Gerrard: My Autobiography (9 page)

Certain first-teamers, namely the foreigners like Oyvind Leonhardsen, weren’t arsed about being nice to young lads like me. They would always have a go if the boots weren’t spot-on. Stig Inge Bjornebye, the Norwegian full-back, was all right. He had been at Liverpool quite a long time, so he appreciated the apprentices. Stig gave me boots now and then. He wasn’t a bundle of fun or a boss laugh, he was just OK. At least Stig showed us respect. Others didn’t. That pissed me off. We were working and training hard to become professional footballers like them, cleaning the shite off their boots, doing all sorts of menial jobs around Melwood, and it infuriated me when some of the foreign players looked down at us. Patrik Berger wasn’t really good with the apprentices. The dismissive attitude of the majority of the foreign lads irritated me, though I understood in a way. ‘If I go to a foreign country, am I going to be bothered with the kids?’ I wondered. I was on quite good terms with Fowler, Redknapp and McManaman, and that was all I was arsed about. I knew Carra and Michael Owen, too. I was OK.

The English players were brilliant with us. David James was such a character. As soon as I walked into the dressing-room, bang, Jamo caned me! If I had dodgy clobber on, or my hair wasn’t right, Jamo was straight on to it. ‘Where did you get those clothes?’ Jamo would ask. ‘A jumble sale? Have the police caught your tailor yet? Is the guy who cut your hair back inside?’ Jamo modelled for Armani at the time so it was difficult to criticize his
style. Anyway, us YTS boys knew the drill. ‘Never, ever answer Jamo back’ was the unwritten rule. We all whispered it to each other when he gave one of us some stick.

One day Greggo and Boggo, two lads from Croxteth who talked back to anyone, were cleaning the first-team dressing-room. They had to make sure the floor was spotless and put all the kit out. I came through, on my way to the boot room, and found an extraordinary scene. John Barnes, Robbie, Macca and all the first-teamers were on their backs, laughing, tears rolling down their faces. They pointed towards the corner of the room where a bin stood. And in the bin was Greggo with his arms stuck down inside! Greggo has red hair, floppy like McManaman’s but red, and there he was jammed into this bin, looking hilarious.

‘What happened to Greggo?’ I asked Boggo.

‘He answered Jamo back,’ Boggo replied. ‘Jamo picked Greggo up, folded him in half and shoved him in the bin.’

Only when the players stopped laughing, about ten minutes later, did someone pull Greggo out. Greggo could hardly walk. He was doubled up like an old man. Brilliant. That was classic Jamo! Never give him any lip. He’s tall, strong, and he leaves YTS boys stranded in bins.

Only one thing pissed down on me as an apprentice at Liverpool: injuries. In my first year, I was plagued with them. A vicious circle trapped me: one step forward, playing really well; strain a muscle, hobble one step back. My ankle always played me up. When my back was wrong, I didn’t look forward to training or playing because I knew it would be only a matter of time before something else
would be sore. Injuries first began impeding my development towards the end of my time at school. If I played two or three games in a week, my back would be really stiff. The medical term for my problem was Osgood-Schlatter’s, a bone disease tied up with the growth spurts that took me from a fifteen-year-old the same height as Michael Owen to a gangly six-footer. My back hurt. My knees were sore. Every physio and doctor I went to see just examined me and said, ‘It’s because you are growing.’ I wanted to be tall, but it was a pain getting there.

Fortunately, I was in the down-to-earth hands of Liverpool manager Roy Evans. Whenever I look back now, I thank God I had such a caring person as Roy helping me in the early days of my career. One day, Roy called me into his office. His assistants, Doug Livermore and Ronnie Moran, were already in the room. ‘How are you, Steven?’ Roy asked kindly. ‘How are the injuries?’

‘It’s so frustrating, boss,’ I replied.

He knew. Roy had picked up signals that I was gloomy. ‘Steven, keep your chin up,’ he said. ‘We’ve noticed you are down. Steve Heighway thinks so highly of you, and you are definitely going to play for the first team. Get your injuries right. Keep working. Don’t be getting involved in messing around. We think the world of you here. As soon as you are right, you will sign your first pro contract.’

I was really grateful to Roy. But that’s the way Liverpool are as a club. They look after players. We’re family to them.

