Gerrard: My Autobiography (8 page)

The university offered some attractions, though. The pavilion had this dead-long corridor with all the changing-rooms facing each other. One of them Liverpool turned into the physio’s room. Once, maybe twice a week, this hilarious chiropodist called Jeremy visited and held court in the physio’s room. Jeremy was a bit different, to say the least. He was obsessed with purple. His house is purple – front door, walls, carpet, the lot. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve seen Jeremy’s Purple Palace with my own eyes. One day, Jeremy drove up to the university in his purple car and stepped out, head to toe clad in purple gear. He was unbelievable. Jeremy had his own business, but Liverpool paid him good money, and he loved the wit and chitchat.

One day, Jeremy’s banter was so poor the lads decided to lock him up. He was in his special room as normal, gabbling away, goggles on, as he did a mini-operation on someone’s foot. ‘Jeremy’s a tit,’ I told the lads. ‘All that purple is a crime in need of serious punishing. He’s staying in that room all day.’ Imprisoning Jeremy was easy. All the rooms in the corridor could be locked from the
outside. So when his patient came out, we turned the key in Jeremy’s door and sprinted away, laughing our heads off. ‘Help,’ Jeremy shouted. Training was almost ruined because we kept smiling at each other, thinking about Jeremy. ‘Help, help.’ No-one could hear his screams. The Liverpool staff were already out on the training pitch, laying out the cones for our arrival.

When we came back in, I rushed down the corridor and jumped up at Jeremy’s door to look through this small gap at the top. Jeremy was inside, going mental. I ran off laughing. All the boys were in hysterics. No-one could keep a straight face as we trooped into the canteen for dinner. We sat down and began eating. The next thing we knew, the doors burst open and Jeremy stormed in. He charged over to the staff table. Steve Heighway, Hughie McAuley and Dave Shannon looked at him in amazement. ‘This gang of bastards locked me in that room for three hours,’ Jeremy said, pointing at us. ‘Why didn’t you come and look for me?’

Steve was the first to say something, probably because Hughie and Dave were struck dumb at Jeremy’s entrance. ‘Sorry, Jeremy,’ he said, ‘we thought you had gone home at ten.’

Jeremy was raging. I have never seen someone so aggressive in my life. His face turned as purple as his shirt. He marched over to my table. Jeremy knew I was heavily involved. My reputation for pranks was well established. ‘Youse have cost me so much money,’ he shouted. ‘I have lost out on six or seven patients in these three hours. Liverpool are going to have to pay.’ He was like a madman, shuttling back and forth between the tables. He
raced back across to Steve. ‘The club must compensate me for your players’ locking me up.’ Hughie and Dave couldn’t restrain themselves any longer and burst out laughing.

Jeremy never came back. We had to get a brand-new chiropodist. Steve caned us. He called a meeting of all the YTS boys and read the riot act. But as he was lecturing us, Hughie was behind him, laughing away. That was great. The staff found it funny. Liverpool liked their players to have character.

Jeremy wasn’t finished with football, though. Everton took him on. When Boggo was released by Liverpool, Francis Jeffers got him a trial at Everton where he ran into Jeremy again at their Bellefield training ground. Boggo walked into the treatment room, saw Jeremy and immediately started trying to have some banter with Mr Purple. The treatment room was really quiet, which Boggo didn’t understand. Jeremy had been dead loud at Liverpool. Jeremy quickly took Boggo to one side. ‘These don’t know I am like that,’ said Jeremy, ‘so keep your voice down and quit the banter.’ But there was no chance of Boggo being quiet. He carried on leathering Jeremy in front of the Everton first XI. Apparently the team at Everton all slaughter Jeremy now. It’s important to keep traditions going in football.

All clubs have banter, but people say the atmosphere at Liverpool is unique. When Boggo’s firm came in, we taught them the ropes and they kicked it all off again. The dressing-room games of sock-ball and Chinese Whispers and battering each other with towels was passed down the generations. It was a Liverpool thing. Sadly, that special
spirit may be going. I look at the current YTS boys when they come over from the Academy to Melwood and they seem quiet and shy. They don’t have the banter we did. I wish everyone was together, as we were for that first wonderful year at Melwood, Liverpool’s first team and apprentices living side by side.

