Gerrard: My Autobiography (3 page)

‘How old are you?’ they asked.

‘Seven,’ I replied.

‘Too young,’ they said.

I burst into tears. ‘You’re wrong, I’m good enough,’ I said. Still no joy. That feeling of rejection burned hard inside.

That concrete patch outside Ironside and the back-field on the Bluebell were breeding grounds for competitive players. A good touch and a tough streak were needed to survive, and I quickly developed both. I had to. Paul and his mates never held back in tackles on me, even though I was three years younger, just a scrap of skin and bones. Bang. Knock me over. No mercy. That’s how I liked it. Do it again. That’s why they used to let me play. I hobbled back into No. 10 all the time, covered in cuts and grazes from slide tackles on the concrete. I still have a scar on my face after being shoulder-charged into a fence. A nail nicked my skin. No fuss. No bother. I went in to see Granddad Tony across the road at No. 35 Ironside. He put three butterfly stitches in, neat ones, and I charged
back to the game. ‘Hurry up!’ they shouted at me. Bang. Back into battle.

I have since bought 35 and 10 Ironside. Those houses will always be in our family. My brother lives in No. 10. There will always be Gerrards in Ironside. Granddad Tony was my dad’s dad. My mum’s granddad, Sidney Sullivan, was disabled so he lived with us for eight years, throughout my time at school. When Sidney was released from hospital after his first stroke, we got an unbelievable letter from the authorities. The message was brutal, the gist being that if someone in our family didn’t look after Granddad, the council would stick him in a home. My nan lived in Mosscroft, a couple of estates away, and she wasn’t capable of taking all that responsibility on herself. If Nan needed to pop out, Sidney couldn’t be left on his own. ‘He’s not going in a home,’ Mum said. So Sidney moved in with us. We built an extension on No. 10, giving Sidney his own en-suite shower and disabled facilities. He had a big living-room area that doubled up as his bedroom. Sidney rarely left this room. Occasionally, he wandered into our living-room to watch TV with us. Otherwise he was just happy being in that back-room.

He endured four strokes in all. I hated seeing what the strokes did to him, disabling him down one side. Paul and I could talk to him really good after his first stroke because he was quite clear then. Communication became more difficult after his second, third and fourth strokes. His deterioration really distressed us. He was a lovely man worn away by the strokes. I preferred remembering him the way he was before he got sick, smiling and chatty. If Mum noticed Paul and I hadn’t been in to see him for a
bit, she was on to us sharpish. ‘Take Granddad’s tea in,’ Mum would say. ‘Go and have your tea with him.’

Granddad was dead good with me and Paul. He made sure we got all the boots and kits we needed. ‘Give the boys this money, make sure the boys get those football things,’ he kept telling Mum. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Go on!’ Granddad insisted, pushing some money across the table at Ironside. Granddad was the most generous man. ‘Make sure the boys have everything,’ he ordered Mum. He wasn’t rich. Nothing like that. But Granddad had a bit of money from his sick pay and pension. He worked hard all his life in the Forces and on the ships.

Mum got paid a few quid for looking after Granddad. Paul and I could see the selfless job she did for him. We were a really close family anyway, but Sidney actually tied the bonds even tighter. Me and Paul realized we had to chip in as Dad worked only part-time. He was wary of a full-time job. He needed to be around the house, keeping an eye on Sidney when Mum went to the shops or picked Paul and me up from school. Dad was a labourer. His mates from the pub might find him some foreigners, as extra work on the side is called in Liverpool. Dad would be busy for a few weeks here and there in a gang.

Paul is my best mate. Always has been. Always will be. He had the bigger bedroom at Ironside, which pissed me off big-style. A midget couldn’t have swung a tiny cat in my room. Paul had the heater, the biggest bed, all the trimmings. I didn’t really mind. Paul was my hero. I just wanted to hang around with him and his mates. ‘Get away,’ Paul shouted at me, ‘go home.’ He didn’t mind me joining in his football games, but didn’t want me about
when he and his friends were sitting around, talking. Fists flew. Me and Paul had some real toe-to-toe fights, steaming into each other, no holds barred. ‘I hate you!’ I’d shout at Paul after another scrap, rubbing my face or ribs where he whacked me. ‘I want to kill you!’ My anger soon subsided. Even if Paul gave me a real hiding, or wouldn’t let me play with him and his mates, an hour later he would come back in and say, ‘Stevie, do you want a game on the computer?’ ‘Yeah,’ I’d reply enthusiastically, grateful to be back in Paul’s world again. We’d then play a computer game as if no punches had been thrown. Storms passed quickly between Paul and me. I worshipped my brother. Looking at Paul now, he seems younger and smaller than me. No-one would ever cotton on he was my older brother. Strange.

