Back when Alex Scott made his local team debut versus Phoenix Sports before just 55 fans in 2019, his manager back then predicted, “we haven’t seen the best from this youngster.”
This prediction turned out to be something of an understatement.
Now aged 22 and a Premier League regular with Bournemouth, the midfielder has earned his first summons to the full Three Lions team.
His rise from eighth-tier talent to potential England player is a proper blast from the past, a story rarely told in the modern era.
What’s next? A major tournament?
“In my mind, there was no chance of making it as a professional football player, let alone featuring in the Premier League and representing the national team as well,” the player said previously.
“It’s been a crazy five or six years of my life, and things have changed completely for me and my family.”
So how did Alex Scott, known affectionately as the ‘Grealish from Guernsey’, end up here?
Learning in the lower tiers
Scott’s path in football has not been a conventional one.
He spent four and a half years in the Saints’ academy setup from the age of eight, skipping school each Friday to travel by air from his island home on Guernsey to the mainland so he could attend training and feature for the club’s academy sides.
Before he turned 13, however, they decided to let him go. The Cherries gave Scott an option and he remained with them for a time, but, as he later admitted, his heart was not in it.
Rather, he chose to stay on the island and play for his hometown club.
“My form had dipped and traveling every week was becoming a bit too much,” he explained.
“I just wanted to chill at home with my friends at weekends because I had missed almost several years of doing that. Getting that slice of childhood back was a thing I definitely required.
“To gain a bit of self-belief by returning and playing local football was massive for me. That proved to be perhaps one of the most important things that led me to this point.”
At the age of 16, the teenager became the youngest player in Guernsey’s history when he was introduced as a second-half replacement in their league fixture at the opposition.
“I had sleepless nights because I was trying to work out how I could get him in the side because his talent is obvious,” Guernsey boss the coach commented back then.
“People have witnessed that – his possession of the ball is exceptional, the way he carries the ball, he’s a class act.”
Returning to the professional game
Second-tier club Bristol City – owned by Guernsey resident their owner – had been tracking his development after an promising beginning in adult football and gave him a try-out in late 2019.
“The whole experience was chaos,” recalled Scott. “The first day I trained with the under-18s, the next day I trained with the senior squad, which was a complete shock.
“Midweek I played for Guernsey FC in the capital, travelled back and on the Friday, I played for the youth team and netted a hat-trick. From that point a done deal for me to put pen to paper on a deal.”
In just a year and a half, even well before his 18th birthday, he was making his first-team debut against the Hatters.
He went on to make eighty-three league outings for the Robins while still a teenager, often being used as a wing-back – and sometimes further forward as a number 10 – demonstrating his versatility and flexibility. Even at that young age and not in his natural role he was the standout performer.
Thanks to his skill to drive the ball forward, and with his socks down to his ankles, he picked up the nickname ‘Guernsey’s Grealish’, a reference to City and national team attacking midfielder Jack Grealish.
By the conclusion of the 2022-23 campaign he won the EFL Championship’s best young player award, was selected in the league’s team of the year and was named the club’s player and young player of the Year.
“No doubt, I believe he’ll play for England and I’m sure he’ll go on to the pinnacle of the game,” Nigel Pearson, the player’s boss at the club, remarked last year.
Less than three months after, he signed for the Cherries for a reported transfer fee of 25 million pounds.
Getting his big move
Scott experienced a challenging debut campaign with the club, having to wait until October to earn his Premier League debut after a knee problem in the summer, and then being inconsistent of the team.
His second campaign was just as affected, this time by a knee operation which sidelined him for almost several months.
“I had a decent run at the end of last season, which was nice to have, then I broke my jaw,” said Scott.
“It was almost another setback and the year was shaping up as quite a terrible year for the first half.”
But he was then selected by England for the Under-21 European Championships – and succeeded in regain fitness in time.
He started five of the England U21s’ six games as they claimed victory in the tournament in Slovakia, forming a strong understanding in midfield with Elliot Anderson, who himself has gone on to impress for the first team with Thomas Tuchel.
And he has begun this season just as impressively for Bournemouth, playing in every game to guide them to fifth in the standings.
“To play for the England senior team would be one of the proudest occasions of my life,” Scott said recently.
“The responsibility is mine, I’ve got to keep progressing as a player, keep enjoying the game, getting better every day, and with luck I catch the eye of the national coach and earn an opportunity.”
