Gerrard: My Autobiography Read online

  ‘Go and tell someone!’ I shouted, and Mark ran off to get my mum and dad.

  A neighbour, Neil Weston, heard me screaming, and came running up. He dragged me out of the nettles, the fork following like an extra limb.

  ‘Shall I pull it out?’ asked the neighbour.

  ‘You can’t, you can’t!’ I shouted.

  ‘I’ve got to try,’ he said. The fork wouldn’t shift. ‘I’ll get an ambulance,’ he said, and disappeared.

  I just lay there on the grass, tears spilling down my face and fears spinning through my head. Would I ever kick a ball again? Shit.

  Mum and Dad arrived sharpish. Immediately, Dad realized how serious this was. ‘He’s going to lose his foot,’ I heard him tell Mum. Amputation? Jesus Christ, no. My Liverpool career was being buried in a bed of nettles.

  Finally, the ambulance from Alder Hey nosed its way into the field. It had taken only ten minutes but it felt like ten hours. The medics took one look at the foot and even they understood they couldn’t yank the fork clear. ‘We’ll have to sort this out back at the hospital,’ one of them said. Four people lifted me into the ambulance and off we went, bells and lights going crazy, racing to Alder Hey.

  The journey was torture. I never realized how many bumps there were on the roads of Liverpool. Every time we drove over a bump, I screamed at the ambulance driver. Whenever I moved, I took the load of the fork in my bone, a stone in weight bending my toe. Tears followed every movement. I was shaking. One of the medics tried to hold the fork to stop it digging further in. The pain was horrific. I kept shouting at the driver. ‘It’s not his fault,’ Mum and Dad told me. I just wanted the pain to stop. Stop. Please stop. As we sped through the streets, they pumped me with gas and air.

  At Alder Hey, I was rushed straight into Accident and Emergency on the trolley – straight through, no waiting. Everyone could see how bad it was. And hear. Mum was hysterical, and I screamed the hospital down.

  Only when a painkilling injection took hold did my howling stop. I was all dazed and weak but not quite unconscious. Through the clouds, I heard the doctor say, ‘The fork is rusty, there’s a chance of gangrene. We might have to take the toe off to stop any gangrene spreading.’

  ‘Wait,’ Dad intervened. ‘Steven plays football, you must speak to Liverpool before you do any operation. They must know what is going on.’

  My dad quickly called Steve Heighway, Liverpool’s Academy director, who drove over sharpish. Steve’s the strong type, and he immediately took control. ‘No, you are not bloody well taking his toe off,’ Steve told them.

  The doctor replied, ‘We have to operate. The decision will be made by the surgeon.’

  Steve was adamant. ‘No. Don’t take his toe off.’

  Steve won the argument. Thank God. The surgeon numbed the whole foot and tugged the fork out. The hole was huge, as big as a 20p coin and an inch and a half deep. It was a mess, but at least the surgeon saved my toe and my career. ‘You are a very, very lucky young man,’ Steve said. The doctors all agreed. ‘We have never seen anything like this before,’ they said. Even my brother, Paul, looked worried when he came to see me, and Paul usually winds me up over anything.

  The one half-decent thing about the accident was that I missed three weeks of school. The doctors insisted, so who was I to argue! School sent homework round but it never got done. No chance. I was too busy milking my injury. My family spoiled me rotten. I lay there on the couch, being waited on hand and bandaged foot, and watching Liverpool videos. Fantastic. All my heroes parading their skills on the screen: John Barnes, Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush. This was my sort of medicine, guaranteed to quicken recovery. Every day, a nurse came round to clean the hole with antiseptic, pack it with cotton wool balls, put a mesh around it. She then bandaged the foot up to the ankle. As the wound healed, the nurse put less and less cotton-wool in. Soon I could go to school on crutches. But I was not able to play in the yard. Nor could I go to the Vernon Sangster to train with Liverpool. For the first time in my life, I was prevented from doing what I love most.

  That accident, and the weeks of recuperation, reminded me how important football was in my life. I started watching football seriously on the telly. I sat on the couch juggling the ball on my head, or with my left foot. I held the ball tight, almost for reassurance. I never wanted to be apart from a ball again. I was still getting twinges of pain, but after five weeks I was able to kick the ball cleanly. Thank God. Without football, my life would have been empty. I never forget that utter desolation of being separated from a ball.

  As well as Alder Hey’s permission to bunk off school, the doctors sorted out another bonus. The surgeon took one look at the rusty garden fork and said, ‘That shouldn’t have been there on the back-field.’ So Mum and Dad showed the trainer and the fork to a solicitor and he knew we had a case. We claimed off the council because it was their wasteland. You’re going to, aren’t you? I’ve only made two claims in my life: one was a crash in a taxi which got us £800, and then the fork in the foot. We got £1,200 for that. That wasn’t bad! Mum took me to town, got me new kit, two trackies, loads of stuff. ‘All that pain was well worth it!’ I kept laughing with Mum.

