FOR ALL ITS glorious heights, there is also an element of sadness attached to Steven Gerrard’s career with Liverpool.
From winning the Champions League against AC Milan to being humiliated 6-1 versus Stoke in his final game with the club, Gerrard’s lows often seemed as brutal as the highs were heady.
Over the course of his many years as a top Premier League footballer, Gerrard has come across as someone not totally at ease with his superstardom. Instead he gives the impression of being an introvert and a chronic worrier, with an innate perfectionism and intense desire to succeed that few other contemporaries can match.
This portrait is consolidated and expanded upon in his his autobiography, My Story, released earlier this year.
The final part of his career in England was anti-climactic in a sense, as having been in superb form and seeming set to captain Liverpool to a first-ever Premier League title, a costly slip in a crucial end-of-season encounter with Chelsea ultimately led to the opening goal and an eventual 2-0 loss. An angst-ridden Gerrard clearly realised the team had missed their best-ever chance to win the league title as a result.
The melancholic undertones lurking amid a decorated career are reiterated when Gerrard’s ghostwriter, Donald McRae, tells The42 of the star’s admittance that “not a day goes by where he doesn’t think about the slip”.
McRae himself is distinguished in his own field of sports journalism. A two-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, he was also nominated for the same prize this year after writing an excellent biography of the boxer Emile Griffith, A Man’s World, with a film of the acclaimed book recently being green-lighted.
Despite being “exhausted” after finishing the Griffith book last March, McRae promptly undertook the challenging task of ghosting Gerrard’s autobiography, after the Liverpool legend personally asked him to write it.
Although both McRae and Gerrard initially were hoping for a year to write it, with the former typically spending three-to-four years on a single project, Penguin’s editor wanted the book out as soon as possible — something that, McRae says, worked out well in hindsight, with interest in Gerrard reaching peak levels amid his Liverpool departure last May.
The pair consequently were obliged to work at considerable speed, with Gerrard often meeting McRae on mornings after taxing Premier League games towards the end of last season.
Far from the stereotypical cliché-prone footballer, Gerrard does not mince his words in the book and McRae admits he was surprised by the extent of the star’s honesty.
He bares his soul in this book and he’s totally candid about his disappointments and shortfalls. One thing that maybe took me back a little bit was that he was more inclined to talk about the low moments than the high moments.
“I thought that was interesting, because he said to me he felt he had spoken about winning the Champions League again and again. He didn’t want to go down that particular path but in the end, I did persuade him that we needed to talk about the 2005 Champions League final.
“In his public image, he comes across as quite a cautious, thoughtful person, but it was even more than I expected.”
Ghostwriting is often portrayed as somewhat of a thankless task, and while acknowledging the challenges that this unfamiliar role entails, McRae says that the experience was ultimately a satisfying one.
“It’s important as the ghostwriter to push yourself out of (the book). There were other avenues I would have liked to have explored more, but this is Steven’s book, so I quickly understood that I would be guided by him and I would allow his voice to lead it.
The best moment, for me, where I actually felt vindicated, was when he spent such a long time going over the book painstakingly, chapter by chapter, page by page, word by word, which showed me how much it meant to him. There were telephone conversations when he was in LA, emails and texts going back and forth.
“He would sometimes want to change one word here or there, but when it was done, it was only tiny, nuanced changes that I had to make. Ultimately, he sent me a lovely message saying how happy he was with the book. That meant a lot, because we kind of shared it together — we were obviously totally different, he’s a footballer, I’m a writer. But for those short few months, we were kind of consumed by this book.”
In the past, sports stars’ autobiographies have caused controversy, with the athlete often blaming the ghostwriter as a result for adopting too much artistic license, notably in the case of Roy Keane and Eamon Dunphy.
However, with Gerrard’s book, there was little chance of a similar scenario occurring.
There’s a classic anecdote, I forget who it was, but he had a book written about him and he went to be interviewed,” McRae recalls. “One of the first questions was about his father, and the sports star said: ‘Oh no, I’m not talking about my father, that’s totally private.’ And the interviewer said: ‘But there’s a whole chapter on your father.’ And he said: ‘Oh, is there?’
“Steven conveyed how much he was going to put into this book and that he cared about it. I think anything he does he wants to do as well as possible and for me, that was so illuminating and heartening. He got paid well to have his name attached to this book and he could have done the bare minimum and not been bothered by it. But it mattered hugely to him, which made me feel like all my hard work was actually worth it.
