Through the fine drizzle hanging over the outskirts of Liverpool.
Dalglish’s car pulled smoothly into the Kirkby training ground, well away from the noise and bustle of West Derby’s streets, and quite unlike Melwood, the first-team ground, which stayed open to the public and often had fans lingering nearby.
The whole facility sat closed off, quiet, built for one purpose only: academy training.
Dalglish led Dean and Ethan straight up into the office building, walking with ease all the way to an office at the far end, then pushed the door open and walked straight in without knocking.
Inside, Steve Heighway sat at his desk, going through paperwork.
He’d had his eye on a boy called Rahim from Queens Park Rangers’ academy.
He was keen to bring the boy to Kirkby.
At that moment, seeing the three of them walk in, he set the papers down and looked up with a smile.
He and Dalglish had known each other for years, and neither had ever bothered much with formality between them.
“Brought a couple of boys along.” Dalglish stepped aside to reveal Dean and Ethan standing behind him, offering a brief introduction.
“Ethan, Dean.
Both grew up in West Derby.
John’s two grandsons.”
At the mention of John, Heighway’s expression dimmed slightly.
Hillsborough wasn’t only a wound carried by those ninety-six families—it was a wound carried by the whole city.
His gaze settled on the two boys with a certain fondness in his eyes.
He’d always had a soft spot for homegrown Liverpool boys, valuing the fighting spirit local players carried for the city.
Compared to Benítez’s preference for foreign signings and imported talent, Heighway had always held firm to the belief that boys rooted in this ground were the ones who truly belonged at Liverpool.
He looked Ethan over, and then let his gaze settle on Dean.
Dalglish had already made sure to explain the whole situation to him beforehand.
Dean was adopted and was not pure white, but he’d grown up in West Derby, Liverpool, since he was small and especially with John’s background behind him, he counted, in every real sense, as a true Liverpool boy.
Heighway reached out and slid a paper contract across the desk—he’d already had a formal scholar contract drawn up in advance.
Dean nodded and took it, looking it over.
Heighway spoke seriously.
“Finish out your classes at Bishop John Catholic School this week, then withdraw.
You’ve got no football background at all, your basics are far too weak, you’ll fall behind the normal squad’s rhythm.
Going forward, you’ll need to spend four to five days a week based full-time at Kirkby for training camp, living on-site—the academy covers all your food and lodging with two rest days a week, when you can go home.
You won’t fall behind on your regular schooling either.
The base has its own dedicated teachers, and you’ll study alongside academy players your own age.
If your training and match performances hold up well going forward, we’ll raise your terms, and if you meet the requirements, you could even sign a professional contract ahead of schedule.”
He looked up at Dean and asked gently, “So?
Are you happy with this?”
Dean didn’t care about any of the rest of it.
His eyes had already fixed themselves, unmoving, on the wage clause in the contract.
A hundred and ten pounds a week, in black and white.
The boulder that had been hanging over his heart finally came down and settled.
He nodded firmly.
“Yeah.”
Dalglish spoke up at just the right moment.
“You don’t have a guardian right now—Mrs.
Mason’s in hospital, she can’t sign for you.
I’ll act as your legal guardian.
Do you mind?”
Ethan’s eyes went wide at once, his whole face was lit up with excitement, his voice dropped low as he tried to hold back a delighted exclamation.
Doesn’t that basically make us Liverpool royalty?”
Dean ignored his brother’s excited outburst.
He agreed to it too.
And so, the three of them signed, one after another.
Dean wrote out his own name.
Dalglish signed to confirm his role as guardian.
Heighway signed on behalf of Liverpool’s Kirkby academy.
The signatures made it official.
The agreement was formally settled.
Heighway gathered up the contract, a smile spread across his face.
“Finish your schooling properly this week.
Enjoy these last few easy days—once you’re officially in the squad, you won’t have any free time left at all.”
The words had barely landed.
Dean spoke up at once.
“I can start training tomorrow.”
Heighway blinked, caught slightly off guard, and turned to look at Dalglish with a touch of surprise in his eyes—he clearly hadn’t expected the boy to be in such a hurry.
Dalglish just shrugged.
A moment later, he turned back to Dean and said simply, “You can start training early if you want.
But your wage under the contract officially starts from next week.
Whatever training you do in the meantime won’t be paid.”
“That’s fine.” Dean answered without a moment’s hesitation.
Heighway looked at the drive in the boy’s eyes and grew a shade more serious himself.
