Steven Gerrard (eBook)

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The Kid from the Bluebell

Steven Gerrard was born at Whiston Hospital, Liverpool on 30 May 1980. He was brought up on the Bluebell Housing Estate situated in Huyton in the Knowsley district of Liverpool. Huyton (pronounced ‘Highton’) was one of a number of new housing estates created by local government reform in the 1960s and early 1970s. Thousands of working-class Liverpool citizens found themselves shipped out to the outskirts of their home city by the slum clearance programme, to take up residence in the newly built Corporation houses. They may now have become citizens of the newly created districts with posh-sounding names like Cantril Farm, Gateacre and Knowsley, but they were still proud, dyed-in-the-wool Liverpudlians at heart.

Huyton, like most districts of Merseyside, has over the years produced many excellent footballers. Before Gerrard’s arrival on the scene, the most notable was undoubtedly the tenacious midfield warrior Peter Reid, of Everton and England fame. Reid, like Gerrard, served his early football apprenticeship having a kickabout with his mates in the street, or in the nearby Britannic Park where local junior teams would play.

Apart from producing outstanding footballers, Huyton is notable for having had a Prime Minister as its local MP. Harold Wilson first became Member of Parliament for Huyton in 1950. He served the area for thirty-three years before his retirement from politics in 1983. Harold Wilson, like his present-day counterpart Tony Blair, was a confirmed football fan, although it was his boyhood heroes Huddersfield Town, not one of the Merseyside clubs, where the Yorkshire-born Wilson’s football allegiances lay.

Like most Liverpool kids, Steven Gerrard was inspired to develop thoughts of one day becoming a professional footballer by watching football on the television with his family. He once said in an interview that his boyhood hero was Liverpool’s Ronnie Whelan, who gave the Anfield club fantastic service as a midfield player during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although never a superstar in the Kenny Dalglish or John Barnes sense, Ronnie Whelan was an integral part of Liverpool’s success in the 1980s. It is perhaps typical of Steven Gerrard that, unlike most young Liverpool fans of the time, he chose to study the midfield performances of Whelan when most kids only had eyes for the dazzling skills of the likes of Dalglish, Barnes and Beardsley. Even at this early stage of his football development, Steven Gerrard had a dream of one day emulating Ronnie Whelan in the engine room of his beloved Reds, winning the tackles, setting up the chances and scoring the vital goals for the Anfield giants. ‘I often watched Ronnie Whelan play. He was the unsung hero in the Liverpool midfield,’ said Gerrard. ‘I admired the way he went about things. He made the game look easy. Every successful team needs a player like Ronnie Whelan in midfield.’

Although he was rather small for his age, Steven Gerrard impressed most onlookers right from the start of his junior football career. He played for his school team, St Michael’s Primary School in Huyton, and also for Whiston Juniors. Mike Tilling was a teacher at St Michael’s when Gerrard represented the school as a ten year old. Mr Tilling told the Liverpool Echo’s Tony Barnett that young Gerrard looked a certain star of the future: ‘I just couldn’t believe he was so good because he was one of the smallest boys in the class. I started him off as a striker and it seemed as if he had been playing for years. He was amazing.’

Playing for Whiston Juniors it was the same story – Steven Gerrard was a sensation. Assistant coach at Whiston, Peter Leonard, recalled, ‘There were seasons when he scored 100 goals – he was absolutely brilliant. I’m an Evertonian, but I keep telling everyone that we haven’t seen the best of Steven Gerrard yet.’

It was inevitable that Gerrard’s blossoming talent would come to the attention of one of Merseyside’s professional clubs and from the age of nine he began to train at Liverpool Football Club. Jim Aspinall, chief youth scout at Liverpool’s academy, was a spectator at one of Steven Gerrard’s school games and was immediately impressed by the ten year old’s ability. Aspinall recalled, ‘He covered every blade of grass; he was magnificent. I spoke to his dad after the game and he told me that Steven had already been invited to the Liverpool Centre of Excellence by Dave Shannon, one of our coaches. I told him that was okay so long as he was coming.’ Other teams that Gerrard played for as a youth were Liverpool side Denton and the Wirral’s Heygarth.

