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Dean Henderson's 'exceptional' talent was recognised by Carlisle at the age of 11 and by THIRTEEN he was training with the first team... a decade on, and with an England cap to his name, he now has the chance to stake a claim as Manchester United's No 1

Usually when a young hopeful joins a club at the age Dean Henderson was picked up by Carlisle they get one-year contracts and a season to prove they deserve another.

'Dean representing Carlisle, that was the dream that we all had, myself, first-team goalkeeper coach Tony Caig and the head of youth Eric Kinder,' Ben Benson, Carlisle's former head of academy goalkeeping, recalls.

'So much so that we tied him down to a six-year contract. At under-11 we signed him until he was 16! That shows we knew we had an exceptional boy on our hands.'

To borrow an analogy from Benson, Manchester United and Henderson's loan clubs – Stockport, Grimsby, Shrewsbury and Sheffield United - have helped put the house together but it is at Carlisle where the foundations were laid.