What happened to the Premier League’s youngest ever player?

Matthew Briggs made history on the final day of the 2006/07 season. 13 years on he tells Richard Edwards how nothing after that quite went to plan

Matthew Briggs was thrown in at the deep end (PA)

At the age of 16 there are always more answers than questions. Self-doubt can wait. Just ask Matthew Briggs.

Whistled up to the Fulham first team by then manager Lawrie Sanchez, who had presided over just one win in 11 matches, Briggs made history by becoming the youngest player in Premier League history at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium on the final day of the 2006/07 season. The world was at his feet.

The only questions running through his mind at the time were how many more appearances he would make and how long it would be before he became fully established in the top flight. The answers to both, he reasoned, would come sooner rather than later.