Ronnie Wallwork Profile

Born and bred in New­ton Heath, Ron­nie Wall­work sig­ned his fir­st pro­fes­sion­al con­tract wi­th Man­chester Uni­ted in Mar­ch 1995, and made his fir­st Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue ap­pear­ance for the club as a re­place­ment for Three Li­ons in­ter­na­tion­al cent­ral ha­lf Ga­ry Pal­lister dur­ing an over­whelm­ing 7-0 win over Dan­ny Wilson´s Barns­ley at Old Traf­ford on the 25th of Oct­ober 1997. In a com­pletely one-sided mat­ch, Andy Cole gave the ag­gress­ive ho­me si­de the lead in the 19th min­ute of ac­tion, be­fore the same man pro­duced a sec­ond goal on­ly a couple of min­utes la­ter. Ry­an Gig­gs then made it 3-0 to the hosts as the rock­et-heeled flanker power­ed the ball pa­st the Barns­ley goal­keeper and in­to the top cor­ner of the net in the 43rd min­ute of play, and two min­utes la­ter Giggsy sent a mag­ni­fi­cent thro­ugh ball to Cole who com­pleted his hat-trick to make the ha­lf-time score 4-0 in fa­vour of the men in red shirts. Then, thir­teen min­utes in­to the sec­ond ha­lf, Ry­an Gig­gs went on to net his sec­ond goal of the con­test when the wing­er fired an­oth­er un­stoppable ef­fort pa­st help­less Barns­ley net cus­todi­an Da­vid Wat­son. Man­chester Uni­ted pro­ceeded to dom­in­ate the ga­me and Paul Scho­les and Karel Pobor­sky ev­entually roun­ded off the scor­ing wi­th a goal each. Wall­work nev­er ma­naged to es­tab­lish him­self in the fir­st te­am un­der Al­ex Fer­guson, tho­ugh, and his self-con­fid­ence was slowly but surely un­der­mined. Wi­th the con­stant com­pet­i­tion for fir­st te­am places at the club, the loc­ally born mid­field dog of war con­tin­ued to struggle to make a re­al im­pact at the club, and he ev­entually des­cen­ded down the peck­ing order.

Then as soon as the 2001-02 sea­son was over, de­mand­ing Man­chester Uni­ted gaf­fer Sir Al­ex Fer­guson deemed his ser­vices sur­plus to re­quire­ments af­ter hav­ing ap­peared in on­ly twenty-eight fir­st te­am mat­ches for his boy­hood club, and the frus­trated and rest­less foot­baller sub­sequently left the club for Barclay­card Pre­miership new boys West Brom­wich Al­bion where he be­came a mas­sive fa­vour­ite wi­th the sup­port­ers at The Haw­thorns. A de­term­ined and ver­sat­ile mid­fielder, Wall­work was giv­en his Pre­mier Lea­gue de­but for West Brom­wich by head coach Ga­ry Meg­son when he took the pitch as a late sec­ond ha­lf sub­sti­tute for for­mer Mor­ton, Ran­gers, and Toulouse mid­field war­ri­or Derek McInnes dur­ing a 3–1 de­feat ag­ainst Leeds Uni­ted in front of a 26,000 strong ho­me crowd at The Haw­thorns on the 24th of Au­gust 2002, and he pro­ceeded to play in twenty-sev­en of the Mid­lands club´s thirty-eight Pre­mier Lea­gue fix­tures in the 2002–03 cam­paign. Whi­le wi­th The Throstles, the foot­ball hard man need­ed a lifesav­ing op­er­a­tion af­ter suf­fer­ing sev­en stab wounds to his stom­ach, back and hand when he was at­tacked in a Man­chester night club on the 30th of Nov­ember 2006, and he was nev­er quite the same play­er ever ag­ain. Widely re­cog­nised for his com­mit­ment and ded­ic­a­tion, the de­fens­ive ori­ented mid­field work­horse amassed clo­se to 100 lea­gue ap­pear­ances for West Brom­wich be­fore he de­cided to make a free trans­fer move to Foot­ball Lea­gue Cham­pi­on­ship si­de Shef­field Wed­nesday mid­way thro­ugh the 2007-08 sea­son and he was han­ded his fir­st te­am de­but for The Owls when he entered the field as a ha­lf-time sub­sti­tute for fel­low mid­fielder Ste­ve Wat­son dur­ing a 1–0 loss to Car­diff City at Nini­an Park on the 12th of  Jan­uary 2008, but he on­ly ma­naged to make sev­en Lea­gue out­ings for The Owls whi­le at Hillsborough.

Dur­ing his pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer ca­reer, Ron­nie Wall­work was also shipped out on loan to a string of Foot­ball Lea­gue te­ams in or­der to ob­tain some much need­ed fir­st te­am foot­ball ex­per­i­ence. The much traveled foot­baller ac­cu­mu­lated clo­se to 200 Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted, Carl­isle Uni­ted, Stock­port Coun­ty, Roy­al An­t­werp FC, West Brom­wich Al­bion, Brad­ford City, Barns­ley, Hud­dersfield To­wn, and then fi­nally Shef­field Wed­nesday, be­fore he an­nounced an early re­tire­ment from his sport be­cause of per­sist­ent prob­lems wi­th in­jur­ies at the end of the 2007-08 cam­paign. Un­for­tu­nately, Wallwork´s life af­ter play­ing pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer was some­what less com­posed wi­th a num­ber of ill-fated at­tempts at busi­ness man­agement and the pre­vi­ous Pre­mier Lea­gue play­er was sen­tenced to fif­teen months of im­pris­on­ment in Dec­ember 2011 af­ter he pleaded guilty to three counts of re­ceiv­ing stolen prop­erty. Ron­nie Wall­work Play­ing Ca­reer: Man­chester Uni­ted, Carl­isle Uni­ted, Stock­port Coun­ty, Roy­al An­t­werp FC, West Brom­wich Al­bion, Brad­ford City, Barns­ley, Hud­dersfield To­wn, Shef­field Wed­nesday, Ashton Uni­ted. Man­aging Ca­reer: None.

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