In 1999 Australia’s under 17 side, known as ‘the Joeys’, made a splash in the World Championship by reaching the Final and losing to Brazil only on penalties.
As is so often the case with youth teams, comparatively few players progress onto international stardom and there are many what-ifs among the names. Nowhere is this more applicable than in Australia, perhaps because fans in those barren years desperately hoped for something to cling onto and ironically, in the pre-FFA days there was a healthy export trade that brought some sense of pride to local fans. Of the 1999 Joeys squad, only five would graduate to winning full caps for Australia – Joshua Kennedy, Scott McDonald, Adrian Madaschi, Jade North and Dylan Macallister. The rest either enjoyed middling careers for the most part, or would fall into obscurity.
Some players, on the other hand, quietly make their way through the professional ranks and may even enjoy success later in their careers when they might least expect it, or when it is least talked about. Enter Shane Cansdell-Sherriff, one of the 1999 Joeys who has enjoyed a steady and relatively obscure career, yet is on the verge of tasting success at the age of 32. He began at Leeds United where he did not play a first team game, moving to Denmark to feature for AGF Aarhus in 2003. He remained there for three years, before returning to England in 2006 to join then League One side Tranmere Rovers.
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At Tranmere he played regularly, slotting into either left-back or being moved into midfield when required. Two years later he joined Shrewsbury Town, then playing in League Two, but about to enjoy something of a revival with the club’s most successful manager Graham Turner in 2010. In four years at the club, Cansdell-Sherriff experienced two play-off campaigns and automatic promotion in 2012. However, he then joined Preston North End but did not establish himself, going on loan to Rochdale and then Burton Albion, for whom he signed on a permanent basis in 2014.
Nigel Clough became Burton Albion manager in 1998 and the club moved steadily up the leagues. This inevitably attracted attention higher up the pyramid and in 2008 he became manager of Derby County, over four decades after his father took over. In nearly five years at the helm, Clough rebuilt a club that suffered the indignity of an all-time low Premier League points tally, making steady progress and leaving Derby with a very promising team. At Sheffield United, he oversaw a turnaround in form and a run to the FA Cup semi-finals, but left the club after losing in the play-offs to Swindon Town last season.
In December 2015 Clough returned to Burton Albion. In the intervening seven years, a succession of managers – Paul Peschisolido, Garry Rowett and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink – guided Burton to steady progress in League Two, and they made the play-offs in consecutive seasons before winning automatic promotion. Now a permanent signing, Cansdell-Sherriff was an integral part of a defence that conceded only 39 goals in 46 games on their way to the League Two title. Recording only 24 conceded in 30 League showings this season, this has been a strength that has carried them to the top of League One. With Nigel Clough back in charge, the job that began 18-years ago is being more than completed.
While Cansdell-Sherriff did not achieve the international success of a handful of his 1999 Joeys teammates, he can now claim to be attaining at a rather late stage of his career greater success and prominence than what might have been imagined. If this has been relative obscurity, then the prospect of consecutive promotions can indeed be considered success in obscurity.
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