Liverpool through to the age of nine, when we all found out whether we were getting signed or not.

“Initially, I didn’t get taken on but then a few months later Liverpool got in touch with my family to say they had made a mistake and asked me to come back. I signed straight away. I was there from then right up through to the under-18s.

“Back then, when you signed as a pro, the scout who spotted you initially got a bit of money. There was a bit of conflict with a few people trying to claim me but it was definitely Arthur Edwards, who sadly passed away earlier this year. He was a legend in the area in terms of scouting.”

Highdale wasn’t short of positive influences. Kop icon Steve Heighway was running Liverpool’s academy and was assisted by coaches of the calibre of Hughie McAuley and Dave Shannon. They had helped develop the likes of Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen, David Thompson, Dominic Matteo and Steve McManaman.

His dad Derek, a hod carrier in the building industry, was always on his case — ensuring Sean applied himself and made the most of the opportunities that came his way.

“He’s been the biggest influence on my whole life,” Highdale says. “‘Degsy’, as people know him, was a good footballer himself. He played in the Welsh Premier League for Bangor City. He knows his stuff.

“When it was freezing cold, he was the one getting me out on that field and motivating me, making sure I was fit and raring to go. My dad can’t drive, so it was my mum who was always taking me to training and back home again. She couldn’t drive herself until I was 10 or 11, so we used to get the bus together. They made a lot of sacrifices for me.

“At the end of every season at the academy we’d get the chance to play on the pitch at Anfield, and one year Steven Gerrard was there to give out the certificates. He was always my hero and he still is. He’s the only person in this world who I’m kind of in awe of.

“As a kid, I used to play a lot in the No 10 position. I wasn’t a big tackler, I had little twinkle toes and would create chances for others. That was my game until I was about 14.

“Then we played Man City away and I was up against Kieran Trippier in centre midfield. Me and him used to have some good battles. This one got a bit feisty. I went in for this big tackle, won the ball and the Liverpool fans there watching loved it. I got the bug for getting stuck in after that.

“My position changed. I dropped deeper and became a lot more physical. I loved getting on the ball and dictating play. Lads like Nathan Eccleston, David Amoo and Alex Kacaniklic were in my age group. Sometimes I’d play up a year or two with players like Martin Kelly and Jay Spearing.

“When I was about 15, I missed a season due to a stress fracture in my back. I played with it for a while. The kind of player I was, I didn’t want to tell anyone I was struggling but gradually it got worse and worse. I came back strong from that.”

So strong in fact that he was picked to play for Kenny Swain’s England Under-16s in the Victory Shield in the autumn of 2006. The following April he would have become the first Liverpool player to grace the pitch at the new Wembley Stadium but missed the international against Spain because it clashed with the FA Youth Cup final against Manchester United.

Highdale relished his youth battles with players such as current England international Trippier (Photo: Barrington Coombs – PA Images via Getty Images)
“We won the Victory Shield by beating Scotland in our final game and I got the assist for Nathan Delfouneso’s winner with a mis-hit volley,” he laughs. “We had a decent team, with Jack Wilshere, Jack Rodwell and Oliver Norwood in there too. In training, Wilshere was just on another level to everyone else. He was quality.

“I was in the England squad to face Spain just after Wembley reopened but the following day it was the FA Youth Cup final. Steve Heighway called me into his office and said, ‘You’ve got a massive part to play with me.’

“I understood, as it was Man United in the second leg at Old Trafford. But in the end I was an unused sub as we won on penalties, so that was a bit gutting. I was only 16, so I was young to be involved in the FA Youth Cup squad at that stage.”

An overhaul at Kirkby in the summer of 2007 saw Heighway depart and Dutchman Piet Hamberg brought in as academy technical director. Over the course of 2007-08, Highdale flourished and was given the under-18s captaincy by McAuley.

He came up against current Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson in the fifth round of the FA Youth Cup in February 2008. Henderson’s Sunderland triumphed 5-3, after extra time, at the Stadium of Light.

“I’ve still got the DVDs of all the games that season,” Highdale says. “I remember Henderson was playing on the right of midfield. That turned out to be the last time I ever played in the Youth Cup.