Back then, Liverpool’s first team were known as the Spice Boys. People used the tag as a derogatory one for the likes of Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman, Jason McAteer and David James. I never considered the label offensive. I was steaming to be a Spice Boy. Let me be in your team! Let me be your mate! Every day, I went out of my way to be nice to Redknapp, Fowler, McManaman, McAteer and Jamo. After every encounter, I told myself, ‘Hopefully, I will be in with these one day. Some day, we will be on the same level.’ I am not a Spice Boy type, certainly not flash or obsessed with fashion, but I admired Jamie, Robbie and the rest. The image was false anyway. Nobody used to say, ‘Oh, we’re the Spice Boys. Let’s all go off on modelling assignments.’ No chance. The Spice Boy label was a media creation. Jamo, McManaman and the boys didn’t take any notice of it. Those 1996 FA Cup final suits, where the players looked like ice-cream salesmen, didn’t help, but the perception that the Spice Boys weren’t professional is a myth. During my work experience and YTS, I trained with the Spice Boys and played with some of them in Liverpool’s A and B sides. They worked their bollocks off. None of the Spice Boys took the piss out of training. None of them eased off. It wouldn’t happen.

People claimed Roy Evans wasn’t strong enough, but
that’s rubbish. Roy and Ronnie Moran, his assistant, had a relationship with the players where they could have a real go at them. Some managers were stricter than Roy and Ronnie, but the standard of training was really good. John ‘Digger’ Barnes was an absolute joke in training; I couldn’t get the ball off him. It was pointless closing Digger down. Redknapp too. When I was a YTS and invited to train with the seniors, I couldn’t get near any of them. If I gave the ball away, Ronnie or Roy were immediately on my case. ‘Look after the bloody ball!’ Everyone else did. Possession was the Liverpool creed. All the Spice Boys treated the ball as their best friend. They never surrendered it cheaply. When I got bollocked, I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. ‘God, this is real pressure,’ I thought as I chased McManaman or Digger around Melwood. It did my head in. I walked off the pitch at the end having looked a fool trying to tackle some of the Spice Boys. They had so much skill. I would sit in the changing-room, heaving with frustration. ‘How am I going to get to this level?’ I would ask myself. ‘Some of these players are fucking frightening.’ Even when our YTS sessions finished, me, Boggo, Greggo, Wrighty and Cass would sit spell-bound watching the first team doing shooting or pattern of play. The Spice Boys were so talented. Forget all the bullshit about Jamie and the rest being playboys first, players second. These were proper professionals.

Fowler and McManaman were my main heroes. Part of my YTS duties involved standing outside the first-team dressing-room and getting shirts, balls and pictures signed by the first-team stars. These items were then sent to
hospitals, schools or charity auctions. Whenever Fowler and McManaman walked past, I was in awe. They were local heroes. Some banter went on between the YTS and first-teamers, but I made sure I never said the wrong thing or was too cheeky. I was not intimidated, but I looked up to Fowler and McManaman so much. I never wanted them to think I was a tit. If they had caned me, I would have been devastated. The sad truth is that they probably were not even aware of me, Steven Gerrard, an unknown kid with a huge desire to copy them.

In contrast to Robbie and Macca, Paul Ince wasn’t dead helpful to the young lads. He ordered us about. ‘Do this, do that.’ Not nasty, but you didn’t let Incey down. One morning I was hanging about on the stairs to the gym at Melwood, knocking about with Wrighty, Cass and Bavo. We were always glued to each other. The first team were coming in and we were getting a few things signed. Incey bounced in, driving his big, boss Audi. He got out, trackies pulled up to his knees, jabbering on the phone. ‘He’s got to get fined,’ I told the lads. Mobiles were banned at Melwood, but Incey couldn’t be arsed. He was so high up. Life under Roy Evans was not that strict.

Incey walked past us, turned around and shouted, ‘Do any of you drive?’

None of us could. I was only just seventeen, one driving lesson to my name. But that was more than the rest combined! Wrighty, Cass and Bavo went, ‘Yeah, Stevie can drive. No problem.’

Incey threw me the keys and a piece of paper, and said, ‘Get down the shops. Get all the things on this list – plus ten ciggies. Don’t miss any or I’ll fucking kill you. Crash
the car and I’ll definitely kill the four of you.’ He must have noticed my hesitancy as I looked at the keys. ‘Have you passed the test?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ my mates shouted. ‘He can drive.’

I went all red. ‘Fucking hell,’ I thought as I cradled the gleaming Audi keys in my hand. ‘Where do I start here?’

As Incey walked away, he shouted back, ‘Ten minutes. Hurry up.’

‘Come on,’ shouted Wrighty, Cass and Bavo as they dashed outside, ‘we’ve only got ten minutes. Let’s get into the car.’ I followed, reluctantly. The four of us climbed into Incey’s Audi. I could hardly see over the steering wheel. As the lads mucked about with the seat-belts, I panicked. Incey’s motor was the fastest thing I had ever been in – as a passenger. Now I was about to turn the key and unleash a beast of an engine without a licence and only an hour’s tuition from an instructor. I couldn’t stop now, though. The shop was only round the corner, maximum 300 yards. Quick spin? Yeah. Go on. No harm. Risk it.

‘OK, let’s get to the shop and get back,’ I said.

‘Fuck off,’ said the other three. ‘Get the tunes on, let’s go somewhere. We’re off!’

