Boro’s talent hotspot

On the outskirts of Middlesbrough is a suburb called Marton which, unless you’re local, you’ve probably never heard of.

If you’re into your history, maybe you’d know it as the birthplace of the famous explorer, Captain Cook.

As a football fan, there’s another reason why it’s important.

The place is also home to a football club that has helped discover more than 60 professional footballers, 16 of them Premier League players who have so far amassed more than 1,500 top-flight appearances between them.

Jonathan Woodgate – once of Real Madrid – is perhaps the club’s most famous graduate. Others, like Sunderland’s Lee Cattermole and Michael Brown, who went onto Tottenham and Manchester City among others, came through here too.

Some of the 16, from the early part of the Premier League era, are the sorts of players who might now appear in the picture round of a quiz – Jamie Pollock (who was part of the first Middlesbrough team promoted to the Premier League and who later in his career scored an infamous own goal for Manchester City), his team-mate Phil Stamp, who made 93 big-league appearances and goalkeeper Andy Collett, who turned out twice at the top level for Boro, among them.

Most of the Marton lads who made it have done so at Middlesbrough. Two of them are still there.

This week, while kids from today’s Marton teams trained, played and, once they saw two of their heroes, scrambled for pictures and autographs – Stewart Downing and Ben Gibson returned to the place where it all began.

With 380 Premier League appearances and 35 caps for his country, Downing is …

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