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A footballer dubbed ‘the original Wayne Rooney’ after signing for Liverpool has died at the age of 46.

Wayne Harrison was tipped for stardom when Liverpool FC splashed out £250,000 to buy him from Oldham Athletic in 1985.

The fee made the gifted striker the world’s most expensive teenager at the age of 17 - but a catalogue of injuries and logic-defying misfortune meant he never fulfilled his potential.

It is understood Wayne, who retired in 1991, suffered from pancreatic problems and died in hospital on Christmas Day morning.

After dazzling scouts at Boundary Park and prompting the move to his boyhood idols after just five first-team appearances Wayne was on the verge of a place on the substitutes bench with the Anfield giants when he suffered his first dose of ill-fate, falling through a greenhouse.

At the time the ambulance service was on strike and he came close to death through loss of blood before army medics managed to get him to hospital.

Other injuries soon followed – including one caused by a fall through his loft – and Wayne went under the surgeon’s knife on no less than 23 occasions.

In 1990, still aged only 22, came the blow that would eventually cut his career cruelly short.

In the final minute of the final Liverpool reserve team game of the season he collided with the Bradford City goalkeeper, tearing the cruciate ligaments in his knee.

The following year, with the injury beyond repair, Liverpool manager Graeme Souness gave him the inevitable news that it was over.

Wayne took a job as a driver with Robinson’s Brewery and started turning out for Sunday League side Offerton Green.

One pal remembers him as a “humble, amazingly gifted man”.

He said: “He started off as a substitute in the second team like everyone else and that was no problem, he had no airs or graces.

“He made a lot of defenders look daft. The talent he had was unbelievable but he was very humble.

“He was larger than life, a very funny man and a lot of people are devastated around here.”

Former club Oldham arranged a testimonial against Liverpool in 1992 but Wayne could not make it onto the field due to the effects of his injury.

It is thought he passed away at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport after a short illness.