United’s lost genius

The name of Adrian Doherty might not resonate with Manchester United supporters as much as his former team-mate Ryan Giggs, but those who saw him in action believe the one-time youth sensation was every bit as talented – and that his story deserves to be told.

Oliver Kay is the author of Forever Young, a new book about Doherty’s life, one cut tragically short when he slipped into a canal in The Hague. He was just 26 years old.

Kay paints a vivid picture of Doherty, the musician, the poet, the footballer, the boy and the man. We caught up with him to find out more about this unique figure…

When did you first become aware of Adrian Doherty and what made you want to tell his story?

It was early 2011. I was speaking to some former Manchester United youth-team players for a historical piece I was researching and one of them asked me if I knew about Adrian Doherty. He told me “Doc” was as good as Ryan Giggs at 16 or 17, as talented as any of those who went on to become superstars. I did actually have the vaguest memory of the name, from 20 years earlier, but I had no idea he had died. There was almost nothing on the internet. That only added to my intrigue.

I started making more enquiries, went over to Strabane to meet his family and found out a lot more about the rest of his life and his personality, which was as far from the stereotype as you could imagine – writing poems, writing songs, going busking in the city centre when his team-mates were at Old Trafford. It felt like a story I just had to write.

I suppose the obvious question that people will want to know the answer to is simple: How good do you reckon he was?

I never saw him play, unfortunately, so I’ve had to rely on the testimonies of others. Should I give you a flavour? Ryan Giggs calls him “incredible”. Gary Neville says he was “out of this world”. Tony Park, who is a great authority on United at youth-team level, says he was like Ryan Giggs, Andrei Kanchelskis and Cristiano Ronaldo rolled into one. You get the picture.

Sir Alex Ferguson calls him “the boy with the most amazing football skill, but who seemed to be happiest with his books, poems and guitar”. I think Ferguson’s quote probably says a lot. Everyone says Doherty was incredibly talented – as good as Giggs – but his personality and his interests were very different to the norm for a footballer. …

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