Carra: My Autobiography by Jamie Carragher, Kenny Dalglish Page B
Authors: Jamie Carragher, Kenny Dalglish
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our lethal weapon, there was no stopping us in the Youth Cup, even though United and West Ham, who we beat in the final, were technically superior.
We beat Crystal Palace over two legs in the semifinal to set up that meeting with West Ham, whose stars were Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand. During the course of those games my career took another twist. Our centre-back, Eddie Turkington, was sent off in the second leg against Palace, leaving a hole at the back. Ronnie Moran and Hugh McAuley suggested to Heighway he move me to centrehalf for the final. They saw me developing in the same way as Phil Thompson years earlier. He'd also been switched from central midfield, where he'd learned to read the game and see it from different angles before establishing himself at the back.
Moran's intuition set me on a new course. This shows, yet again, the value of having the youngsters mixing with the senior coaches and professionals. Could one of the Melwood staff make such a suggestion today? Would he know the local players well enough, or even be listened to?
Without Michael, we won the first leg of the final at Upton Park 2–0. He returned for the second leg, played in front of twenty thousand at Anfield. Although Lampard struck first, Mo underlined his class to secure a 4–1 aggregate win and a trophy I still rate as highly as others on my Liverpool honours list. The senior side lost at Wembley to Manchester United that summer, so our performance offered consolation and the hope of a new generation of local players to assist Robbie and McManaman in the first team.
We were on £250 a week at the time, but within a few weeks this was increased to a whopping £750. There were no agents or long-drawn-out contract negotiations. Roy Evans called a few of us in, asked us if we'd sign, and we walked out with the ink on our hands. Today, I hear ex-Liverpool players from the sixties and seventies lamenting the passing of simpler days when players weren't multi-millionaires and appreciated what they had at Anfield independent of financial reward. For some of us, those times passed more recently than the older generation might think. As I said, money was and is secondary to me. No matter what Liverpool had put in front of me in the summer of 1996, I'd have signed it.
As Michael, Thommo and I headed off to put a dent into our new wage packets, Steve Heighway must have felt he'd secured a lifetime of appreciation at Anfield thanks to his remarkable success in providing the players who'd flourish in the Liverpool first team. In 2007, accepting the Youth Cup again while announcing his Liverpool exit, I could sense the tears in his eyes. No matter how highly he rated those players he was leaving behind, he knew the odds against his prodigies enjoying similar triumphs with the Liver Bird on their chest were long. Like so much at Anfield during his era, the blame lay elsewhere. The forces of time were undermining traditional aspirations.
4
The Bootroom
The Anfield bootroom is as much part of Liverpool legend as the greatest players or managers. It's become a mystical place, presented as a symbol of the era when the club dominated domestic and European football. Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Ronnie Moran welcomed opposing managers into little more than a glorified cupboard near the Anfield dressing room, shared a glass of whisky, then sent them packing having seen their team deliver another football masterclass. Supporters still embrace the romanticism of this humble history, and it's easy to understand why. Four or five working-class heroes were the inspiration for eleven others in red, who in turn put the fifty thousand watching spectators into a fiery trance for ninety minutes.
'The Bootroom' wasn't just where the footwear was kept, it was where 'The Liverpool Way' was born and where the modern institution of Liverpool FC formed its identity. Shankly didn't merely transform the football club, he embodied it, creating an unwritten
We beat Crystal Palace over two legs in the semifinal to set up that meeting with West Ham, whose stars were Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand. During the course of those games my career took another twist. Our centre-back, Eddie Turkington, was sent off in the second leg against Palace, leaving a hole at the back. Ronnie Moran and Hugh McAuley suggested to Heighway he move me to centrehalf for the final. They saw me developing in the same way as Phil Thompson years earlier. He'd also been switched from central midfield, where he'd learned to read the game and see it from different angles before establishing himself at the back.
Moran's intuition set me on a new course. This shows, yet again, the value of having the youngsters mixing with the senior coaches and professionals. Could one of the Melwood staff make such a suggestion today? Would he know the local players well enough, or even be listened to?
Without Michael, we won the first leg of the final at Upton Park 2–0. He returned for the second leg, played in front of twenty thousand at Anfield. Although Lampard struck first, Mo underlined his class to secure a 4–1 aggregate win and a trophy I still rate as highly as others on my Liverpool honours list. The senior side lost at Wembley to Manchester United that summer, so our performance offered consolation and the hope of a new generation of local players to assist Robbie and McManaman in the first team.
We were on £250 a week at the time, but within a few weeks this was increased to a whopping £750. There were no agents or long-drawn-out contract negotiations. Roy Evans called a few of us in, asked us if we'd sign, and we walked out with the ink on our hands. Today, I hear ex-Liverpool players from the sixties and seventies lamenting the passing of simpler days when players weren't multi-millionaires and appreciated what they had at Anfield independent of financial reward. For some of us, those times passed more recently than the older generation might think. As I said, money was and is secondary to me. No matter what Liverpool had put in front of me in the summer of 1996, I'd have signed it.
As Michael, Thommo and I headed off to put a dent into our new wage packets, Steve Heighway must have felt he'd secured a lifetime of appreciation at Anfield thanks to his remarkable success in providing the players who'd flourish in the Liverpool first team. In 2007, accepting the Youth Cup again while announcing his Liverpool exit, I could sense the tears in his eyes. No matter how highly he rated those players he was leaving behind, he knew the odds against his prodigies enjoying similar triumphs with the Liver Bird on their chest were long. Like so much at Anfield during his era, the blame lay elsewhere. The forces of time were undermining traditional aspirations.
4
The Bootroom
The Anfield bootroom is as much part of Liverpool legend as the greatest players or managers. It's become a mystical place, presented as a symbol of the era when the club dominated domestic and European football. Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Ronnie Moran welcomed opposing managers into little more than a glorified cupboard near the Anfield dressing room, shared a glass of whisky, then sent them packing having seen their team deliver another football masterclass. Supporters still embrace the romanticism of this humble history, and it's easy to understand why. Four or five working-class heroes were the inspiration for eleven others in red, who in turn put the fifty thousand watching spectators into a fiery trance for ninety minutes.
'The Bootroom' wasn't just where the footwear was kept, it was where 'The Liverpool Way' was born and where the modern institution of Liverpool FC formed its identity. Shankly didn't merely transform the football club, he embodied it, creating an unwritten
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