Joe Hardy recently spoke to This Is Anfield about his experience of joining Liverpool’s academy and making his professional debut for the club at Anfield. Just a month earlier, he had been sat in Brentford’s development squad, but the start of 2020 brought him a move back home to Merseyside. Less than a month after his arrival, with the senior squad on their winter break, the youth team were called upon to do something that the first team had failed to do a week earlier: beat Shrewsbury in the FA Cup. Hardy came on in the 82nd minute for his first-team debut and described the night as the best moment of his career.
“The atmosphere was just [amazing], and it was a full crowd and it was a full Anfield,” the striker said. Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones were the most experienced names in the side that night and seven teenagers started the 1-0 win. Each player has gone on to have varying levels of success at different clubs.
Hardy left Liverpool in the summer of 2021 but insists he has no regrets from his time playing for the Reds. “I don’t think I’d have done anything differently because I just made every second count really,” he said. He reflected on some of the brilliant team-mates he played alongside at Liverpool, singling out Phil Foden as his best-ever and praising Tyler Morton for his potential.
The attacker also spoke about his experiences with the first-team players and the words of advice that Jurgen Klopp gave him on signing for the club. The new training ground in Kirkby has helped better integrate the academy and senior squad, making it easier to interact with them and train with them.
Hardy has spent the last few months in the seventh tier of English football, but will return to Accrington Stanley for pre-season with a successful few months of football under his belt at Marine. On what is next in his career, Hardy said he is doing as well as he can and will see “what comes for next pre-season,” then kick on from there.