“We’d have team meetings after training when the coaches would run through what we’d done right and wrong. I’d always ask Hughie if I could take a copy of the DVD home so I could analyse it myself.

“I’m glad I did that as they’re nice to have. A while back I walked into the house and my dad was sat there watching one of my old games. It was pretty sad in a way. I know what it would have meant to him if things had turned out differently for me. Just before the accident, that was the best football I ever played. Every game, I felt like the best player on the pitch.”

Then came Sunday, April 6, 2008, the fateful day that changed his life forever.

On the Saturday, Highdale had played with a swagger for Liverpool Under-18s against Derby County’s at Kirkby. His future looked incredibly bright.

“Before we played Derby, Hughie called me in, along with Nathan Eccleston and Steven Irwin, and told us that we would be moving up to the reserves at Melwood for the following season,” he says.

“I was so happy. It was a big step forward. It was what I’d been working towards. Back then, you usually did a two-year YTS and then you turned pro, but after the first year Liverpool said they wanted me to sign professionally when I turned 17. The timing of that turned out to be very lucky for me. The contract meant I had the security of getting paid.”

The players were given the Sunday off and Highdale decided to go to the cinema with his mates.

“We were going to get the train from Hunts Cross into town but when we went around to the station all the trains were on strike so we walked back,” he recalls.

“My mate Kalam had passed his test a few weeks before, so he said he would drive us instead. From that moment I got into the car, I can’t remember anything. The next thing I remember is waking up in hospital. A total blackout.”

Highdale was one of five teenagers travelling in a Vauxhall Astra along Speke Boulevard at around 10.30pm when it collided with a Volkswagen Beetle. The impact sent the Astra spinning across the carriageway before it was catapulted through trees, ending up resting on its roof in nearby woodland. Kalam Wooding and Tom Benn, both 17, died in the accident, while Danny Moran, who was on Tranmere Rovers’ books, was left in a critical condition. Twelve years on, Moran still requires round-the-clock care. The driver of the Beetle fortunately escaped with only whiplash.

“I only know what people at the scene have told my family and what the crash investigators believe happened,” Highdale says. “A fella who was driving behind us seems to think that when we went to join the dual carriageway there was another car on our right already on it. Apparently we tried to get ahead of it, clipped it and that flipped our car over.

“They reckon I was sat in the passenger seat and then, when the car started tumbling, I must have put my foot up on the dashboard to try to protect myself. They think it was the force from that which pushed my foot back and shattered the bones in my ankle.

“My mum and dad were actually among the first on the scene. A girl I knew growing up happened to be driving by, so she’d rung my dad to tell him I’d been involved in a crash. I was in a coma for five days so it was a while before I knew what had happened to the other lads. It was devastating.”

His mum, Lindzi, broke the news to him as he lay in his hospital bed.

“We had our little group of mates and we were very close. Tom and Danny were the real jokers of the group,” he says. “Kalam lived just around the corner from us when we were kids. Danny was my closest friend. He was at Liverpool when we were younger and then he went to Tranmere.

“Danny went into a coma and he hasn’t ever properly woken up. He’s got a low state of awareness. If you clap your hands, he blinks, so he reacts to certain things. It’s so sad. He lives in south Liverpool. I need to go and visit him again as it’s been a while. It’s just so hard seeing him like that.

“The fifth lad in the car was Ricky. I didn’t really know him that well. He was more Kalam’s mate. He wasn’t seriously hurt.

“I remember I tried to get out of bed to go to one of the funerals as I was desperate to be there, but I blacked out again.

“It feels like a blessing that I can’t remember the accident or what happened in the aftermath. It makes it easier to live with. You hear of people coming home from the army who suffer from flashbacks and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). They just can’t get stuff out of their heads. I know it would affect me massively if I had those images in my head.”

Liverpool Football Club rallied in support of Highdale.

They had him transferred from Whiston Hospital to the private Sefton Suite in Fazakerley. Carragher was among those to pay him a visit, while Gerrard rang and invited him down to Melwood with his family for a meal when he was well enough.

