Jerome Sinclair made his Liverpool first team debut aged 16 (Image: Getty)
The youngest ever player to compete in the Liverpool first team is now without a club and owns a chicken shop in Birmingham. In 2012 the future for Jerome Sinclair looked very different when he made his debut for the Reds at the age of 16 years and six days old.
Sinclair was a product of the West Brom academy before the talented forward was bought by Liverpool for £200,000 in 2011. Compared by coaching staff to Raheem Sterling he quickly progressed from the club’s under-16s into the under-18s and then the reserves, despite his young age.
It was against his boyhood club West Brom that Sinclair made his debut, coming on for Samed Yesil late in their 2-1 League Cup victory. The 16-year-old spoke about having ‘no fear’ after the match and seemingly had the world at his feet.
“Everything happened so quickly," he told Football 25/8 YouTube channel in 2020. "I was in Year 11 (at school) at the time. My first session with the first team at Melwood was the best I’ve had in my life — everything I touched was a goal.
Jerome Sinclair made his Liverpool debut in the League Cup against West Brom (Image: Getty)
"Lots of the boys I played with there were ball boys that night. I’ll never forget that moment when the gaffer said, ‘You’re coming on’. At 16, I had no fear.”
However, experienced head in the game Rodgers feared what was to come for the youngster in his post-match interview. The then Liverpool boss added: “It’s no good being the youngest player and then drifting out of it. Thankfully, he’s a good kid and he’s really focused. That hunger to learn can take you a long way.”
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Jerome Sinclair played nine times during a five-year contract with Watford (Image: Getty)
However, in a team littered with stars including Luis Suarez, Philippe Coutinho and Steven Gerrard the teenager made just four more appearance for Liverpool – including his Premier League debut against Chelsea in 2014. Two years later contract negotiations broke down and Watford came in giving Liverpool £4million in a compensation fee.
He failed to make an impact at Watford during his five years on contract and was loaned out to a host of clubs. After his contract expired last season Sinclair went on trial with Oxford United but after failing to earn a contact he turned away from football and opened his own chicken shop.
The Mirror reports that the forward now runs the Dudley Road branch of fried chicken takeaway chain Morley's in his home city of Birmingham and shows no sign of returning to football.