Former Celtic youngster reveals he turned down potential Manchester United move | OneFootball

Former Celtic defender Daniel Church has revealed he had the opportunity to potentially join Manchester United before deciding to continue his development at Parkhead.

Daniel Church of Celtic, South Shields v Celtic, Semi Final – South Shields Challenge Cup 2018, Mariners Park, South Shields, UK, 29 July 2018. Photo Richard Lee/BPI/Shutterstock

Church progressed through Celtic’s academy around the same time as Kieran Tierney and Calvin Miller, but injuries ultimately hampered his hopes of establishing himself in the first team.

The defender later spent time in the lower leagues of Scottish football before recently calling time on his playing career and becoming a barber.

Looking back on his Celtic days, Church recalled the surreal moment he discovered Manchester United were monitoring his progress.

Speaking to the Daily Record, Church said: “It’s funny. I’ve still kept the screenshot. Every time I change my phone, I keep it because it was on Sky Sports.

“There were all these big signings and then it was just randomly chucked in that Man United were monitoring me, which is a bit of a strange one.

“Before I signed my first contract, I had a chance to maybe go there. And then before I signed my second one, I was maybe going to go to Brentford. They’d started up a new system where they would go and play loads of different pro academies across Europe.

“So when I was coming to the end of my first contract, I was maybe going to go to Brentford and sign with them for three years. But I made the choice to stay at Celtic.”

Church’s career was subsequently plagued by injury, with the former Hoops youngster eventually discovering that a problem with his lower spine was behind his repeated setbacks.

On the injury which eventually brought his career to an end, Church continued: “I had constant injuries for about three years. It got to the point where no physio really knew what was going on. So I ended up going down to London to see a specialist who dealt with Virgil van Dijk, Jude Bellingham and stuff.

“He was a top guy who looked into all my MRI scans and stuff and basically identified a problem with my lower spine that was causing all these injuries in my legs. He advised that it was either pay £23,000 for a surgery that was only going to get me an extra couple of years of football or give it up now.

“He advised me how many risks there were, and that it definitely wasn’t worth getting it done. He just said it was time up pretty much. It was a bit of a shock hearing him break the news.

“At one point he literally turned around and said, ‘You do realise that you’re at the end of the road here? You’ve obviously thought about that?’

“My reply was, ‘Nah, I’d always had it in my head about getting back.’ So it was a bit of a shock and it was tough to take. The flight back from London wasn’t really the best one.”

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