“There was only one anecdote, which he asked me to take out. When he saw it in black and white, he felt it would be best (to exclude it). Stuff about Rafa Benitez and Stuart Pearce and people that don’t always come out particularly well — he was totally happy to include that.”
As critical as Gerrard can be of the likes of El Hadji Diouf and Mario Balotelli among many others, he is similarly harsh on himself. The book opens with the now-infamous Chelsea slip and Gerrard describes in detail, the anguish he felt at the time and which he continues to feel, to an extent, as a consequence of that one unfortunate moment in time.
“I don’t think he is quite over the slip — it was the devastating moment where he felt Liverpool lost the league title… He does feel in time he will get over it. I think in a small way, the book will help him come to terms with it.
When we were working on the book, it was kind of haunting him. It was a testimony to him and what he was about in that we started our interviews in the week Liverpool were playing Man United. He would have been injured for many weeks and the night before we met, Liverpool were playing Swansea and he came on for that game. He came on in the second half and Liverpool didn’t play well that night, but they managed a 1-0 win.”
The book describes how Brendan Rodgers effectively went back on a promise he made to his captain that he would always be first choice in the big games. After being left out of the starting lineup for the United match, the veteran midfielder’s frustration was swiftly apparent, when Gerrard got sent off for a bad challenge just seconds after being introduced as a second-half substitute.
“Liverpool were woeful in the first half, they were a goal down and he came on at half-time. I thought: ‘This is going to be interesting.’ I knew how fired up he was going to be — what I didn’t expect was seconds later, he would be sent off for the stamp. Just as a selfish writer, I thought: ‘Oh f**k — it’s not going to help me, or the book.’”
This disappointment meant Gerrard became temporarily reluctant to talk to McRae, leaving the writer concerned that his silence could impact on the book’s strict deadline.
With famous sportsmen, understandably, when things go badly, they don’t want to talk about it for a while. I got a message saying give him some time and I thought ‘this could go on for weeks’ and the clock was ticking for the deadline, but we met four days after the stamp and the key point was that I wanted to start with the slip. After the stamp, I was thinking: ‘This is going to be so difficult.’
“But there’s another football writer that Steven has known for many years called Paul Joyce and who Steve trusts implicitly. Paul was invaluable to me in writing this book and I asked what he thought, and he said: ‘You’ve got to start with the slip.’ That gave me loads of confidence and I did say to Steven: ‘Do you mind?’
“He just said: ‘Yeah, this is where we’ve got to begin, because this was the most painful moment.’ Four days after the stamp, to immediately talk about the slip, it said a lot for him.”
Countless headlines were created amid the book’s release, most of which revolved around Gerrard hitting out at various individuals. One of less publicised but nonetheless equally interesting passages of the book related to the Liverpool star’s injury-related depression and subsequent relationship with the renowned sports psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters. Did the psychiatry help Gerrard become a better player ultimately?
“If you are calm in your own life and feeling fairly balanced, you would assume when you’re playing at a high level, that can only be a good thing. He was such an instinctive player at his peak, he played with a lot of emotion. But certainly in terms of being a happier person, I think Steve Peters helped Steven Gerrard enormously.”
Another notable passage in the book relates to Gerrard’s wistful reflections on management, as he dreams of managing Liverpool one day, while being realistic enough to accept that this scenario is far from a given.
He needs football in his life because he’s extremely obsessed with the game — not as much as Jamie Carragher is, he would say, but I think it defines him. He’s been in love with football since he was a tiny little boy.
“Knowing him better now, he’s the kind of person that when he puts his mind to something, he comes close to fulfilling that ambition. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say one day, we will see him as Liverpool manager. When that is and how successful he will be, those are the two big unknowns.”
As much as the slip and other career disappointments continue to trouble Gerrard, the climax of his Anfield career was not without its redemptive moments either.
In the book, Gerrard recalls the various opportunities he had to leave Liverpool and move to a number of illustrious clubs, including Real Madrid and Chelsea. The Merseyside-born star admits he would almost certainly have won more trophies if he had joined up with Jose Mourinho in London, or another top European club.
However, McRae feels that ultimately, Gerrard genuinely believes he made the right decision in staying at Anfield. And indeed, in a football world driven increasingly by cynicism and money, where ‘loyalty’ is beginning to seem like an archaic term, the star’s dignified stance on the matter is both unusual and refreshing.