My development was still stop-start. At seventeen, and back from a broken wrist, I went flying into a tackle in
training and damaged my ankle. Typical me, never holding back. I was told to calm down millions of times by Liverpool coaches. Ronnie Moran pulled me aside once and said, ‘Steven, the staff are telling me you are getting injured because you go into stupid tackles. You try to kill people in training. These are your mates, Steven. Relax. Save it for the games.’ I couldn’t help it. It’s the way I train, the way I play. Full on. No pulling out. No messing. Of course, I was also trying to impress, to catch the eye of the coaches. But it’s my nature to go in hard. I couldn’t go into a session thinking, ‘I’ll take it easy today, I’m not going to tackle.’ It’s a waste. Pointless. I got loads of warnings off Dave Shannon and Hughie McAuley. Actually, Hughie loved it. If you tackled hard, you were in Hughie’s Academy team, especially against Everton and Man United! Because of the rivalry, those matches were like blood sports. Boys tackled like men. When the final whistle blew, I felt like a boxer who had been the distance – bruised, and sometimes bloodied.

For all my passion for big, bruising matches against Everton and Man United, my body struggled to withstand the pressure. Injuries held me back. I soon arrived at the age when pro contracts were being handed out. Lads younger than me were going in to see Roy and coming out with pro contracts. Naturally, I got the hump. Roy promised me a contract but it never came at the right time because of injuries. Liverpool were clever. They wanted me back fit a while before giving me the contract. That made sound financial sense to Liverpool. They did not want to give someone a three-year deal and then see his body pack up. So Liverpool delayed. It drove me mad
with anxiety. Roy told me I was in his long-term plans but the doubts kept crowding in with every passing week without a hint of a contract. I lay in bed at night at Ironside, staring at the ceiling with one thought bouncing around in my head: ‘Do Liverpool think these injuries are never going to go away?’ Doubts affected me as much as the injuries. I felt my whole career was on a knife-edge. My dream was to make it with Liverpool. Did they really believe my body was too frail? I felt my head was about to explode.

One day, after training, I’d had enough. I stormed home, mind all over the place. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you had best get in to Liverpool and talk to Steve and Roy. I can’t go on with this uncertainty. Do they really want me?’

Dad was brilliant, as usual. ‘Don’t worry, Steven, we know they rate you,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and talk to them.’

That calmed me down a bit. ‘Dad, just tell them I want to sign pro because I am not having fucking lads in the year below signing pro before me.’ Dad got the message!

He went to see Steve. ‘Look,’ said Dad, ‘Steven’s head has gone. He needs that deal. He’s sick with worry.’ Dad had a bit of a moan. Steve listened and appreciated how important the contract was for me. He realized it would give me peace of mind about my future. I soon had my deal. Three years – £700 a week for the first year, then £800, then £900! It was some jump from my apprentice cash of £50 a week. I thought I had won the lottery! I could not believe my luck. For Steve to offer me that deal, to go to Roy and say, ‘I am going to offer this Gerrard kid this amount of money,’ meant Liverpool thought something of me.

Anfield’s appreciation of my potential was more important to me than the money. I was so grateful to Roy, Steve and Dad for sorting it out. It was like emerging from a dark tunnel. I could see the way ahead now. I was nearing my first-team destination.

GÉRARD HOULLIER TURNED
me from a boy into a man but he can’t take all the credit for the player I am today. This belief that I was destined to remain in the shadows at Liverpool if Gérard had not come along is just wrong. Liverpool had always backed me, giving me a six-year contract taking in schoolboy forms and YTS, and then that fantastic three-year pro, before Gérard even arrived, so how can he say he pinched me from the Academy? His claims are an insult to Academy coaches Steve Heighway, Dave Shannon and Hughie McAuley. They were the ones who worked so hard at improving my game from an early age. They helped shape me as a player from the moment I set foot in the Vernon Sangster. Steve has been a massive influence on me. He still is. Even now, when I get the chance, I talk to Steve and he makes useful points about my game. For Gérard to state he saved me from the Academy is disrespectful to Steve. It’s like Gérard saying, ‘Steven Gerrard wasn’t doing well at the Academy and the people at the Academy weren’t telling me Gerrard was
good.’ They were. They informed Gérard about me. I knew that.

What Gérard says about rescuing me from the reserves is also unfair on Roy. Roy was aware of me long before Gérard arrived at Anfield to be joint-manager with Roy in the summer of 1998. After the Frenchman took full charge, he did a lot for me, I know, and I am incredibly grateful. He looked after me, protected me and built up my game. But everyone at Anfield assisted my development into an England international. I have a good relationship with them all – Steve Heighway, Gérard and his coaches Phil Thompson and Sammy Lee. I never fell out with any of them. Gérard was definitely brilliant for me, but I must attack this impression that I would never have made it without him. I was not Gérard’s invention. I made it because of my own efforts, because of fantastic coaching at the Academy, and because of the love and support of my parents. Gérard opened the door to the first team, but I had been banging loudly on it.