If Ronnie Whelan was Steven Gerrard’s biggest influence when it came to studying the skills and crafts needed to become a top footballer, his father Paul has undoubtedly been the biggest influence on his overall career. The great Bill Shankly once said, ‘It is mothers and fathers who produce footballers, not coaches.’ Although Gerrard was obviously given a fantastic start in his football apprenticeship by the staff at the Liverpool youth academy, he always cites his father Paul as the biggest influence on his career. In later years, when Gerrard needed help and advice on whether to remain at Anfield or join the Abramovich revolution at Chelsea, it was to his father and the rest of his family that he turned to. One thing is it extremely unlikely you will see, however, is Gerrard’s father doing a Ted Beckham and writing a book about his son.

Back in the early 1990s the question of whether to go or stay was the furthest thing from the young Steven Gerrard’s mind as he sat with his family watching his England heroes competing in the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy. Gerrard recalled, ‘I remember sitting at home with my mum and dad and my brother when Italia ’90 was on the telly. I was leaping around the house when the penalties were on. I thought about how it would be great to have been a part of that. How great it would be to make the kind of impact Paul Gascoigne did then.’

Steven Gerrard got over the disappointment of England being knocked out of the World Cup on penalties by continuing to hone his skills as a schoolboy footballer. At his secondary school, Cardinal Heenan RC High School in West Derby, Gerrard impressed his new sports teachers from the start. Eric Chadwick, P.E. teacher at the school, recalls, ‘He was very slim and small, totally different to how he is today. Steven’s skill came in his speed of thought and the fact that he was a yard quicker than every other boy. He was naturally gifted and brilliant at any sport. I remember him playing for the school in a Royal Mail Trophy final. He was amazing and won the game for us.’

Mr Chadwick remembered that the young Steven was so obsessed with the game that he would even go on scouting missions to check out future opponents, ‘One Saturday morning Steve went with his dad to watch Cardinal Heenan’s next opponents in a cup match. On Monday, Steve knocked on my office door to give me a detailed report on the team we were due to play. I knew then that this thirteen year old had something more than any of our other football-daft youngsters.’

Steven Gerrard’s lack of inches was a cause of concern for his football coaches during his early teenage years. It was obvious for all to see that he possessed outstanding football ability, but he began to develop niggling injury problems. His Cardinal Heenan coach, Eric Chadwick, told the Liverpool Echo that Gerrard failed to gain selection for the England Schoolboys team because of muscular injuries: ‘Steven was having all kinds of problems with injuries. Basically his muscles were outgrowing his bones and it meant he kept getting all kinds of strains and pulls.’ Although obviously disappointed to miss out on an invitation to join the National Centre of Excellence at Lilleshall, the young football prodigy got his head down and continued to display his awesome talent for his school and the Liverpool Schoolboys team.

At the age of sixteen Steven Gerrard was invited by Liverpool FC to join their Youth Academy. There then followed an amazing transformation in the size and physique of the Liverpool youngster that transformed the Bambilike teenager into a strapping young man. Tim Johnson was Gerrard’s coach for the Liverpool Schoolboys team and couldn’t believe the change in him. He recalled, ‘Young Stevie had the most amazing growth spurt. I was at the Liverpool Academy one day – this was eighteen months after Steven had finished playing for me. When I saw him I couldn’t believe it; the Bambi that had left me had changed into a bison. When I first met him as a thirteen year old he was a very quiet lad with these legs which went all the way up to his neck. I just couldn’t believe the change in him. I couldn’t take it in that it was the same Steven Gerrard.’

With the scrawny youngster now metamorphosised into a strapping sixteen year old, the time was now right for Steve Heighway and his youth academy team at Liverpool, which consisted of Frank Skelly, Dave Shannon and Hughie McAuley, to turn the incredibly gifted Gerrard into an outstanding footballer.

Steven Gerrard was now a YTS trainee at Anfield, along with future Liverpool stars David Thompson, Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher. Thompson, Owen and Carragher were older than Gerrard and were key members of the Liverpool Youth team that won the FA Youth Challenge Cup in 1996. Steven Gerrard did make several appearances in the cup run, but did not appear in the team that beat West Ham in the final. Liverpool, with goals from Newby and Larmour in the first leg and Owen and Quinn in the second, beat West Ham 4-1 on aggregate to take the trophy. At this stage all the talk at Anfield, when it came to up-and-coming...