“That was a massive boost — sitting there with my hero for a few hours,” he says. “You think he’s a superstar but when you actually meet him, you realise he’s just one of us.

“Looking at the pic I had taken with Stevie at Melwood (below), I couldn’t have been any more than seven stone. I’d lost a lot of weight. I was 10 and a half stone before the accident. I look ill.

“Liverpool were playing Arsenal in the quarter-finals of the Champions League a few days after the accident and my agent, Peter McIntosh from Stella Group, took my dad to that game with Joe Hart, who Peter looked after as well. Everyone we knew rallied round. That’s what Halewood is like — it’s only a small place but people look out for each other.

“I was in hospital for about six weeks and Liverpool really looked after me. I kept saying to the staff how sore my neck was but they said it was just whiplash. The club physio insisted they did an X-ray and it turned out I’d fractured my neck in two different places. I had to have an operation for it to be pinned and plated.

“At that stage, I didn’t know how bad my knee was. I’d lost a kidney but I still thought I’d be back in training before too long.”

Liverpool sent Highdale to London to see top knee surgeon Andy Williams, who has operated on a host of elite sports stars. The severity of the damage was soon laid bare.

“Andy said to me from the start, ‘Don’t ever think about playing football again. What I’m here for is to get you back to living your everyday life — that’s what matters to me’.

“Barry Ferguson (the Rangers and Scotland midfielder) came out as I was waiting to go in to see him. The second time, I saw Shaun Wright-Phillips there. I had an operation where Andy took part of the hamstring out of my left leg and used it to create a ligament in my right knee. He did an unbelievable job. What a man.

“I went back to the academy and all I could do initially was some upper-body weights. Then I was on the bike in the gym. I kept smashing every target they gave me. My mindset was I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me that I couldn’t do something. If I really can’t do something then I’ll only accept that once I’ve given it everything I’ve got.”

The rehab went on for two years. Highdale was a spectator when Liverpool lost the final of the FA Youth Cup to Arsenal 6-2 on aggregate in May 2009.

“That was my team, and we got battered,” he adds. “Jack Wilshere ran the show. By then, he was flying with the first team. I wondered if he would recognise me but he was straight over for a chat after. Staying down a year at the academy was how I got to know Jon Flanagan. We clicked and we’ve been good friends ever since.”

In the spring of 2010, Highdale finally made his Liverpool comeback, but his joy proved to be shortlived.

“We were playing Crewe in a friendly at Kirkby and my name was up there on the teamsheet. It was really emotional. I got on for the last 25 minutes and did OK,” he says. “By then Frankie (McParland) was the academy director and one day I had a meeting with him and Dave Galley, the physio. I was fit and loving playing again.

“Frankie asked Dave where I was at and Dave said, ‘He’s not going to be able to do it’. I wasn’t happy at the time but Dave explained, ‘It’s not about now, it’s about five to 10 years time, your knee is that knackered’.

“Frankie told me to forget about football. He said they’d provide a reference for how good I was before the accident when it came to the compensation. Me being me, I still didn’t want to give up.”

Highdale had loan spells at Oldham Athletic and Welsh outfit Newtown and various trials at EFL clubs before officially leaving Liverpool in 2011. He then signed for Cheshire-based non-League club Vauxhall Motors.

“After Oldham, I went to MK Dons for a bit, where Paul Ince was the manager. I knew him from playing with his son, Tom, at Liverpool. I went to Huddersfield Town under Lee Clark and then Accrington Stanley,” he says.

“But I couldn’t keep up with them. Everything was just too fast. It was frustrating, because I couldn’t do things that I used to be able to do. I just didn’t have the same kind of mobility in my knee. I was never the fastest player but I was always fit. I lost a yard of pace and I just couldn’t get it back.

“I decided to call it a day in terms of professional football. I played a couple of seasons for Vauxhall and then went to Burscough (another local non-League club). Then I kind of lost interest. I just couldn’t be bothered with all the travelling for £70 per game.

“I decided I’d rather just play amateur football with my mates. I went to Old Xavs and then finished with Aigburth People’s Hall. I gave up a few years ago. I couldn’t see the point in it anymore. Sometimes playing against lads who just want to kick you. What do you get out of that?

