Manchester United’s Forgotten Star

Rus­sell Beardsmore

Born and grow­ing up in nearby Wigan, Rus­sell Beards­more kick star­ted his foot­ball career with Manchester United where the tal­en­ted and ded­ic­ated youth made his First Divi­sion debut in a 2–0 tri­umph against West Ham United at Old Traf­ford in Septem­ber 1988. A for­ward think­ing mid­fielder, Beards­more ulti­mately replaced the exper­i­enced Gor­don Strachan and he soon became a reg­u­lar in the Manchester United first team.

With new and younger play­ers brought in, Rus­sell Beards­more was gradu­ally forced out of the Manchester United squad and the all action mid­fielder went out on a loan spell with Second Divi­sion Black­burn Rovers in 1991. To top it all, Beardsmore´s soc­cer career was hampered by a string of injur­ies and the frail young­ster only man­aged to make a total of 73 appear­ances dur­ing his stay at Old Traf­ford. After hav­ing spent seven unfor­get­table years with Manchester United, the injury prone foot­baller finally signed for Bournemouth on a free trans­fer in the sum­mer of 1993. With The Cher­ries, Beards­more regained his pre­vi­ous form and the tough little fel­low stayed with the club for five years until he decided to call it a day at the end of the 1997–98 cam­paign due to a per­sist­ent back injury. In July 2000, a Dean Court crowd of around 6000 ensured a £50,000 profit for the loyal stal­wart when Bournemouth played host to local rivals Southamp­ton in his testi­mo­nial match.

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