Monday 28 November 2016 19:50, UK
He was the child star of a McDonald's advert and dubbed football's next big thing who was fawned over by Ajax's 1995 Champions League-winning team.
Sonny Pike had in front of him the career that so many wished for - but he ended up at Leyton Orient before falling out of the game by the time he was old enough to pass his driving test.
The Englishman fears Celtic's precocious Karamoko Dembele could suffer a similar fate if he allows others to influence his future the way he did.
The Parkhead schoolboy is at the centre of a tug of war between Scotland and England after it emerged he was invited by the FA to train at St George's Park last month.
While the SFA is determined to keep Dembele, the prospect of losing him after just a few minutes of game-time for the under-16s is real.
From the moment footage of the 13-year-old appeared on YouTube earlier this year, pressure on him has been mounting and the weight of expectation is heavy.
It is a situation Pike relates to with uncomfortable ease. After catching the eye at the age of 10, he was soon touted as the new Diego Maradona and had his legs insured for £1million.
TV appearances, sponsorship deals and Premier League interest followed along with an on-pitch outing at the 1996 English League Cup final to do some keepy-ups for Coca-Cola.
Demand for the youngster was snowballing - yet that would change just as quickly.
Ajax took him on trial and after mixing with Louis van Gaal, Patrick Kluivert and Frank Rijkaard, they desperately tried to sign him, but he rejected them to stay at home in Essex.
Pike joined Orient instead and the dream soon unravelled to the point that by 17, he was out of love with football and contemplating suicide because things had gone so sour.
The extreme nature of his experiences stands as a valid warning to any emerging talent of how wrong things can go - and none more so in his eyes at present than Dembele.
Pike, now 33, said: "People have been messaging me a lot about Karamoko over the last few weeks and comparing us, saying it's a similar sort of situation.
"I've seen a few clips of him and he looks a great little player. He has natural strength and that's important because everyone will have that when he's older.
"It's interesting to consider which way it's going to go for him and hopefully it can be a good thing for him.
"I like to see young footballers coming through but now it's all about how Karamoko is managed and having the right people around him.
"People have to understand his situation. Things can develop so quickly that the next thing you know, he could be doing so much elsewhere that it takes away from his football.
"He's very talented but as I experienced myself, it can go from being a good thing to a bad thing pretty quickly.
"Once you get to the money side of things and people start earning, it can go very wrong and football itself slips down the list a bit.
"I'd imagine Karamoko's parents have already had lots of new friends presenting themselves, something I wouldn't be surprised to hear.
"They have to realise how all the focus, attention and distractions could mix up their son's feelings and affect his game. It's a lot for a kid of that age to take on.
"Everything's so instant nowadays that I'm sure he's feeling a bit of pressure already but hopefully people just leave him to play football.
"Karamoko has to stay focused on himself. We are talking about a lad of 13 and it's down to his parents, those closest to him and Celtic to work together and not get too far ahead."
Pike speaks a lot about family support and little wonder. His relationship with his father Mickey broke down due to what happened following the decision not to move to Holland.
While at Orient, there was interest from Chelsea at a time when Mickey had allowed a film crew to record his son for part of a documentary.
Pike was keen on going there and said as much before joining them for training without permission, unknowingly breaking FA rules and earning a 12-month ban.
Cast aside by both clubs after the footage aired, he went from everyone wanting a piece of him to being yesterday's man and he has not spoken to his dad in more than 15 years.
Pike added: "By the time I was 14, I had five agents and the majority of them didn't even get involved in the football side of things.
"Some were good for me and others weren't but the fact there were so many of them shows how quickly things can escalate.
"I was working for McDonald's and Coca-Cola, I had all my clothes made by Paul Smith and I had boot deals.
"People were coming up to me in the street to say they had bet on me doing this and that for England.
"Unless there's someone around you and guiding you in that sort of situation, it can get out of control very quickly.
"It was good in the beginning but I slowly fell out of love with the game. When I was 17, I didn't even want to play football any more and I was in a bad way with it.
"A lot of people want to become professional football players but there's a long way to go at that age. You can be as well-known as you like, it doesn't mean you're going to make it.
"In fact, there are so many reasons at that age why you can't be a professional footballer and you still have so much work to do.
"You must earn it and concentrate on actually fulfilling your potential rather than listening to people saying you're going to have it all."
Pike now drives a Hackney cab around London's East End for a living but how he could have benefitted from having The Knowledge as a child.
He hopes his story helps the likes of Dembele to stay grounded and make his mark in a way he was unable to.
Pike said: "I've been looking back at the things I did back then much more recently. At first, I was a bit funny about it but now I don't mind it so much.
"Of course, I have regrets because I wanted to be a footballer and I loved it, even though I got sick of it.
"Now things have gone full circle. Talking about it and getting it off my chest has been good for me but it has taken time. I'm enjoying the game more than I have in the last 10 years.
"A lot of the things that happened to me were out of my control. I'm an adult now but when I was a kid it was down to other people how things went in many respects.
"Karamoko's got to take things day by day and enjoy it. Even though he's the most well-known kid at the minute, there's still every chance he might not become a football player.
"The last thing you want is for him to be that boy we all looked at on YouTube but we didn't actually see him do anything in the game because he got distracted.
"When I was his age, Wayne Rooney was roughly the same age as me but nobody had heard about him yet. All the talk was about me.
"I was struggling for a while, I'm not going to lie, but since I had my kids and I met some good people, I'm as happy now as I've ever been.
"I got to a stage where I wasn't enjoying football. I just wanted to be normal like everyone else and I wanted to live normally. I'm doing that now and I'm happy."
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