A Tuesday night in Workington in late August and Joe Riley leads his Warrington Rylands team-mates out for a match at the Fibrus Community Stadium in the seventh tier of English football. Rylands race into a 2-0 lead in Cumbria before losing 3-2 after having two players sent off in a chaotic Northern Premier League Premier Division encounter played in front of 638 supporters. "A few years back I wouldn't speak for 24 hours if I lost," says Riley, whose side host Hyde United in the first qualifying round of the FA Cup on Saturday ( ).
"Now if we lose, it's not ideal, but there's always another game around the corner." It is 10 years since Riley, then aged 19, started at left-back for injury-hit Manchester United against Danish side Midtjylland in the Europa League at Old Trafford, the same match Marcus Rashford also made his first start for the club. While Rashford has gone on to rack up more than 400 club appearances and earn 78 England caps since scoring two in that emphatic 5-1 win, external a decade ago, Riley left United at 21 with two first-team appearances to his name - and drifted down the leagues after bad luck with injuries. While recovering from one injury too many at League Two Walsall, he started studying for a new career.
Now aged 29, he sells life insurance, income protection, critical illness and injury cover as a financial protection advisor - while playing non-league football. "I lived with Scott McTominay for six years, and Marcus and I also came through the academy together," Riley tells BBC Sport. "Of course I would have liked to have played more games for United but things didn't work out like that.
"I don't dwell on the past - I'm just happy that it happened. I've now got my foot in the door for the next chapter of my life. I'm progressing with another career that's setting me up for the rest of my life." Riley grew up in Lytham, Lancashire, and joined United at the age of six.
He went on to play for the under-18s with Rashford, Scotland midfielder McTominay, now at Napoli, and England goalkeeper Dean Henderson, who is at Crystal Palace. It was while Riley was playing regularly for the under-21s, aged 19, that he - and 18-year-old Rashford - got their big break in February 2016 under Louis van Gaal. Having come on as a substitute in a 3-0 win at Shrewsbury Town in the fifth round of the FA Cup three days earlier, Riley was named in the starting line-up for a Europa League last-32 tie with Midtjylland, along with Rashford.
United had lost the first leg in Denmark 2-1 and, missing several key players through injury, were in danger of going out of Europe. England forward Wayne Rooney was among those out receiving treatment along with goalkeeper David de Gea, winger Antonio Valencia and defender Chris Smalling. "The day before the game Van Gaal stuck the starting XI on a board at a team meeting," recalls Riley.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
