Patrick Wood – CC Strikers to the A-League

Pat Wood

 

By Tobias Canning

 

Patrick Wood is just a tender 18-years-old. But his age clearly isn’t something that fazes him, of the people that matter. Who else could score a double on debut and get the cowbells to go silent at Campbelltown Stadium? Only he could.

 

He’s even joint top scorer for the Sky Blues this season with three goals. But when you look back into the earlier part of his career, he spent an four years at Manly United and prior to that, he started out playing for the Collaroy Cromer Strikers.

 

As part of a new weekly series highlighting the MWFA grassroots players who have progressed to higher honours through the MWFA / Manly United pathway, we spoke to Patrick about the path he has taken.

 

It’s a journey that started at home for CC Strikers, a club he’s still a part of today, through coaching his younger brother’s side.

 

“Mum and Dad threw me into Soccer at the age of four for CC Strikers. I was playing with my sister for a while and I loved it. And as a young kid, I was always kicking a ball around in the front yard.

 

“It’s good to help by giving back to the community and to the club where I first started playing. Hopefully I can teach them a few things that I’ve learnt over the years.”

 

Not long after, his affiliation with Manly started, a club he credits as one that “taught me everything”.

“I was doing the Youth Development there for a while. I played SAP and then I just went through the Youth League until U13s when I went to Sydney FC.”

 

“Manly United helped make me into the player I am today. All the development worked on and all the techniques taught there are definitely skillsets you need when stepping it up to the big league.”

 

After that, he transitioned from Sydney FC’s Youth team, to the NPL and then to the A-League.

 

“The Sydney FC Youth team allows you to step up easily into the first team. The style of Football they play is a strong contributing factor to that. And learning from players such as Bobo and Ninkovic has been great.”

 

Oh, not to mention he also won the NPL Golden Boot in 2020 with 11 goals from 13 games.

 

“During the COVID break I worked extra hard putting in a lot of effort off the field and that allowed me to be in a position to claim the Golden Boot. We had a good team as well which helped out. All-round it was awesome last season,” he says.

 

And all his hard work has recently paid off, with Wood recently inking a two-year scholarship contract with the Sky Blues.

 

“It’s a good feeling to see all the hard work I’ve put in pay off. But at the end of the day, it’s only the start of my career.”

 

With all he’s achieved so far, let’s hope the next stage of his career continues along the same trajectory as it has to this point.

 

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