”I do tend to worry about certain things.”
WHEN HE WAS 17, Steven Gerrard was asked by his youth coaches at Liverpool to write about himself. Strengths, weaknesses, hopes, fears, aspirations. Inevitably, there was plenty of detail about his football but there was an underlying apprehension too, a quiet self-doubt.
“The coaches would say that there are no doubts on my footballing ability but I need to learn to control my temper and my patience on the field. Weaknesses maybe on the fitness side as I tend to pick up a lot of injuries. My aim this year is to avoid injury and get a good run of games under my belt.”
On the cusp of first-team football with Liverpool, Gerrard was still anxious. He worried about his body. He worried about his reputation.
“I hope they think I am a good lad off the field, too. I do tend to worry about certain things.”
The honesty is staggering. Here was a privileged kid, doing what he loved and getting paid a decent wage. The boyhood dream. Yet, the melancholy that permeates many young adults was still there. But Gerrard didn’t shirk it or try to hide from it. There’s a lack of certainty in his words. He hopes for a break. There’s no bravado or cock-sure deliverance.
Later in his self-assessment, he reveals his interests are ‘friends, cinemas and music’ and that Only Fools and Horses, They Think It’s All Over and Match of the Day are his favourite TV shows.
And therein lies the complexity. Because even though Gerrard was different, he remained a throwback too. He was insular and sensitive but equally just like the rest. He stressed himself with self-doubt and painstakingly analysed his every performance but was a swashbuckling hero, a chest-thumping tour-de-force. He sat in solemn silence when disappointed but thought nothing of accepting greater responsibility and thereby placing more weight on his buckling shoulders.
When he made his debut against Blackburn in late 1998, Gerrard analysed every moment he touched the ball. In his book, My Liverpool Story, he recounts his three-minute cameo in minute detail.
“I had five or six touches. There were a couple of short passes. I took a throw-in and I over-hit two crosses. You do worry when you are just a kid and the cross you’ve out into the penalty box sails over the intended target. If I over-hit a cross now, people will expect the next one to be good.”
In his first start, against Tottenham, Gerrard played at right-back and was ripped apart by David Ginola. He was hauled off after 57 minutes.
“We lost 2-1. I was dragged off so I didn’t need telling that my full debut had not been a success. I had endured bad games growing up but nothing like this. I doubted myself and was concerned that my Liverpool career would be over almost before it begun. Obviously I was worrying too much but at the time, you just hope the next game will be easier.”
Certainly, there’s a noble quality to all of this. But it goes against type. Footballers by their nature can compartmentalise, brush criticism off and move along to the next training session or next game. The majority of personalities turn off the noise and embrace only the positives. But it’s intriguing that Gerrard spends little time focusing on his slow walk to the touchline before coming on against Blackburn – the nerves and anticipation and the crowd – something every footballer remembers and recounts. Instead, he criticises his crossing.
Perhaps it was the doubt that propelled him to the dizzying heights. When Liverpool struggled in games, they looked to Gerrard. He was their everything. Despite starting out as a ball-winner, he quickly morphed into a magnificent, marauding all-rounder. When the team needed a goal, it would rarely come from a striker. Like any hero, his timing was impeccable and he usually gave audiences exactly what they wanted. Arriving bang on cue, Gerrard would thump a swerving, unstoppable drive to the top corner.
It made sense that Gerrard scored Liverpool’s first goal in the 2005 Champions League final. It seemed to rally the entire side. Like Gerrard always did, he made the impossible somehow seem attainable. Passes, crosses, goals, results. It all stemmed from the same source of inspiration – that mercurial right foot.
Twelve months later, in that FA Cup final he delivered one of the finest displays ever seen in any tournament decider, superbly teeing up Cisse with one of those luscious, pinpoint diagonals for Liverpool’s first equaliser and then racing onto two loose balls himself and crashing scarcely-believable shots to the net. In many ways, that Herculean performance is the perfect 90-minute metaphor for Gerrard’s time at Anfield.
There was special significance attached to the Cup success. At the start of the season, Gerrard handed in a transfer request and wanted to move to Chelsea. The doubt had finally engulfed him. He had lost faith in his club. He wanted more. He needed more. Despite winning a Champions League, he wasn’t satisfied. He didn’t feel loved or appreciated enough. He was confused. ‘Temptation entered my life’, he wrote in his autobiography while he also revealed he was reduced to ‘eating paracetamol like Smarties’ while watching TV channels broadcasting images of Liverpool fans burning jerseys with his name on them.
It was harrowing. Gerrard was racked with guilt. More self-criticism. He finally relented and signed a new Liverpool deal. ‘I couldn’t jump over the edge of the cliff’, he wrote afterwards.
But when Gerrard slinks off to LA in the summer, when he finally leaves the Premier League behind, he’s sure to mull on his decision to stay at Liverpool all those years ago. Perhaps with the shackles off, with far less pressure to pull rabbits from his hat week after week and with a collection of superb players consistently around him, he would’ve scaled a prolonged period of dominance. As it was, the triumphs were few and far between, the individual brilliance restricted. Other gifted players did arrive and opened his eyes to new possibilities. But they left almost as quickly and the brief electricity soon fizzled out.
Ultimately, Gerrard deserved better. He deserved to win far more than he did and should be remembered for more than the goals and the passes and the crosses. Of course, Liverpool fans will recall the consistency of his greatness and the romanticism of his lengthy love affair with one club. But, Gerrard may feel the relationship lacked spark too often, that the admiring glances from elsewhere may have been worth pursuing.
And in spite of the occasional heat, those fleeting moments of passion, was Gerrard ever really content? He will worry that he made the wrong decision. That’s just who he is.
