Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story (5 page)

Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans, the coaches with the first team, did their best to try and calm me down and ensure I could channel my talents more efficiently.

They had seen some of the tackles I’d made for the reserves in A and B games. It was as if that particular match was the most important in the world to me and no one was going to get in my way.

My dad was called in to a meeting with the coaches at Melwood one night and I was left to wait at home for the verdict. When he arrived back, he was blunt. ‘You need to sort yourself out or you’ll get nowhere,’ he said. He was speaking for my own sake, to try and prevent me from getting seriously injured, and for the safety of other people.

No one at Liverpool wanted to take the hunger out of my game. They said I had a fantastic chance of making it because of my will to win, but I was overly keen. It was something I had to work on, though even in the first team there have been moments when the red mist has descended.

From being one of the heroes when we played Everton at the back end of the 1998–99 season, I found myself cast in the role of villain when the rivalry was renewed at the start of the new campaign. The first red card of my professional career came in the final minutes of a 1–0 defeat at Anfield. Tensions were already running high with Liverpool goalkeeper Sander Westerveld and Everton’s Franny Jeffers having both been sent off for an earlier flare-up when I caught Kevin Campbell with a high challenge. In my defence, my foot was high to protect myself because Campbell was coming at me at force. But when he was left in a heap, I knew I was in trouble.

Making a challenge like that is a bit like scoring a goal or making a good tackle. It is a split-second decision, but in this instance I got it wrong. From where the flashpoint took place to the tunnel at Anfield was probably no more than 25 yards, yet it seemed like an eternity as I trudged off. I didn’t need people telling me I had been wrong and, by the same token, I didn’t need anyone trying to lift my spirits by saying it didn’t matter. I was able to put the sending off into context myself. I would now serve a ban, and being deprived of the opportunity to go onto the pitch killed me and told me what I needed to do.

My first walk of shame was not my last and while the challenge on Campbell didn’t look good, it wasn’t one of my worst.

The tackles I subsequently made on Aston Villa’s George Boateng and Everton’s Gary Naysmith make me cringe when I see them now.

It is all about finding the right balance. When I was growing up I was always told to let the opposition know you are around early on. Win the battle and you’ll win the match. A lot of games in my early years were won through intimidating players. Nowadays you can’t do that because you don’t stay on the pitch. I have experienced that enough times. Football has changed and you become less aggressive because of the rule changes regarding tackling from behind and approaching challenges with your feet off the floor. But I would say that a competitive instinct is missing in a lot of the kids coming through these days and that, in my opinion, is one of the main reasons why the production line at Liverpool’s Academy has slowed in recent times.

To stand out from the rest of the people in your age group, you have to have something extra, something that they have not got. You have to be prepared to run the extra yard when you’re physically shattered, make the tackle when it’s easier not to and continue to push yourself when really you know you could probably get away with blending into the background.

It is not just about ability. It is about something inside. I look at Michael Owen and he had that instinct when he was growing up. Jamie Carragher had it and I think I had it as well. My problem was that, whatever it was, I had too much of it to begin with.

“On the pitch, I became someone I didn’t like.”

Can’t Believe I’ve Just Done That

My face says it all. Kevin Campbell is left flat out after I caught him towards the end of a typically fierce Merseyside derby at Anfield. It was a bad tackle and I deserved to be shown the red card by referee Mike Riley. I was guilty of getting carried away and trying to impress too much. To make things worse, we lost that game 1–0. I left Anfield all sheepish, but to compound matters I was having a meal afterwards and who did I bump into in the toilets of the restaurant? Kevin Campbell. I went up to him and apologised in person because obviously I didn’t really see him immediately after the game. He could have made it difficult for me, but to be fair to him he was brilliant and we shook hands.

I KNEW I HAD TO MAKE A STATEMENT

Needless to say my sending off against Everton was
not what I had in mind, but there was still enough time to ensure the 1999–2000 season was the one where I cemented myself in the Liverpool team.

During the summer I’d had four or five weeks to regroup and assess where I was. I’d had a wonderful taste of what life as a Liverpool player was like, but I was aware that my first full season would constitute a different challenge.

When you break into the first team people will make allowances. Not your team-mates so much, but the manager and coaching staff certainly, and the fans as well. But I knew I had to improve and show I could cope with the demands of playing for Liverpool every three to four days. Not only that, but starting matches as well. I was fortunate in the sense that, right from the start, Gerard Houllier believed in me. He liked me and I knew that if I did the right things, I could always count on his support. My career was shaped over the next 18 months, largely because of Gerard, and that is why I will always owe him such a debt of gratitude.

I learnt how to behave on and off the pitch. I discovered how important diet and rest were and, generally, I came to respect the opportunity that stretched out before me. Cut corners and I could fall by the wayside, but with dedication and professionalism Gerard told me I could be whatever I wanted to be.