I was hardly unknown at Anfield. Gérard’s suggestion that I was a no-mark at the Academy is plain wrong. I captained England U-18s before Gérard even turned up at Anfield. When Peter Robinson, who was Liverpool’s chief executive back then, spoke to the Frenchman about joining the club, he mentioned that the future was bright because Liverpool had young talent like me. Rick Parry, who succeeded Peter, subsequently talked at length about me to Gérard. I know this sounds cocky, blowing my own trumpet, but I’m annoyed. Roy thought enough of my future at Liverpool to award me that three-year contract.
I was rising up through Liverpool’s age-group teams way before the French showed up.

People talked about me at Melwood, Anfield and outside. Premiership clubs tried to buy me. When I played my first game for Liverpool U-19s, against Tottenham Hotspur in August 1998, Spurs certainly knew all about me. The match was at Spurs’ Chigwell training ground in Essex and we were buzzing. Me, Boggo, Wrighty and the other lads felt like proper pros, proudly wearing our Liverpool tracksuits. We travelled south the night before, doing it in style, like the first team. The whole trip was quality. Luxury coach. Smart hotel. I roomed with Wrighty, and we almost didn’t get to sleep we were so busy discussing what our first U-19 match would be like. I loved everything about the whole experience. Before the game, we ate a proper meal with all the right food: pasta and chicken. Tottenham fielded a good side at Chigwell. Peter Crouch and Luke Young both played; they went on to represent England, and Crouchy is now my team-mate at club and international level. So it was a tough old battle. Quite a few people were watching, including Alan Sugar, then the Spurs chairman rather than the TV firer of apprentices. I played really well, and smacked one in from long-range. The game finished 1–1, and as I walked off the pitch I noticed Sugar in conversation with Steve Heighway. Sugar even put his arm round Steve’s back as they chatted. When I got into the changing-room, Boggo said, ‘They were talking about you.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I heard them mention your name. I don’t
know exactly what they said, but Alan Sugar was talking a lot about you.’

I didn’t think anything more of it. I got showered, changed and jumped on the bus back to Liverpool. A week later, I heard Sugar tried to buy me. For £2 million! Not bad for an ‘unknown’. Liverpool turned Spurs’ offer down. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Steve told Alan Sugar. They obviously did rate me.

A month or two after that Spurs game, I got fined for messing about by Dave Shannon. As crimes go, it was a minor offence: not taking my plate back after a meal. Trivial. It was only a fiver, but I had just come off YTS money and it felt a decent sum – plus I was innocent. I was raging. I went in to see Dave, one-on-one. Straight in. Slammed the door.

‘What’s the fine for? I’m not happy.’

‘You never took your plate back.’

‘I did take it back.’ I had. Some of the lads I was with, lazy bastards, left their plates everywhere. Not me. Mum and Dad brought me up to show respect. I was upset Dave didn’t believe me. ‘You are not taking a fiver off me.’

Dave refused to budge. ‘No, it’s done. You’re fined, and I want it Friday.’

I knew I’d lost. ‘I’ll take the fine, but you are out of order, Dave.’

Everyone bantered with Dave. He was a terrific bloke, the one who got the team spirit going. Anyway, while he was screwing that fiver off me, we got talking about football and the season. ‘Dave, do us a favour, give us another fixture list for the reserves and nineteens,’ I asked. ‘Someone has nicked mine.’

Dave looked at me and smiled. ‘You won’t need those fixtures. You’ll be needing these.’ He put his hand into his bag and pulled out the fixtures for the first team.

The firsts! I was stunned. I walked out of Dave’s office thinking he would not have given me the first-team list without the coaches considering I had a chance. That gave me the biggest boost I ever needed. My fury over the fiver disappeared immediately.

Gérard said he came down to watch me training at the university one afternoon, but it wasn’t him. It was his number two, Patrice Bergues, a top fellow. Patrice checked me out before Gérard did. I will never forget that day. In the morning, Steve Heighway pulled me into his office. ‘Steven, we’ve got company today,’ he said. ‘Gérard Houllier, Phil Thompson, Sammy Lee and Patrice Bergues are coming down from Melwood to look at you in training.’ Steve didn’t need to say any more. I knew. This was it. This was my chance to force my way into the first-team squad.