So away we went. The hardest part was getting out of the Melwood car-park because it was chocka. I inched Incey’s Audi past all these other expensive cars, praying I wouldn’t hit anything.

As we were about to pull out on to the road, the gate-man asked, ‘Where are you going?’

‘Incey sent me to the shops,’ I said.

He nodded and walked back.

I was shitting myself. If I got stopped by the police, got caught speeding or bumped this expensive Audi, there would be a long line of people queuing up to strangle me. Incey would be first, then my dad, then Steve Heighway. Roy Evans would fuck me off from Liverpool. But as I drove, admittedly only at 20 mph, I loved it. I was always begging Mum and Dad for a go with their car. I was buzzing. I was in a huge Audi, with the lads, singing and shouting. We had the windows down and 96.7 on the speakers. We drove to the newsagent via Alder Hey, West Derby, all over town. If Incey’s car had been fitted with sat-nav, it would have gone into meltdown. We were all over the place, following our noses. Half an hour we were on the road.

‘Where the fuck have you four been?’ yelled Incey as we eventually returned and handed over his ciggies and change.

‘The local shop was shut so we had to find another,’ I lied.

‘Fucking half an hour?’ said Incey. He caned the four of us for taking so long. Thank God he never checked his milometer.

Far more laid-back than Incey was John Barnes, the skipper, and a legend. England international. Twice Footballer of the Year. Awesome. Talking to Digger scared the life out of me. If I walked into a room at Melwood and Digger was there, I tried to get out quickly. When I did pluck up the courage to speak to him, though, he was incredibly friendly, putting his arms around me, giving me advice. We used to have pretend fights, with John shaping up to punch me, shadow-boxing with me, sometimes
wrestling me. Just mucking around with stars like John Barnes was the business. I was being noticed! Suddenly my dream of playing for Liverpool did not seem so unreal.

I had so much to prove to myself, and to everyone at Liverpool. I never thought established stars like Jamie Redknapp realized I existed until one day after training. ‘You are a player,’ Jamie said to me. ‘I love the way you pass and shoot. Keep doing that.’ I went home on cloud nine. Jamie Redknapp, England international, spoke to me! Not only that, Jamie Redknapp rated me. He only talked to me for a few seconds, it was only a few words, but they meant the world. Jamie was different class with the young lads. Unbelievable. After the first few words of encouragement, he was always offering advice. I will never forget how Jamie helped me climb the ladder to Liverpool’s first team. When he came back from injuries, Jamie regained his sharpness in the A or B teams and I was lucky enough to play alongside him. What a privilege. I felt like a king being named on the same team-sheet as Jamie Redknapp. He talked to me, more and more. In games, he explained which positions I should take up, when to make runs. I was an apprentice learning from a master. What an education. He often called me over in the dressing-room and said, ‘How are you? What have you been up to, Stevie?’ Jamie Redknapp knew my name! Jamie talked to me as if I had played with him in the first team for five years! God, I felt so honoured just to be in the same room with him, let alone talking to him. Maybe because I played in the same position as Redknapp was why he took me under his wing. Maybe it was because he was simply a nice bloke who cared about other people.

‘Hey, Stevie, what size are you?’ Jamie shouted one day.

‘Same as you,’ I replied. I cleaned Jamie’s boots, so I knew his size. He was actually a size bigger, but I pretended to be the same.

‘Well, these will fit you then,’ said Jamie, throwing me some boots.

Christmas came flying through the air in the shape of those beautiful boots. Jamie often gave me boots, moulded and studs, brand-new Mizunos. They were
the
boots at the time.

The British players in the first team were so generous. Me and all the YTS boys loved Redknapp, McManaman and Fowler. We would leave training, swapping stories of which star had given us what. ‘Top man, that Robbie, he gave me these new boots, still in the box, unopened!’ said Cass as we walked out of Melwood one day. No YTS boy in the country could have been kitted out as well as us lot at Liverpool. Dom Matteo, the defender who played for Scotland, was brilliant as well. Looking after Dom’s boots was also my job, and he really looked after me. Before Christmas one year, Dom walked past me, stopped and turned round. ‘Stevie, come here,’ he said. He put his hand in his pocket, handed me what seemed like small bits of folded paper, and strolled off. I couldn’t believe it. I looked at the paper and counted out £200. Some Christmas tip! I worked hard for Dom and Jamie. They massacred me if their boots weren’t done properly. I would sometimes come into training knackered and think, ‘Shit, it’s ten o’clock, I haven’t done Dom’s boots.’ So I’d get busy, washing and brushing all the shite off his boots, making sure they were polished properly. I knew how I
liked my boots, so I made sure Dom’s and Jamie’s boots were perfect. With their big tips and helpful advice, Dom and Jamie were worth the extra effort.