TOM Aldred returns to his first club tomorrow and admits he made a mistake leaving Carlisle after just five league games.

The 24-year-old came through the youth ranks at Brunton Park but at the age of 19 he turned down a one-year contract extension and decided to move to Championship side Watford.

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But things never worked out for Bolton-born Aldred with the Hornets, he never made a first team appearance and had loan spells at Stockport County and Inverness Caledonian Thistle, before leaving the club after just one season.

Following another fruitless spell with Colchester United he is now back playing first team football every week with Stanley.

“The first team you are at or the team you come through as a young lad is somewhere that stays close to your heart,” said Aldred. “It’s a place I’m looking forward to going back to, I’ve got a lot of good memories from there.

“I look back now and I think I went too early, I got a bit of interest after five of six games but I needed 50 or 60 games before I took that move. I think that’s why I’ve had to come back and work my way back up.

“It was somewhere I had great people looking after me who knew me for years who were just getting my career going and to leave so early was probably a mistake. It’s one of those things, in football you get an opportunity and you take it, you never know, it’s a mistake but it’s something I’ve learnt from.”

Aldred believes playing under 21 or reserve team football is no substitute for the real thing, and said he would urge any young player to make sure they will be featuring regularly before moving up a level.

“I think it’s critical now,” he said of playing first team football. “There is always going to be interest in young players, but at 18 or 19 as a centre half playing that many games I wasn’t going to go into a Watford team that was pushing high in the Championship and become a mainstay in their side.

“The difference between youth football and league football is massive. The competitive edge, the physical edge, even the standard now has gone up, it’s real football.”

Aldred joined Stanley on January 31, 2013, and after coming on as substitute in the 3-0 win at Rochdale a month later he has now made 81 successive starts for the Reds.

“It’s a good run of games and it’s something I pride myself on,” he said. “It’s tough, it’s a physical league.

“Sometimes you’ve got three days to recover and you’ve got to get yourself back out there, it is tough, but it’s something you’ve got to be professional about, look after your body, eat right and do all the right things, and do the best you can in terms of getting yourself physically ready.”