Wrexham make club record approach for Premier League captain who left Leeds United 18 years ago
The midfielder has gone on to enjoy an excellent career since leaving Leeds United as a teenager.
Former Leeds United academy prospect and current Fulham captain Tom Cairney is reportedly the subject of a big-money approach from newly-promoted Championship club Wrexham.
Cairney spent close to a decade developing as a young kid at Leeds, having joined from boyhood club Nottingham Forest aged seven before his release at 16-years-old due to his size and lack of physicality. The technically gifted midfielder moved east to Hull City where he made his professional debut before spells at Blackburn Rovers and Fulham, the latter of whom he has been with since 2015.
The 34-year-old is now club captain at Craven Cottage but only two of his 23 Premier League appearances have come from the start and with a contract that expires next summer, a move could be on the cards. And now The Telegraph report on transfer interest from League One promotion winners Wrexham, 18 years on from his Leeds academy exit.
The Welsh club are now famously owned by Hollywood pair Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney who have overseen three promotions in as many years from the National League to the Championship while documenting their success on Disney+. The big-spending owners already have experienced options like James McLean and Jay Rodriguez in their ranks but appear keen to add more.
Wrexham owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney want championship promotion experience
Wrexham are said to have made an approach to sign Cairney and while discussions are at an early stage, any potential deal would see them break their current transfer record of £2million spent on Reading striker Sam Smith in January. Premier League regular Cairney would also likely demand a generous salary.
But the former Thorp Arch prospect is seen by owners Reynolds and McElhenney as someone who can bridge that gap between a League One squad and the upper-end of Championship football. Cairney’s promotion experience would also prove valuable, given he has gone up with Fulham automatically and via the play-offs.
As his playing career comes towards its latter stages, Cairney appears to be trying his hand elsewhere and was a guest on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football coverage of Wolves vs Forest back in January. And following the game, he opened up his nine-year spell as a Thorp Arch prospect.
"At eight, I think Leeds kind of took me off [Nottingham] Forest in a way, if you can say that, at eight, nine years old, something like that," he said. "I just remember coming home from school or something, and I was at Forest's academy at the time, when I was seven, and my dad said, 'You're going to Leeds'
"You just get in the car, you put your kit on. We drove up to Thorp Arch, which at them times, I think, you wasn't allowed to live an hour outside the training ground but we did. It was a bit chaos, my dad was a taxi driver at the time, so we used to break down on the way home. So that was carnage, but, yeah, the things you do and those are unbelievable memories I have.
"I got released when I was 16. So, I was there from seven or eight until 16. I was a late developer, really late developer physically, so the academy said 'We haven't got the time to wait, for him to mature, can't get round the pitch, a little bit too physically weak.' The technical side I had, but always in youth football the strongest and fastest wins until everyone catches up.”
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