🔗 Share this article

Back when Alex Scott stepped onto the pitch for his local team debut versus Phoenix Sports before just 55 fans in 2019, his manager back then assured, “we haven’t seen the best from this boy.”

This prediction turned out to be a bit of an underestimation.

Now aged 22 and a Premier League regular with Bournemouth, the playmaker has earned his first call-up to the full England squad.

His rise from eighth-tier talent to potential England player is a true blast from the past, a journey seldom told in the modern game.

What’s next? The World Cup?

“In my mind, there was no chance of becoming a professional football player, let alone featuring in the Premier League and playing for England too,” Scott said previously.

“It’s been a crazy five or six years of my life, and circumstances have transformed completely for myself and my loved ones.”

But how did Scott, known affectionately as the ‘Grealish from Guernsey’, end up at this level?

Learning in the lower tiers

His path in football has not been a conventional one.

He was part of four and a half years in the Saints’ youth system from the age of eight, skipping school every Friday to travel by air from his home on the Channel Island to the mainland so he could attend training and feature for the club’s academy sides.

Prior to he turned 13, though, they released him. Bournemouth were willing to offer him an opportunity and he remained with them for a time, but, as he later admitted, his mind wasn’t fully committed.

Rather, he chose to stay on the island and play for his hometown club.

“I wasn’t playing very well and flying over every week was starting to feel overwhelming,” he recalled.

“All I desired to chill at home with my friends at weekends because I had missed nearly several years of that experience. To have that little bit of youth back was a thing I really needed.

“Building some self-belief by returning and playing local football was huge for me. It was perhaps the most crucial factors that got me where I am today.”

At the age of 16, Scott made history as the youngest player in the club’s records when he was introduced as a 57th-minute substitute in their Isthmian League fixture at Phoenix Sports.

“I had trouble sleeping because I was figuring out how I could include him in the team because he’s that good,” manager the coach stated at the time.

“People have witnessed that – his retention of the ball is outstanding, the manner he carries the ball, he’s pure quality.”

Returning to the pro ranks

Second-tier club Bristol City – chaired by islander their owner – had been tracking his early progress after an promising beginning in adult football and arranged a try-out in late 2019.

“The whole experience was hectic,” said Scott. “Day one I trained with the under-18s, the second day I was with the senior squad, which was a total shock.

“Midweek I played for his local side in London, travelled back and by Friday, I took the field for Bristol City Under-18s and scored a hat-trick. It was almost a certainty for me to put pen to paper on a deal.”

Within 18 months, even some way short of his 18th birthday, he was earning his first-team debut against Luton.

Scott made eighty-three league outings for the club while still a teenager, often being used as a wing-back – and occasionally in attack as a number 10 – demonstrating his adaptability and flexibility. Even at that young age and playing out of position he was the standout performer.

With his skill to drive the ball forward, and with his socks rolled down to his ankles, he earned the nickname ‘the Guernsey Grealish’, a nod to Manchester City and England attacking midfielder Grealish.

At the end of the 2022-23 season he won the EFL Championship’s young player of the season award, was selected in the division’s best XI and was voted Bristol City’s player and young player of the Year.

“No doubt, I believe he’ll play for England and I think he’ll go on to the pinnacle of the game,” his former manager, the player’s manager at the club, stated last year.

Within three months later, he signed for Bournemouth for a understood fee of 25 million pounds.

Securing his major transfer

Scott experienced a challenging debut campaign with the club, waiting until the autumn to make his Premier League debut after a knee problem in the summer, and then being inconsistent of the starting XI.

His following season was equally disrupted, this time by a knee operation which ruled him out for nearly four months.

“I had a decent run at the close of last season, which was nice to have, then I broke my jaw,” said he.

“That felt like almost another obstacle and it was turning out to be a pretty bad year for the first half.”

But he was then selected by England for the Under-21 European Championships – and succeeded in regain fitness for the tournament.

He went on to start five of the Young Lions’ six games as they went on to win the competition in the host nation, forming a strong partnership in the middle with his teammate, who himself has gone on to impress for the senior side under Thomas Tuchel.

And he has started this season equally as strongly for his club, playing in every game to help them to the top five in the table.

“Representing the national team would be among the most special moments of my life,” Scott said recently.

“The responsibility is mine, I’ve got to keep progressing as a player, keep enjoying football, getting better every day, and hopefully I catch the eye of the national coach and get my chance.”