“In terms of staying at Liverpool, I think he felt totally vindicated.
His last game at home was a defeat against Palace. His last-ever game for Liverpool was the humiliation of losing 6-1 at Stoke — that hurt him hugely. But I think he felt so vindicated by the love people showed him in the last few weeks. It showed him what it meant to so many people that he stayed for so many years as a first-team player at the same club. Since the age of eight up until 35, he’d been on Liverpool’s books.
“One of the most powerful moments was when his Dad said to him: ‘Forget the medals, you have the love of your people. If you’d gone to Chelsea, you would never have got that.’
“Ultimately, as a footballer, he cares about winning and medals. But he’s wise enough to know that in the long term, the medals are less important than the legacy he has at Liverpool.”
And McRae, having interviewed countless elite sports stars for The Guardian over the years, feels Gerrard shares some similar attributes with other legendary athletes.
I think the top, top people — someone like Tony McCoy, who’s totally different in personality to Steven, but there is that hunger for perfection, that attention to detail, that kind of obsessive zeal for doing something out of love. He has all the attributes of the iconic figures of sport — they pour out of him.
“I know a lot of people dismiss him and perhaps don’t like him and say he doesn’t show enough humour — we had a lot of laughs along the way — but the thing that stood out was his utter dedication to doing what he loves, and that was why he was such a great footballer. I got to see that in close-up as he came to the end of his amazing time at Liverpool.”
Now, of course, Gerrard is living in the relative serenity of America, in comparison with the football-obsessed city of his birth. As sad as he was to leave his beloved Liverpool, McRae feels that this transition has given Gerrard an unfamiliar sense of freedom, lifting a considerable burden off his shoulders in the process.
When he went to the States and I went to see him in LA, I think he was surprised at how much he enjoyed being out of that consuming obsession with Liverpool and football. It had totally taken over his life and interactions with his wife and kids had always been shadowed by this commitment to Liverpool. He enjoyed, in LA, becoming fairly normal and just being a husband to his wife and kids. He’s a good Dad, but away from Liverpool, he had time and he wasn’t famous and he just enjoyed being out of that insanity of being Liverpool’s captain for such a long time.
“Liverpool is such a football-crazy city and it’s a city of two halves. He would either be swamped with adulation, or he would get a lot of genuine stick off the Evertonians. Because he felt responsible in a way (after the slip), he felt he’d let down Liverpool’s fans, which is why he was blaming himself and he needed to find a ghost town where he could be on his own and attempt to come to terms with what had happened. It shows how much Liverpool means to him and also how suffocating it can be as well.”
Steven Gerrard: My Story is published by Penguin. More details here.
Stevie G will always be a Liverpool legend.
I had the pleasure of meeting him once in an airport and found him to be an absolute gentleman.
YNWA.
The negativity of some people to down vote such a harmless comment is appalling to be honest…
I’m a Leeds supporter – God help me – but I can acknowledge Gerrard as a brilliant EPL player. I cannot abide people who glorified in his literal fall v Chelsea. If any one player deserved to win a league medal, he was that player. People who say he was scared to leave Pool and lacked ambition are mostly mufc or Chelsea fans who are pissed off that he wouldn’t join them
Good neutral opinion from a neutral supporter Sean. And with sense behind it.
I’m a Chelsea fan and quite glad he didn’t join. Would have ruined his rep on Merseyside and would have struggled to play with Lamps like they both did for England. Everyone seems to remember the slip in the EPL but not him dragging the squad to the CL
U are a genuine sports fan.great comment
He single handedly dragged Liverpool to fa cup , champions league success when the chips were down and they looked a beaten team , not many players in the game have them type of qualitys and ability and that includes your ronaldos and your neymars .
That’s just something losers would say it’s all about medals and glory sure why else would you bother in fairness???
2 Fa cups, 3 league cups, a champions league and a UEFA cup, hardly a loser. He may not have a league medal, but could have had several had he gone to Chelsea. And the supporters love him, he’s still a hero there. Or he could have ruined that legacy for a couple of more meaningless medals, which Chelsea would have won without him anyway.
If you’re a self centred arséhole then it’s about medals and personal. He stayed with the club he loved, and where he grew up, unlike most of the greedy shams in the game today. Gerrard is a football legend and has a champions league winners medal, you’re a twát.
