7 Premier League Stars That Newcastle Allowed To Slip Away
3. Michael Carrick
A graduate of the fabled Wallsend Boys academy, where he spent 11 years, Carrick held aspirations of being the next Geordie number nine having starred as a striker during his school days. It wasn't until he joined West Ham in 1997 that he was moulded into the metronomic midfielder we see today. His dream of pulling on a black and white shirt was dashed, surprisingly so, by none other than Kevin Keegan after he disbanded Newcastle's reserve team. Carrick, not content with treading water in the hope of breaking into the first-team setup at St James' Park during the days of the Entertainers, rejected us in favour of joining West Ham's youth team. And the rest is history. John Carver shed more light on the situation in a 2011 interview with the Journal. "When Kevin Keegan was the manager we did away with the reserve team," Carver said. "I was with the centre of excellence at the time and that period was difficult for this football club because we had no reserve team. We lost Michael Carrick because of it. His parents asked Wheres he going to play John. I said the first team and they told me to come off it. We had the Entertainers so he was never going to get in there. So they took him to West Ham."