“I could get through games pain-free and make tackles, no problem. It was the day after (matches) when I had issues. I miss playing but I only really miss the standard I used to play at. Being in that environment — the buzz, the immaculate pitches.

“What I enjoy now is kicking a ball around with my sister Jess’s little boy. My nephew Ethan is only six, but he’s just got a trial at Liverpool and I’m giving him advice.”

Once Highdale had belatedly accepted that his hopes of a professional career were over, he was able to pursue compensation.

Solicitor Catherine Leech from Manchester law firm Pannone took on the case and called on more than 30 witnesses, including Gerrard, Carragher, Wilshere, Heighway, Ablett, Ince, Spearing and Kelly. They all described him as being one of the biggest talents of his generation and on course to break into the first-team squad.

The insurers of the car he was travelling in at the time of the accident paid out £4 million in 2013. The first thing he did was clear the family debts accrued over a difficult five-year period and bought his parents a new house and car.

“The things my former team-mates and coaches wrote about me helped a lot. It was nice to know that I was pretty well respected in the football world and not a bad player,” he says.

“When the money came through, I didn’t go out and buy myself a Lamborghini, which I could have easily done. I never rubbed it in anyone’s face or became big time. I’d been used to earning £50 per day labouring for my grandad’s landscaping business. I’d done a year working in the factory on the new Land Rovers.

“My mum and dad had taken out loans and credit cards just for me to live, so sorting things out for them was my priority. They had been through a lot.

“I knew it wouldn’t last forever, so that’s why I opened up by own business. I’ve gone into property development with a business partner and I’ve got a stake in five kids’ day nurseries.”

In 2016, there was another life-changing experience. Out of the blue, he was asked if he would be interested in potentially joining England’s cerebral palsy football team. A trip to St George’s Park ultimately led to him being picked to represent Great Britain at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“I had to be assessed by the doctors to see if I qualified,” he says. “They knew I’d had a bleed on the brain. When I was ge

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What Edwards and Hughes are now thinking about Xabi Alonso is telling
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Posted by Farrell Keeling1 hour ago

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Xabi Alonso is understood to be a priority for Liverpool Football Club, though his signing will depend largely on one factor.

Both Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes will reportedly only bring the Spaniard on board ‘if they are convinced that his desire is to succeed Klopp’.

This comes amid heavy interest from competing outfit Bayern Munich ahead of Thomas Tuchel’s departure this summer.

“Although Alonso has been pinpointed as the Reds’ primary target, having led Leverkusen to within touching distance of the Bundesliga title, they will only hand him the reins if they are convinced that his desire is to succeed Klopp and not head elsewhere amid interest from the likes of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid,” Dean Jones and Danny Rust reported for GIVEMESPORT.

Jurgen Klopp will join his compatriot on the market, though is expected to enjoy a planned sabbatical.

FOLLOW Empire of the Kop on Instagram (@empireofthekop) HERE

READ MORE: Where are they now: Arthur Melo’s playing career hits major turbulence yet again

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Alonso has to be 100% committed to Liverpool
You can’t blame Edwards and Co. for being put off if they feel that our former midfielder isn’t totally enthralled by the idea of being the next manager of Liverpool.

In fairness, you can understand why given the ludicrous resources that will be inherited.

Compare it to the situation Klopp had to work with back in 2015 – it’s night and day!

Jurgen Klopp back in 2015 – (Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images)
Our next manager is getting a young, hungry and world-class starting-XI, plus a golden age of Academy talent and top operators behind the scenes.

If that doesn’t excite a prospective managerial candidate, he’s not the right choice for us.

🚨 EOTK Insider with Neil Jones: Michael Edwards and a multi-club model, Alonso’s Liverpool-esque moment and much more!

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Sad News Sean Highdale who is Liverpool ex super Star just confirmed dead,open for full story 👇

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Sad News Sean Highdale who is Liverpool ex super Star just confirmed dead,open for full story 👇

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Sad News Sean Highdale who is Liverpool ex super Star just confirmed dead,open for full story 👇

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