James Wallace

With the Everton Acedemy since 2004, local lad James Wallace has played for the Republic of Ireland at under-16 level and he participated in the 2007 Montaigu Tournament for Ireland but it was later found that he was not eligible to play for the national team.

Wallace was thrust into the Goodison spotlight along with a few other kids from the Everton Academy when the start of the new 2008-09 season "came too soon" for the Everton hierarchy, who seemed oblivious to the new seven sub rule and had forgotten to bring in any new players.

Obviously one of the few Everton youngsters to actually impress Moyes, he had escaped the axe that cut short the aspirations of a number of his teammates in the annual cull at end of that season.  Wallace had advanced almost unheralded from the Academy, with very few appearances in the Everton Academy 2007-08 Under-18s side.

He made the extended subs bench for both opening games — that was until Everton finally brought in some more experienced warm bodies from foreign parts to make up the numbers. He made the subs bench on a further ten occasions through he season  but was allowed to develop further for another season in the Reserves before finally earning his debut as a sub in a Europa League qualifier in the Czech Republic, against Sigma Olomouc.

Wallace was subsequently named among the subs in a further eight senior matches through December 2009 but failed to make it onto the field again for the senior side during the rest of the season, as he was sidelined with a double hernia problem.  He featured in a couple of 2010 pre-season games but has not been called to the bench so far in the senior campaign despite featuring in all the reserves games through November.

In November 2010, he went for a month's loan with League 2 side Bury but ended up playing only one game as the extreme winter weather set in. Another month-long loan was arranged in Febrary 2011, Jay joining Stockport County in League 2. While he was honoured with the armband toward the end of his stint at Edgeley Park, County ended up embarrassingly bottom of League Two and lost their struggle to stay in the Football League after over a Century.

At the end of May 2011, with the club seriously needing its young players to step up and fill the gapping void left by a painful absence of transfer funds, 19-year-old Wallace was granted another year in Everton Reserves, and the chance to possibly avoid the dreaded release...

At a diminutive 5-ft 8-in, perhaps Wallace can credit his reprieve to the sight of Barcelona's small but highly skillful Academy players propelling the Catalans to a glorious Champions League victory over Manchester United at Wembley just a few days earlier...

After playing in a handful of Reserves games at the start of 2011-12 season, James Wallace was farmed out on another League One loan spell, this time to Shrewsbury Town, for the month of November, 2011.  That was followed in Jaunary 2012 by a month's loan with Stevenage, which was almost immedialtely cut short by a managerial change (the shortest loan on record?), so Jay went across the Mersey to Tranmere. who had just finished with an extended loan of Everton's Jose Baxter.

By Michael Kenrick
Last updated Jaunary 2012