It's easy to forget Coventry City got a glimpse of Liverpool legend before most others | OneFootball

He's won almost every club award that it's possible to win but Coventry City fans were treated to an early glimpse of Jordan Henderson many years ago.

Jordan Henderson has made more than 400 appearances in the Premier League and more than 80 for England, but it was Coventry City fans who got an early glimpse of him.

After two years in Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, Henderson will be returning to the Premier League this summer with Brentford. The defensive midfielder has won almost everything that the club game has to offer, but even at 35 years of age, there's still a place at the top table for such an accomplished player.

But while Henderson's early career with his hometown, Sunderland, is fairly well-remembered, it did also include a brief interlude, which is half-forgotten, but which also accounts for the only period of his entire career during which he played below the top tier.

Henderson signed his first professional contract with the Black Cats in July 2008, having been in their youth academy since the age of eight. He made his debut under somewhat ignominious circumstances, as a half-time substitute in a 5-0 defeat at Chelsea in the Premier League, and at the start of the following year Sunderland decided to loan him out.

Coventry give Henderson his first - and only - taste of the EFL

Henderson was loaned to Coventry City at the end of the January 2009 transfer window. The loan was supposed to only be for a month, but it didn't take long for it to be extended until the end of the season. At the time, Coventry were 14th in the table, exactly as far from the play-off places as they were from the relegation places.

He made his debut for them the following Saturday, starting in midfield in a 2-1 defeat away to Derby County. The following week, he chipped in with an assist on his home debut for them, a surprise 2-1 win against League leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Ten days later came another assist, laying on a cross for Leon Best to give Coventry a 1-0 lead away to Burnley in a match which ended in a 1-1 draw. His only goal for the club came a couple of weeks later, the opening goal in a 2-1 win away to Norwich City. After this, he earned his first international call-up, with the England under-19s.

At the time, he was extremely happy to be at the club. Shortly before he left the club in March 2009, speaking to the Coventry Telegraph, he said: "I think the fact that I have been at Coventry playing first-team football has got me this call-up. I think I have done OK here and worked extremely hard to play every week. I am loving my football here."

Henderson would go on to win it all at Liverpool

Henderson's time with Coventry was curtailed by injury. A fractured metatarsal meant that a goalless draw away to Reading at the start of April was his final appearance in a sky-blue shirt. He returned to Sunderland to recover, and never returned to Coventry City - or, indeed, the EFL - again.

What happened next was every professional footballer's dream. Transferred to Liverpool in 2011, he would go on to win the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Club World Cup and the UEFA Super Cup while at Anfield, as well as making 84 appearances for the England national team from 2010 on.

And Henderson fondly recalled his time at the club. In an interview in early 2020, he said of his time at Coventry: "I was playing every week for a good club. They were doing very well in the Championship and I loved every minute of it. I felt it helped me progress as a player."

Having scored his first senior goal in the professional game while at the club, Henderson's time at Coventry was a reminder of the role that the EFL holds in the development of all players cross the national game.