Many have passed through the youth ranks at Manchester United, but not all have reached the heady heights. For every Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs there are twenty Robbie Savages eeking out a less glamorous career. For the vast majority, the Theater of Dreams remains just that.
Perhaps the finest youth generation in recent memory was the class of 1993. David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, and the Neville brothers, won all major youth honours en route to cementing places in the first team and winning a treble in 1999.
After such a fine crop, the next batch of youngsters had a lot to live up to. The likes of Jonathan Greening, John Curtis and Phil Mulryne had big boots to fill, and with such a weight of expectation none of them ever quite cut the proverbial mustard.
Amongst that group nearly men was Ronnie Wallwork - a local lad from Newton Heath with a thuggish countenance. A mixture of Roy Keane and Chris Morgan. Wallwork was a utility player. A Jack of all trades, master of none. Like a poor man’s John O’shea
Ronnie made his debut for United at the age of 20 and was loaned out to a succession of clubs including Carlisle, Stockport County to gain first team experience; before eventually moving to United’s Belgian feeder club, FC Antwerp, for a season.
It was at Antwerp that Wallwork quite literally first made his mark. During a play-off game against La Louviere the defender/midfielder took exception to the decision making of referee, Amand Ancion, and following the match assaulted him in the tunnel.
The promising youngster was initially given a lifetime ban from football – a punitive punishment whatever your thoughts – before some legal wrangling saw the sentence reduced to a 12-month ban applicable only in Belgium.
Having fought so hard for their young charge it was clear that Manchester United held Wallwork in high regard, and after his trial he was set to pursue his fledgling career at Old Trafford.
In 2000-2001 he made 12 appearances for the United, enough to earn him a Premier League winners’ medal, in what was to be his most active season for the club.
By now 23, it was clear that Wallwork was never going to hold down a regular place in the first team, and at the end of the season he was allowed to leave Manchester United on a free transfer.
He decided to join Premier League newboys West Brom in a deal that prompted Ferguson to deliver the following gushing epitaph on his time at Old Trafford:
"Ronnie is the best Bosman transfer of the summer. He was a marvelous player at Old Trafford but he was unfortunate that he never had a set position”.
Unfortunate indeed. Football is littered with tales of players who never fulfilled their potential. Having not made the cut at United Wallwork proceeded with what could only optimistically be described as a mediocre football career.
West Brom were the only side he ever made 20 appearances or more for, yet other than a brief spell under the tenure of fellow United alumni, Brian Robson (the season the club became the first to stay up having been bottom of the Premier League at Christmas), he failed to cement a regular place.
His career pottered on, neither here nor there, and he continued to be loaned out to a succession of clubs, who tried and failed to get the most out of a formerly promising talent.
At 29, Wallwork found himself two games into another loan spell, this time at Barnsley. Going nowhere his career had petered out and as is the wont of professional footballers he was drinking at a trendy nightspot with a woman on his arm.
At some time, just before midnight, he was accosted by a man who claimed that said woman was his ex-girlfriend and demand that Wallwork leave. After he refused the man pulled out a knife and in a fit of jealous rage stabbed Wallwork 7 times in the stomach, hands and buttocks.
The name of the perpetrator? Bobby Rimmer (see right).
Wallwork recovered and Rimmer went to prison, but stab wounds or not, it was clear that Wallwork’s career was all but over. He missed the remainder of the 2007-2008 season before shipped out on loan again, this time to Huddersfield.
When his contract at West Brom expired he joined Sheffield Wednesday on a one year deal to prove that he could earn a longer contract. It was a paltry spell in which Wallwork managed just 7 appearances for the club.
So that was that. In January 2009, at the age of 31, Ronnie Wallwork played his last game of professional football. According to online tome, Wikipedia, these days Ronnie runs a clothes business called D&R Designers, in Greater Manchester. A business that was recently burgled to the tune of ‘hundreds of pounds’. This is probably not true, but whatever the case Wallwork’s tale is one of how a career that started so promisingly tapered out into a damp and violent squib.