Haha. He stayed with the club he loved because of death threats. He wanted out of Liverpool
So bitter on xmas eve ray, tut tut! The man wasn’t just good, he is a legend, plain and simple.
He was a top player if you disagree stick to rugby
He lacked ambition he was too scared to make the step up to Chelsea the mediocre performances he was putting in for Liverpool went unnoticed because they were a shite team
bmul – I am a rugby man, but can acknowledge he was a class football player and athlete. I support Millwall, hence the rugby.
Lack of ambition is joining Chelsea, Man City… PSG……. Do it with real clubs…. Not mediocre teams with an owner bored with money….. Or using the club to keep money away from Putin….
He wasn’t world class though good player and professional but not a legend anywhere but Liverpool.
If he wasn’t world class then I agree with Ferguson.
Pele and Maradona are they only legends beyond there clubs….. The rest are just legends where they made there names….
To scared to go to Chavski!!! The man has captained his club and his country in many a big game, he’s gone into cauldrons of hate like Old Trafford and Goodison year in year out, had his private life abused by away supporters for the majority of his career. Stevie G doesn’t do scared, he’s a scouser through and through who was proud to represent his club and his city.
It’s all about the taking part is what a loser would say.
What success have you got to brag about Ray?
Brag about? You know the answer to that… But he has stiff competition with the others here ‘not’ completely obsessed with Gerard.
you back with a bang after your couple of days sulking fair play to you poor Jackie must have fell into a hole since Sunday.
Yes I am back, and also did not cry about the results at the weekend, acknowledged the rubbish performance… But yes, xmas almost here, life things to do…. How was your last couple of days? Can only assume you spent it here, as usual, telling us all your daily dose of rubbish…. Correct if I am wrong, but at end of the day, you give as good as you get, suffer with Celtic, and have a laugh, have a merry xmas!
you know its only banter happy Christmas sir.
Merry Xmas Paul, I do enjoy our lil scraps, tis just fun…. And to the others who disappeared this year…. Davin Lynch, and so on……
He has a champions league medal , that’s worth 10 premier league medals
In that case Ryan Giggs has 33 premier league medals.
And Milf hunter trophy….
Champions league might not be worth 10 league but it is without doubt the more important trophy. Beating him with the fact he never won the league is pathetic considering he orchestrated Liverpool’s victory in the final and in other rounds.
What are you smoking
:)
Insightful.
Paul scoles best midfielder of that England generation how they spent so long trying 2 figure out how 2 play Lampard and Gerrard together in de middle of de field is an absolute joke Paul Scholes best English midfielder in de last 40 years could do it all pass score head tackle 80 odd caps stuck on de right of midfield while they argued about 2 workhorses who were able 2 run up and down de field frm box 2 box ask ask Zidane and xavi who was de best English midfielder there answers say it all
I’ll ask your teacher wtf are you being thought….. Some key words, sentence, paragraphs, full stops…… Commas…….
Scholes couldn’t tackle to save his life
Scholes wasn’t even first choice for utd for a good portion of his career.
When you stated that Scholes could head and tackle, there was no need to read any further. Not even in Gerrard’s league
And I’ll ask your teacher wtf are you being TAUGHT hahahahahahahhaha
‘Thought’?! Kind of ruined your response there…
No…taught…
Not even in Gerrard’s league?!?! Haha!! Come off it, will you? John Giles’ verdict on Gerrard is about the most accurate that I’ve ever heard; he was a player capable of great moments (Istanbul, ’06 FA Cup Final), but he was not a great midfielder, because he had no positional discipline whatsoever. Also, he tried to be the hero too often, to the detriment of the team (eg. after the slip v Chelsea he spent the rest of the game running around like a headless chicken & attempting stupid shots, trying to be Roy of the Rovers). Paul Scholes was a phenomenal player & the best passer of the ball that there’s ever been in the Premier League. I’ve never heard Zidane, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta & a host of other greats wax lyrical about Gerrard…which they have done about Scholes.