“All right, then.
We’ll see what you’ve got.
Come straight here tomorrow.
Good luck, son.
I’m looking forward to the day you’re wearing the red of the Reds, standing out on the pitch at Anfield.”
Dean nodded firmly.
He still couldn’t see clearly into the distant future—didn’t know if he’d make it, didn’t know if he’d ever stand on the biggest stage in the game.
But in this moment, a life that had been drifting without any anchor had finally found somewhere to land.
Out of an impossible situation, he finally had a clear goal in front of him.
After a short time, Dalglish spoke up.
“You two wait out in the corridor for a bit.”
Dean and Ethan turned and did as they were told, slipping quietly out of the office and pulling the door shut behind them.
The corridor sat quiet and empty with just the two brothers standing there.
Both Ethan and Dean found themselves smiling, in that moment.
And, Ethan launched straight into explaining who Heighway was.
“God, that was actually Heighway!
I actually just met him with my own eyes.
Dean, do you know—back in his day, they called him the Highway, because of how fast he could burst forward.
He played four hundred and forty-four games for Liverpool, scored seventy-six goals, and finished tenth in the Ballon d’Or voting in 1977.
During that stretch, he helped the club win the European Cup twice, in 1977 and 1978…
And years after he retired, the club brought him back, and he built Liverpool’s whole modern academy system up from nothing—Kirkby.
He’s the one who discovered so many of the greats under his watch—Gerrard, Owen, Fowler, Carragher, all of them, all found by him.
Dean listened, and thought about his own future at the same time.
Tomorrow, he’d officially be stepping onto the road of football.
Inside the office: the office door swung gently shut, sealing off the sounds from the corridor.
The room fell quiet at once, leaving nothing but the faint patter of rain outside the window.
Dalglish walked over to the window, looking out at the neatly kept training pitches beyond it.
“That boy’s an uncut jewel.
I watched his trial.
That talent’s something he was simply born with.”
He turned back around, facing Heighway at the desk, and went on.
“Zero background, never been through any kind of structured training, and yet he’s got a top-tier feel for space out on the pitch, an excellent instinct for defensive positioning—he’s a real prospect for a defensive midfielder role.
He’s also got a genuinely sharp passing eye.
And his physical foundation is excellent—his stamina, especially, is far beyond anything you’d see in an age-group squad.
Half an hour of high-intensity match play and he didn’t so much as flinch.
That kind of raw, natural gift doesn’t come along often.
You don’t go looking for it.
It just turns up.”
Heighway heard this and gave a slow nod.
But there wasn’t the faintest trace of delight on his face at having found a good prospect.
Instead, he let out a heavy sigh.
“I believe you, Kenny.”
With those words, the office fell into a brief silence.
Dalglish looked at the downcast expression on his face and understood at once.
The old problem, again.
Benítez.
Ever since the Spanish manager had taken charge at Liverpool, the whole club’s footballing setup had changed beyond recognition.
He favoured a controlled, standardized tactical system, valued only players who could contribute immediately, and had abandoned entirely the boot-room philosophy Liverpool had spent years cultivating—the patient willingness to let academy players grow at their own pace.
It had brought him into fierce conflict with Heighway.
By now, the Melwood first-team ground and the Kirkby academy ground had become virtual strangers to each other with almost no connection left between them at all.
Benítez paid no attention to the development of the academy sides, and gave homegrown young players no chance at all to make mistakes or work their way up.
No matter how good a prospect Kirkby managed to produce, the door to the first team stayed permanently shut.
Bringing in ready-made talent from outside, signing already-established players—that had become the club’s only real transfer logic.
Everything Heighway had spent years painstakingly building had been rendered, entirely, a waste of effort.
“Liverpool, as it stands now, doesn’t need academy kids at all anymore.”
Heighway leaned back in his chair; exhaustion was all across his face.
“I’ve kept watch over this place for more than a decade.
Built this whole academy system up from nothing.
Sent off one generation of homegrown talent after another.
However hard things got before, there was always at least a road from the academy up to the first team.
Now, that road’s been completely cut off.
The players I’ve worked so carefully to develop are stuck at Kirkby forever, never called up to the first team, never given a single minute on the pitch.
In the end, they either watch their talent go to waste, or they’re forced to leave.”
Dalglish stayed silent, with nothing to argue back.
After a long moment, Heighway lifted his head and, slowly, let out one heavy sentence.
“Kenny.
I might, before too long, choose to walk away from here.”