From that moment on, there was never any doubt as to which route I would take. Gerard trusted me, but he still took a huge interest in the life I was living. In truth, he probably spent too much of his time checking on me.

He treated me like a son and it was as if I spent half of the day with my ‘surrogate dad’ and the rest of the day at home with my real mum and dad. Every single day without fail he would want to catch up with me and because of that daily routine the good habits he wanted me to cherish were drilled into me.

Don’t get me wrong, he knew I was young and young lads like their downtime. He didn’t want me to live like a monk. But he would stress the importance of eating well, resting well and not partying every week.

This was someone who had worked with the top French players, players who had just won the World Cup and would win the European Championship that season. Gerard thought I had the ability to be recognised as a top player as well. I would have been thick not to listen and take in the advice he offered.

But it wasn’t a love-in. I was scared of Gerard in those early days and scared of Phil Thompson, his assistant, as well. They were my bosses at the end of the day. My career was in their hands. Yes, they had a lot of confidence in me, but they weren’t afraid to give me a lecture either if they felt I wasn’t doing it. It certainly wasn’t all pats on the back off them. I was desperate to please them and prove them right and I soon chalked up another milestone.

I had always expected my first goal for Liverpool to come from distance. I’ve had an eye for a shot throughout my career and back when I dreamed about breaking my duck in a red shirt, I envisaged a strike arrowing into the top corner. I was more of a shooter than a finisher. When the moment finally arrived in a match against Sheffield Wednesday in December 1999, it was like nothing I had imagined.

For a start, my first Liverpool goal came from a pass from Rigobert Song which was a surprise in itself. Usually they went over my head! I was midway in my own half and I remember receiving the ball in an area where my first instinct was to look for a pass. That’s the way I have always played and especially at that age when I was still looking to feel my way into the team. If there is an easy pass on, I will do it. I only really dribble if I am in a sticky situation or if there is a man to beat and I can get a shot off. I don’t go looking to dribble.

But I ran at the Sheffield Wednesday defenders and kept on going as an opportunity opened up in front of me. To be honest, I still expected a last tackle to be made, depriving me of my moment and halting my slalom run, especially when you are taking on the likes of Des Walker, who had been one of the country’s top defenders. It didn’t, I kept going, and I tucked the chance away.

When the ball hits the back of the net, a weird sensation comes over you. You get lost in a moment, you don’t realise what you are doing and, in a sense, you lose control.

This was the type of stuff I would do as a kid when I was coming through the ranks, back when I found everything a little bit easier. Now I was doing it at Anfield, in front of the Sky Sports cameras, and to make things even better my mates – Danny Murphy and Davie Thompson – scored in that game as well. It was a huge boost to my confidence. When things like that happen, you realise you can do it at that level and those are the moments that help you grow as a player.

When I was starting out, during my first five, ten, fifteen games, I still had doubts that I might not be able to have a career at Liverpool and that I might get ‘found out’. It was all so new, I didn’t know what to expect. I suppose feeling like that is just normal, but there would be difficult moments in games and I didn’t know for sure that my ability was going to let me cope at that level.

That is why scoring at Anfield was so important for me. All these little things – my debut, my first start and now my first goal – helped me believe in myself a bit more and fill the Liverpool shirt a bit better.

As a team we started to grow as well. We finished fourth, losing on the final day of the season at Bradford to miss out on the Champions League and qualify for the UEFA Cup instead.

Fourth? There was no way I was going to settle for second best let alone fourth, but it represented progress under Gerard and there was a feeling within the squad at the time that we were getting somewhere. Yet no one in the dressing room could have predicted what was to follow.

“For a start, my first Liverpool goal came from a pass from Rigobert Song which was a surprise in itself.”

It’s In!

When the ball hit the back of the net for my first goal for Liverpool, I was just lost in the moment. I’d taken a pass, gone round Emerson Thome, evaded Des Walker and finished nicely before diving full length in celebration in front of the fans in the Anfield Road End. I can remember David Thompson, Danny Murphy and Michael Owen piling on top of me. The way they reacted to that landmark moment showed they were almost as pleased as me. Playing for Liverpool was a dream, now scoring for them was something else. As I trotted back into position, my name was read out over the Tannoy and a huge cheer erupted around Anfield. I will never forget that moment.

Me and the Didi Man

Due to the number of foreign players at Liverpool there were, naturally, some cliques in the dressing room. The French lads stuck together for example and, likewise, the English players were a tight group. Danny Murphy, Michael Owen, David Thompson and Jamie Carragher welcomed me, as did one other – Didi Hamann. It might say he’s German on his passport, but he was a Scouser through and through. He knew all the slang and where some foreigners down the years have struggled to understand Carra and myself, he was right in there with all the banter. As a player, he is one of the best I have played with. Unselfish and very clever, he had this unerring knack of being in the right place at the right time. Here he is congratulating me after my first ever goal for Liverpool against Sheffield Wednesday.