Pike’s hope for Celtic’s Dembele

He was the child star of a McDonald’s advert and dubbed football’s next big thing who was fawned over by Ajax’s 1995 Champions League-winning team.

Sonny Pike had in front of him the career that so many wished for – but he ended up at Leyton Orient before falling out of the game by the time he was old enough to pass his driving test.

The Englishman fears Celtic’s precocious Karamoko Dembele could suffer a similar fate if he allows others to influence his future the way he did.

The Parkhead schoolboy is at the centre of a tug of war between Scotland and England after it emerged he was invited by the FA to train at St George’s Park last month.

While the SFA is determined to keep Dembele, the prospect of losing him after just a few minutes of game-time for the under-16s is real.

From the moment footage of the 13-year-old appeared on YouTube earlier this year, pressure on him has been mounting and the weight of expectation is heavy.

It is a situation Pike relates to with uncomfortable ease. After catching the eye at the age of 10, he was soon touted as the new Diego Maradona and had his legs insured for £1million.

TV appearances, sponsorship deals and Premier League interest followed along with an on-pitch outing at the 1996 English League Cup final to do some keepy-ups for Coca-Cola.

Demand for the youngster was snowballing – yet that would change just as quickly.

Ajax took him on trial and after mixing with Louis van Gaal, Patrick Kluivert and Frank Rijkaard, they desperately tried to sign him, but he rejected them to stay at home in Essex.

Pike joined Orient instead and the dream soon unravelled to the point that by 17, he was out of love with football and contemplating suicide because things had gone so sour.

The extreme nature of his experiences stands as a valid warning to any emerging talent of how wrong things can go – and none more so in his eyes at present than Dembele.

Pike, now 33, said: “People have been messaging me a lot about Karamoko over the last few weeks and comparing us, saying it’s a similar sort of situation.

“I’ve seen a few clips of him and he looks a great little player. He has natural strength and that’s important because everyone will have that when he’s older.

“It’s interesting to consider which way it’s going to go for him and hopefully it can be a good thing for him.

“I like to see young footballers coming through but now it’s all about how Karamoko is managed and having the right people …

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