Paul was a decent player, but short of aggression – a trait I have never been accused of lacking. Paul never wanted to be a footballer. He played for a laugh with his mates. ‘Get more involved,’ Dad yelled at Paul. ‘It’s cold,’ Paul responded. ‘I’d rather be at home.’ Paul would never have made a living out of football, but if you put him in a gym for a game of five-a-side, he wouldn’t look out of place. My brother knows tactics, and can spot a good player. I speak to Paul after matches and we are on the same wavelength.

Family friends and relatives tell me Dad was a good player. So does he! ‘That’s where you get your football skills from, Steven!’ Dad laughs. Sadly, he damaged his knee as a kid playing on Astroturf. That did him. Bang went any dreams of being a pro. He stopped playing. Dad’s brother, Tony, was meant to be decent, and played
Huyton Boys. Between ten and fifteen, people thought Tony had a chance of making it as a professional. Football runs deep in my family. I’ve got loads of cousins, who often came down Ironside for a game. One of them, Anthony Gerrard, was good enough to be signed by Everton. He’s at Walsall now after being released by Goodison. Sunday League football around here has always been packed with my cousins and uncles.

A love of football ran through my family like letters through a stick of rock. Anfield and Goodison were regular weekend haunts. Walk into any of my relatives’ houses and I guarantee there is a match on. Everyone crowds around the telly. Grab a drink, pull up a chair, watch the game. It’s brilliant. On Saturday nights, Dad headed down the pub, but he was always back for
Match of the Day
on the BBC. You could almost set your watch by Dad, stepping back through the door of Ironside in time for
Match of the Day
. Dad, me and Paul squeezed onto the sofa for our Saturday-night ritual. I’d be buzzing with excitement as the programme came on. All of us sang along to the music. The Gerrards never missed
Match of the Day
. Never. It was the high point of the week.

Football ruled No. 10 Ironside.
Coronation Street
and
EastEnders
stood no chance if they clashed with the football. My dad wouldn’t have it any different. It was always murder in our house if Mum wanted a soap ahead of the footy. Now and again, as a treat, Dad took me and Paul down the local to watch the live Sunday match on a big screen, or for a game of darts. I’d have a glass of Coke, chuck a few darts, and watch the match. Dead grown-up, I felt. Shortly before six p.m., the fun was over and we
headed home with heavy hearts. School loomed in the morning like a dark cloud on a sunny day.

Still now I hate Sunday nights. Still! It’s impossible to blank out the memory of getting ready for school, a ritual torture that ruined the final moments of a glorious weekend. According to the calendar most people use, a weekend lasts two days. Not at No. 10 Ironside. Not with Mum. A weekend is a day and a half with her. She demanded we be home by six p.m. to be scrubbed, bathed and ready for school the next morning. We ran in at six and the uniform was there, on the ironing board, all pristine and pressed, glaring at us. Just seeing the uniform made me sick. They resembled prison clothes after the freedom of the weekend. It was not that I hated school; I just loved my weekends roaming around Bluebell. Mum took school more seriously than Paul and I ever did. A proud woman, she made sure our uniforms were absolutely spotless. She polished our shoes so hard you could see your grimacing face in them. Poor Mum! She had her work cut out. If I left the house with a clean uniform, it was guaranteed to come home dirty. The same with shoes. Scuffed and muddy. Every time. Mum went up the wall.

My journey through the Merseyside school system was straightforward and undistinguished. I looked on schools as fantastic playing fields with boring buildings attached. My first stop was St Michael’s, which became Huyton-with-Roby Church of England Primary. Though only a short walk from Ironside, Mum still insisted on driving me to St Mick’s and picking me up. I enjoyed the infants and junior school, just messing about. When I was
naughty, the teachers made me stand by the wall, looking at the bricks for five minutes as punishment. I never bullied anyone. I never hurt anyone or swore. I was just cheeky and mischievous. My crimes were petty ones: answering back or going on muddy grass when we were told to stay on the yard. Usual kids’ stuff.

