Two schoolboys seemed to have the world at their feet when they posed with their team a decade ago. Today, one is a houshold name, but for the other, life took a tragic turn. Neil Hunter reports.
Lee Fitzgerald was a talented midfielder with the promise of a bright future when a team photograph was taken a little more than ten years ago.
Alongside him in their North-East schoolboy side was Jonathan Woodgate, who has gone on to play for his country.
But Fitzgerald is now serving five years behind bars for killing a young woman in a drink-drive car crash.
The two boys' careers took different paths after this picture of the treble-winning Marton Under-14s team, on Teesside, was taken in 1994.
Middlesbrough-born Woodgate was spotted by scouts from Leeds United and is now regarded as one of the world's finest centre-halves.
His huge potential persuaded Sir Bobby Robson to spend £9m bringing the defender back to the North-East with Newcastle United. He moved to Real Madrid in 2003, for £13.4m.
Hartlepool-born Fitzgerald captained the Marton team, which won the unprecedented treble of the League, the League Cup and the County Cup. The side was also crowned Teesside Junior Football League's team of the year for 1994.
Fitzgerald had also been noticed by scouts from Leeds, and was said at his court case to have been signed on an FA contract from the age of 12.
But his contract was terminated and while Woodgate was helping the Leeds youth side win two major trophies in 1997, Fitzgerald was being convicted for possessing Class C drugs, and by last January he was banned from the roads for drink-driving.
In October last year, disqualified driver Fitzgerald got behind the wheel of a friend's car after drinking at least five pints of lager and taking cocaine while on a night out to celebrate his birthday.
He was giving a lift to a friend and his new work colleague, Katharine Davis, as well as the vehicle's owner, when it went out of control and crashed after police tried to stop it.
The car raced away at speeds of up to 80mph in a 30mph zone in Hartlepool, but Fitzgerald lost control and it clipped a central reservation, demolished a lamppost and overturned in a field where Katharine, 20, died instantly.
At his court case earlier this year, Fitzgerald walked with a limp - a lasting physical reminder of that fateful night, and of how things could have been so different.
His barrister, Graham Reeds told Teesside Crown Court that his rejection from his schoolboy contract had left him devastated.
He said: "It was a long time ago, but people who know him reckon it has had a considerable effect on him. It is something he has struggled to come to terms with for a long time."
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