  When I think back to the accident, the pain still goes right through me again, like an electric shock. I still see the fork sticking out of my trainer, still sense it grating against the bone. Once or twice, I spoke about the incident with my dad. Like Steve Heighway, he wasn’t the type to take credit. Dad would never boast ‘I made sure they didn’t take your toe off’; he just says, ‘You were fortunate, Steven.’ We all knew if I had lost the big toe of my right foot, any chance of Liverpool and England would have ended right there, impaled on a rusty garden fork on a council wasteland in Huyton.

  Bungalows cover that patch of land now. No nettle-beds will ambush any innocent schoolkids now. My earliest pitches disappeared under concrete or cars. They park all over the cul de sac where I grew up, Ironside Road on the Bluebell Estate. Back then, that tarmac area in front of my house, No. 10 Ironside, was My Pitch. No cars allowed. Unless the weather was good, when we’d dash round to the grass back-field, we’d be on Ironside. Straight out the front door, into a game, full throttle. Brilliant. Someone put that concrete area there for a reason, I’m convinced of it. Someone was telling me to make football my life, showing me the way ahead. It was so strange. That was My Pitch. If anyone was there when I came out of my house, they had to go. We used it for five-a-side, ten-a-side, twenty-a-side, rounders, shootie, catch, and a great game called Bare Arse. That was hilarious! If you got a certain amount of goals scored past you, you had to get your arse out. Everyone then got a free shot at your bare arse. Bare Arse is a Scouse tradition that produces brilliant goalkeepers and really accurate shooters. Fifteen years on, when Peter Crouch struggled to get off the mark at Liverpool, Bare Arse came in handy. We played it in training to help me and Crouchy with our shooting. I dropped my shorts and got Crouch to aim at my Bare Arse. Someone looked over the wall, sneaked a picture, and me and Crouchy both got our arses in the papers! The papers never said we were just playing Bare Arse! Games picked up on Ironside have stayed with me for life.

  Ironside was known as the Happy Street. I arrived there on 30 May 1980, straight out of Whiston Hospital and into a football-mad house on the Happy Street. Bluebell’s quite a big estate, a warren of roads with four pubs, one on each side: the Swan, Bluebell, Rose, and Oak Tree. Quite a few famous people come from around here, comedians like Freddie Starr and Stan Boardman, and the old actor Rex Harrison. The actress out of Sex and the City, Kim Cattrall – the lively one – lived on Whiston Lane for a while. Bands like The La’s, Space and Cast grew up in Huyton. Characters were on every corner.

  I loved life on the Bluebell – my kingdom, my playground. Two youth clubs offered the usual attractions, but mostly we were outside, playing two-man chase on the River Alt, hide and seek, and you’d better be quick. Me and my brother Paul would come home filthy with mud. Mum went crazy, Dad just s
miled. Ironside was always alive with activity. In the summer, families sat out, chatting away, sharing a drink while the kids played. Ironside had many distractions. Two girls my age, Lisa and Caroline, lived either side of No. 10 and I knocked about with them, crawling around the square, playing in the mud. Girls fascinated me. I had no sisters myself. I thought Lisa and Caroline were well fit. I flirted with them. Lisa and Caroline had one fault, though: they couldn’t play football.

  Didn’t matter really. I never had far to look for a game. Bluebell was full of lads up for some footy action, always has been. Huyton is famous for producing decent pros, like Steve McMahon, Joey Barton, Lee Trundle, Peter Reid, Tony Hibbert, Craig Hignett and David Nugent. The town is crammed with Sunday League sides. Football is the local religion. On the Bluebell, I joined forces with seven or eight lads my age and we all became good mates, playing football every hour until our mums shouted us in. One problem bugged me: I never got a really decent game out of them. I was better than them, simple as that. I preferred games with Paul, three years my senior. Paul had around fifteen mates and their matches were full-on brilliant. At six, I could hold my own with Paul and the other nine-year-olds. Most of Paul’s mates wanted me on their side. I loved competing against them. They accepted me because I didn’t look out of place. Paul’s mates were good players as well. Paul himself had trials at Bolton Wanderers. A kid called Danny Walker turned down a YTS at Tranmere Rovers. Paul’s gang played in a local league for an U-10 team called Tolgate, run by two fellas from the Huyton area. One day, I followed Paul down to a Tolgate match and asked the organizers if I could join in.

  ‘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 p
ub, 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.