Gerrard: My Autobiography Read Free

there were on the roads of Liverpool. Every time we drove over a bump, I screamed at the ambulancedriver. 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 toeand 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 beenempty. 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