School held limited appeal. I sat in class, longing for play-time because there was always a match on in the playground. I loved dinner-time because it lasted an hour, which meant a longer match. I abandoned hot dinners because they wasted precious minutes. Queuing for my meal, I’d shout, ‘Come on, there’s a big game going on out there.’ Eventually, I asked my mother for packed lunches. ‘You should be on hot dinners,’ she screamed, ‘or come home if you don’t like school food.’ We compromised on packed lunches: sandwich, bar of chocolate and drink. And some fruit. The fruit always came home untouched. Apples, bananas and oranges weren’t me. Butties weren’t even me at that age. It would be bread off, meat out, quick bite, on with the game. ‘Stevie, you haven’t eaten your butty,’ Mum would say, ‘you’ve only eaten your chocolate.’ Mum didn’t understand. Speed was vital at dinner-time. I ate the packed lunch while playing or wolfed it down running back into class. Same with my tea. If there was a match going on outside Ironside, a game of chase, or my mates were waiting for me, I slipped my food in my pocket, sprinted out the door, threw the food to the neighbour’s dog and raced on to the match. I returned home starving, picking at biscuits, crisps and chocolate.

Back at St Mick’s, the teachers watched me scribbling away
busily in my school-book. Steam almost rose from my pencil I wrote so furiously. The teachers must have thought I was focusing really hard on the lesson. I’m sorry. I wasn’t. Lessons were spent working out the teams for dinner-time. In the back of my school-book, I wrote down the names. When the bell for break rang, I dashed out to organize all the boys – and get the girls off the playground. ‘You can watch,’ I’d tell them generously, ‘but that’s the pitch and you can’t go on it.’ The pitch was marked out with bags and tops for goals. They were right serious battles at St Mick’s. Wembley Cup finals have been less intense. My face still bears the trace of a scar collected in the playground after I collided with a fence, tussling for the ball. Defeat was unthinkable. The winners milked it loudly while the losers got caned for the next lesson.

Me and Barry Banczyk were the best players at St Mick’s. Barry and I were good mates, but our playground rivalry was something else, real physical. We picked the sides, Barry’s team against mine, always dead competitive. Barry was a decent player. He turned out for Denburn U-13s, a side my dad helped run. Denburn were good: Michael Branch and Tony Hibbert played for them. I turned out for Denburn briefly, helping them win the Edgehill Junior League, until Liverpool stopped me playing. Barry and I were the main men in the school team. One year, we helped St Mick’s win a local cup which gave us a chance of playing at Wembley. First we had to beat sides from different districts in a tournament. The prize was huge. Wembley! Just the thought of the famous old stadium had me lying awake in bed, thinking of what it
would be like to step out onto the best-known pitch in all the world. Wembley! What a dream come true that would be! I was certainly up for the tournament. In one match I went in for a slide tackle with my usual determination. I caught my knee on the sharp ring-pull of a Coke can, which sliced open my leg. It was only five stitches but it cost me my chance of joining the team at Wembley. I cried my eyes out. That was typical of my luck. My mates were off to Wembley and I was off to hospital. The scar on my knee faded but the pain of missing that trip to Wembley remains.

The time came when I had to leave St Mick’s. For secondary school, a difficult choice awaited. Most of my class were going either to Bowring Comprehensive School or Knowsley High. Paul was at Bowring so I wanted to go there, just to be with my brother. Bowring and Knowsley High had serious problems, though: football was not high on the agenda. Everyone knew I was mad keen on football so only a school which improved me as a player would do. My teacher at St Mick’s, Mrs Chadwick, gave me some sound advice. ‘You should go to Cardinal Heenan, Steven,’ she told me. ‘It will be better for your football.’

Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School was well known to me. It had a really good name for football, probably the best in the area. Mrs Chadwick’s husband, Eric, taught PE at Cardinal Heenan. ‘Have a look at Steven Gerrard,’ she told him. ‘He’s dead good at football. He’d make a great pupil for Cardinal Heenan.’ Some people were not keen on me moving, though. The Bluebell Estate was outside the catchment area and I wasn’t a
Catholic. But who cares? Football won. Cardinal Heenan wanted me. Along with a reference from Mrs Chadwick that I was half-decent in class, my ability on the ball carried me through the gates of Cardinal Heenan. My career demanded I go there. Enrolling at Cardinal Heenan brought eligibility for Liverpool Boys rather than Knowsley Boys, and that was key. Liverpool Boys teams were better run. The scouts at Liverpool and Everton knew that and always went talent-spotting at Liverpool Boys games. Cardinal Heenan was the only place for me.