LITMIR.BIZ

       3 Lilleshall and Louise

      Lilleshall has disappeared off the list of big breeding grounds for talent, but it was the academy where I changed from a boy to a man. It was the Football Association’s university for England’s most promising youngsters. For me, it was the bridge between my exploits with Deeside Schools and the start of my professional career with Liverpool. And I loved every moment of it.

      The two years I spent under the direction of Keith Blunt and his staff were, for me, an enormous transitional stage. I learned a vast amount about life, football, everything. Keith was the head coach, and he taught me about the discipline of football as well as how to be as a person on the pitch. My graduation was notable for one other life-changing event: when I returned to Hawarden, my relationship with Louise Bonsall, who was around throughout my formative schoolboy years, found shape, and it put us on the path to parenthood in our early twenties. Today, we have our daughter Gemma and son James to show for all the happy years we have spent together.

      In large measure, Lilleshall made me the player I am today. By the age of 14, at the FA’s hothouse in the Midlands, I was playing football full-time – training every single day and playing matches at weekends. Up to the ages of about 12 or 13, you play football purely for the enjoyment; around 14, you start thinking about it more seriously. It becomes more of an academic process. So in my first year at Lilleshall I felt myself passing through that door into professionalism. It was during these years that I made my debuts for England U-15s and U-16s, and I managed to score on both occasions.

      Keith Blunt taught me a tremendous amount about being a striker. He stressed the importance of keeping possession of the ball and highlighted all the technical areas where I needed to improve. He was a coach who wouldn’t complicate things but insisted on the basics being done properly. He wanted the defenders and midfielders to move the ball quickly to the strikers’ feet. That totally transformed my game. Up to the age of 14, I was running on to balls chipped over the top; now I was learning the serious stuff. I was finding out how to take a ball into feet, how to turn, how to keep it away from a defender, side-on, and how to use my strength and link the play. Lilleshall was where my game really took off.

      It may seem unlikely, given that effectively I had to leave home at 14, but I have immensely happy memories of being a student there, and I was heartbroken when I heard it was to close as a national centre of excellence. Just look at the players who have emerged from its halls. It was a place of phenomenal achievement. I remember watching an international five or six years ago and counting half a dozen players who had been through Lilleshall; Ian Walker, Sol Campbell, Andy Cole and Nick Barmby were among them. From my generation there was me, Wes Brown (Manchester United), Michael Ball (Everton), Kenny Lunt (Crewe) and Jon Harley (Chelsea). Every year they were churning out good players, so I was dumbfounded when they closed their doors and the Premiership clubs assumed responsibility for guiding the country’s best young players. At Lilleshall we developed both as footballers and as young men. We lived and breathed the game.

      I say all this with a large measure of hindsight, because the first couple of months living away from friends and families was hell. An absolute killer. In the first two or three weeks I often cried. Everyone in our group fantasized about going home. But soon enough I found those feelings reversed: when I was at home, I couldn’t wait to get back to Lilleshall. I just loved that place. Some of my fondest memories are of the lads with whom I shared those years. We were like 15 brothers. When I left, at 16, again I couldn’t stop crying. The wrench was leaving people with whom I’d shared so much.

      Those two years between 14 and 16 are serious ones in any teenager’s life. Whatever you want to do, that 24-month period will probably tell you whether or not it’s going to work out. The coaches at Lilleshall were quite clear with the parents. They were told that if we were lucky one of us might turn out to be a top-flight pro. One in 16 was, they said, the average. So the parents were under no illusions. But these warnings were delivered with a certain kindness in the voice. The care we received was just excellent. They sent us to a very good local school, Idsall High, and made sure we didn’t neglect our education. I managed to pass all 10 of my GCSEs, with C and D grades. Had football not dominated my thoughts, I’m sure those grades would have been higher.

      The days were highly structured. In our dormitories we would be woken up at 6.45 a.m. and have to be down for breakfast by 7.30 to give us time to board the bus to school. Often, on Saturdays, we would head off to watch a Premiership game – usually Aston Villa or Coventry, because they were the nearest grounds. Our own matches would be on the Sunday, then it was back into training on the Monday. On the third Saturday and Sunday in every month we came home. There were three main influences on us, none of whom we will ever forget: Craig Simmons, the physiotherapist; Keith Blunt, the head of football; and Tony Pickering, the housemaster on the two upstairs floors of bedrooms and bathrooms. Tony and his wife Gilly looked after us as if we were their kids. They were lovely.

      One day at Lilleshall I became extremely poorly, and Gilly called my parents to ask them to drive down. Mum and Dad said they would be there in 40 minutes. When they arrived, Gilly told them, ‘I’ve never known a kid have so much faith that his parents were coming.’ She thought that was very special.

      In the dorms we had some great parties – and usually got caught by Mr and Mrs Pickering just as we were getting into full flow. The friendships with the other lads remain, but we haven’t always kept in close contact. You always think you are going to maintain that close connection, but life moves on. It’s sad, because I’d love to speak to a few of them now. I see Wes, obviously, with England and we chat about Lilleshall occasionally, though not often enough. I’d love to get everyone back together. Maybe we’ll have a big reunion when we’re all finished.

      Everyone looked out for one another. We had to, because we encroached on a normal local school where there was a great deal of jealousy. In addition, we naturally took all the prettiest girls because we were young footballers playing for England schoolboys. We had one or two serious problems with the local kids, and some fights. I didn’t get involved in any punch-ups, but there was a lot of general animosity – threats, say, from the older brothers of boys at the school we’d fallen out with. I remember a big group coming down with baseball bats one day, and us having to run off. There were even attempts to confront us up at Lilleshall. But maybe the threats weren’t as serious as they seemed at the time. After all, we were extremely fit athletes, so I can’t imagine the locals wanting to take us on. My only previous experience of that kind of jealousy was during my last few weeks at school in North Wales when, knowing I was about to leave, some of the older boys made things uncomfortable for me. This is where my boxing experience came in useful – not that I had to make physical use of it, though.

      That aside, Lilleshall was a time of opportunity and growth. I even managed to pick up an FA Youth Cup winner’s medal with Liverpool while I was there. I was on Centre of Excellence forms at Liverpool, and had been attending informal training sessions at the club since the age of 11; it was like a mini-club, always with the same lads. I wasn’t on schoolboy forms with Liverpool at the time, though, because the authorities at Deeside had a rule against boys having formal associations with clubs. Still, Liverpool had a right to request my services from time to time, and on this occasion Keith Blunt took a call from Anfield asking the FA to release me for a game against Sheffield United in the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup. The Liverpool strikers at that time were a few years older than me, and the team had just scored four against Bradford City and five without reply against Luton, so I was especially honoured to be summoned so young. The Liverpool youth side of the time had some very decent players too, particularly David Thompson and Jamie Carragher. John Curtis, who was also at Lilleshall, made the same jump from Lilleshall to FA Youth Cup games, but it was still unusual for someone as young as me, just 16, to be playing in

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