James Lawrie

The young Northern Ireland international player, James Lawrie, arrived at Aggborough from Port Vale in February 2010 on an initial one month loan deal. Although born in Dundonald, Northern Ireland, he spent his formative years in Middlewich, Cheshire and joined Port vale when he was a schoolboy and signed professional forms for them in 2007.

He made his debut for Vale in January 2009 against Chester City and scored a goal that was to be awarded the Goal of the Season. At the end of last season he went for a week long trial at Everton but it wasn’t followed up.

Since then he has been in and out of the side and was finally put on the transfer list along with the rest of the squad when Micky Adams came in as manager.

His international career started with the U19 side and Lawrie scored three goals in his first six games. He was then promoted to the Northern Ireland B team for a friendly with the Scotland B team on 6 May 2009. He came on as a 31st minute substitute.

Following his senior debut he continued at youth level for a while and scored the last minute winner against Germany U19’s with the game finishing in a 3-2 defeat for the Irish. Two days later he scored the opening goal in a 3-0 win against Bulgaria and in the final against Denmark Lawrie provided the cross for Josh Magennis to score the opening goal in the 2-0 win. Lawrie was given the Player of the Tournament award.

Following a handful more games for the U19 and B sides he was called up to the full Northern Ireland squad for the first time in a friendly with Italy on 6th June 2009. He picked up his first senior cap in the game after coming on as a late substitute. The Italian side won 3-0.