Alan every one has seen the quotes is Xavi etc saying how great scholes was but does anyone actually have any proof of when these where said? Anytime I see them it’s on Facebook all clumped together where any biased idiot could write them. On the other hand when Gerrard left Liverpool everyone was coming out and saying how great he was Xavi and raul who asked Gerrard to go Madrid. To say Gerrard isn’t a great midfielder is ridiculous. Comparing Gerrard scholes and even Lampard is stupid they are completely different. Lampard is the obvious goal scoring midfield and probably the most limited skill wise of the 3. Scholes was the dictator of play controlling the game with his passing but couldn’t defend. Gerrard was the complete box to box midfielder could do everything on a football pitch, could score the unbelievable goal, the last ditch tackles play the Hollywood passes like scholes etc. Even Ferguson came out and said we would of won more titles with Gerrard
I swore I had taught, but guess not :)
Any team would of loved to have had Gerard, just for that take it by scruff attitude…. You need it sometimes….
Xavi, zidane and so on say nice things about many players when asked….. Like when someone tells you to have a nice day…..
I’m tired of people saying scoles was the most
Underrated midfielder in the premier league
I would say he was the most overrated
It’s got to the stage where everyone says he is underrated that he is acutely overrated. Much like Michael carrick at this stage
Man United fan, Gerrard in his prime would have improved any team in Europe, should be acknowledged for his influence on players around him, not medals, you can’t help what City you are born to, would Rooney be England’s all timer still playing for Everton? Some stay some go, the hysterical Liverpool fans will tell you he won them the CL in Istanbul, partial, what he did do was got an extra yard out of the rest of his team mates that night with his celebration alone, yes two more goals followed but don’t forget Dudeks role, it was far from a capitulation from Milan rather a bad 15mins, they peppered Liverpool afterwards, and that extra yard Gerrard injected into the team got them over the line, great players are entitled to be glorified forever for moments like that, best player in PL history to never win the league.
Ferguson tried to sign him as did mourinho and ancelloti several times. Best premiership player, bar none His slip arguably cost Liverpool one point, they lost by two
He is NOT the best Premier League player- come off it, will you?!
Good player but nowhere near the best ever in the pl. Ridiculous comment. Xabi Alonso was a better midfielder.
I support United but Scholes couldn’t tackle to save his life. Hard to compare Scholes and Gerrard but at the height of their powers, there was very little between them.
Scholes couldn’t tackle, Gerrard had no discipline, positional sense or awareness…given they were both midfielders, which suffered most from their weaknesses?
Over rated w@@ker! The best thing he did was slip !!!!!
I bet you those kids will be Liverpool fans.
Hi Baz… Have your xmas w#%k?
all comments frm blind club “fans” if ye knew anything bout football de post about Scholes is not negotiable he was the only true footballer of the 3 I mentioned All the greats have acknowledged this Zidane Figo xavi inesta Nuff said
Francis, are you Alan Morrisey?
Scholes was quality, surrounded by quality for the majority of his career. He wasn’t a leader, he was just another world class cog in the Man Ure juggernaut. Gerrard was for large portions of his career the only world class cog, we had Alonso for a short time, Hamann to but they both left and weren’t replaced with good enough players. Scholes was also one dimensional, he was an attacking midfielder, Gerrard could attack, was sometimes our best defender when called upon. Comparing the 2 is like comparing apples and oranges
Peter I disagree with you about scholes only been attack minded. He was a proper footballer who knew when to attack and keep possession. Gérard was good but he couldn’t keep possession of the football and for a so called world class midfielder that’s not good. Can I add what lost Liverpool the league was the game at Crystal Palace and Gérard was at fault as captain of that team. Keane Scholes would have slowed that game down and picked palace of for fun.
Gerrard was top class and any manager would have been delighted to have had him.His loyalty to Liverpool was admiral.Paul Scholes on the other hand was a different type of player.More of a pulling the strings type.The people who say they rate Scholes as the best of his generation cannot be argued with (Xavi,Zidane and Iniesta….)People who don’t rate Scholes don’t understand football.
He must have won loads of Premier League medals!
You just like to devalue the champion league because United haven’t won many of them. Sad really, never mind, United will get to 5 In the next 30 years or so.
United, United, United. You Liverpool fans focus on one club only. Let me prove it to you. Go to any LFC Facebook page and just look at the last 5 comments. At least 3 of them will be about United. Is it our success ye are what? I’d really like to know why ye obsess about us.
Ironically Rich coming from the united fan who only comments on Liverpool forums.
This isn’t a Liverpool post. Steven Gerrard doesn’t play for Liverpool anymore….
Yet, there you are allover LFC facebook page…….. Obsessed…
Medals are forgotten but a legacy can live for ever … In 50 years time stevie Gs name will be a huge part of Liverpool football club and rightly so…. He is a hero
Who ?
psychology not a united fan.