I tried to play golf with the Wigan boss, but my back went -- that was the end Scoring that header for England was my best ever
Pardew said: ‘You are a total disgrace . . . ’ He was right!
THE end came over the summer after a game of golf rather than a game of football, and Rickie Lambert recalls with some amusement what happened.
Wigan Athletic were interested in extending his career for a further 12 months, and invited the former England striker for a round with the chairman and manager.
But a lower-back problem that had already been forcing Lambert to have an epidural every three months was not playing ball.
‘It went when we were on the course,’ he says. ‘I was f***ed and I’m just thinking, “How can I sign for them when I’m like this?” ’
He had to be honest with Paul Cook, the Wigan manager, and concede that at 35 he was done. No more football. No more injections. No more having to lie flat on the floor after getting back from training in a bid to stop himself seizing up.
On Monday, Lambert announced his retirement and yesterday, at the stylish home he shares with his young family in Formby, he reflected on what has been quite some journey.
It was a journey that saw him rise through the top four tiers of the domestic game to play for England at a World Cup, but one that so nearly ended when a year without earning anything other than travelling expenses forced him to take a job with his father in a beetroot factory.
Regrets? Lambert is candid enough to admit to a few. Not until he was 27 did he even begin to act like a professional. ‘I was a disgrace,’ he says, accepting that was the principal reason why he did not play in the Premier League until he was 30.
But sitting on a stool in his kitchen yesterday was a man pretty content with his lot, and rightly proud of what he did achieve after overcoming so many setbacks.
‘The main reason I quit was my lower back,’ he says. ‘I’ve had problems for a few years. It was affecting my movement and power. I had to have various injections and procedures. And while I maybe could have gone on for another year, you don’t know how much damage you’ve already done.
‘The problem with the injections is the fact that you can’t feel anything, and having to have one every three months just to play can’t be good.
‘It’s just degeneration in the lower discs. I’ve played football every day since I was five, and I’m just knackered.
‘I have to go through a series of exercises just to tie my shoelaces in the morning. But it already feels better now I’ve stopped playing.’
The decision was right for another reason, as too much time spent injured or on the bench was tempering his enjoyment.
‘If I’m honest it was like that for the last three years, after I left Southampton,’ he says. ‘I didn’t play much at Liverpool and it was the same at West Brom and then Cardiff.
‘I was getting well paid but I never started playing football for the money. And when I decided to go to Liverpool I sacrificed a regular first-team place and that was when I started to fall out of love with it. I never should have accepted being on the bench, even though Brendan Rodgers had made it clear to me I would be back-up for Suarez and Sturridge.
‘I was never as quick or as technically good as the best players, but in my own head, when it came to actually playing, I could convince myself I was the best.
‘But when I joined up with England I felt lucky to be there, and it was the same at Liverpool. And when I look back now I realise I lost something mentally as a player, by allowing that to happen.’
He should not be too hard on himself when Liverpool was an offer he simply could not refuse. He was from Merseyside, after all, and they were his team, the club he had spent five years at as a kid. ‘I was 10 when I joined Liverpool,’ he says. ‘ One of the best days of my life. Kenny Dalglish was my hero. I loved Rush and Fowler too. And I remember hearing about these two kids who were three years ahead of us. Owen and Gerrard. ‘I loved the first two or three years there, but the next two were tougher and at 15 I was out. (Academy director) Steve Heighway pulled me in and told me I wasn’t going to make it there. It wasn’t a surprise. I wasn’t even playing in my position by then. But I was devastated.’ His dyslexia meant school was a struggle too and he left at 16 with ‘a C in design and technology and a B in PE’. But by then he was playing at Blackpool and by 17 he had broken into the first team. He was also earning £120 a week, albeit playing at either right back or in central midfield. With the arrival of Steve McMahon as manager, however, came his departure from Bloomfield Road. His next stop would be Macclesfield Town. ‘I was at Macclesfield for over a year without a contract, just getting 50 quid a week in expenses,’ he says. ‘That
was when I went to work with the old fella on the farms near Ormskirk. I needed to get money in, £20 a day, cutting cabbages, on the production line in the beetroot factory, or cleaning out the containers with the jet sprays.
‘I never thought football had gone. I always thought I could make it as a Football League player. The Premier League never even entered my head. But it got to a point at Macclesfield where I had to say, “I can’t afford this any more”. I knew I was close to the first team but I was going to have to stop. It was only then that Gil Prescott gave me a contract.’
It wasn’t much but 10 first-team goals and he was soon earning £300 a week. And then, in April 2002, came an offer to join Second Division Stockport County, for what remains a Macclesfield transfer record of £300,000. ‘I got a 10 per cent signing-on fee and £1,000 a week,’ he says. ‘I bought a house and a new car, a red Renault Clio. I was made up.’
If he endured further problems at Stockport, still playing in midfield, things would improve at Rochdale with the realisation that here, in fact, was a very good striker.
‘It was Steve Parkin who put me there,’ says Lambert. ‘I think I’d scored six goals in 10 games at the end of the previous season from midfield when he told me he was moving me up front.’
The following season he scored 22 league goals and, when he then moved to Bristol Rovers, 29 goals in a single League One season caught the attention of Alan Pardew and Southampton.
By his own admission, Lambert got that far without taking the best care of himself. ‘I was pretty bad,’ he says. ‘I would go out with my mates two or three times a week. Nutrition-wise I had no idea, although I had an inkling that alcohol wasn’t good for you.
‘I wasn’t professional. It’s the reason it took as long as it did to make it to the top level. I was still good enough to score goals in the lower leagues, and I was happy with that. I didn’t care enough.’
At Southampton he was ‘scoring goals for fun’: 30 in 45 league games in his first season. But one day Pardew called him into his office and asked him to lift his shirt.
Initially Lambert refused. Pardew insisted. ‘I didn’t exactly have a six pack,’ Lambert admits.
‘He said, “You’re an absolute f***ing disgrace”. I was shocked. I was his top scorer. I thought he wanted to talk about our plans for the next game. But I knew he was right. I loved chocolate, chips, burgers.
‘I owe a lot to Alan Pardew. He affected my career more than any other manager I worked with. For the first time I was in the gym before training, fat burning, sorting out my diet.
‘Southampton were great for that. Even as a League One club they had a great set-up. They were so professional. And it clicked inside my head. I started to enjoy it. I was always a step ahead of most players on the pitch in terms of my football brain but I’d be a step behind in terms of fitness.
‘When I got fit, though, I was suddenly two steps ahead and it felt so much easier. Feeling that good became like a drug, and I started to train even harder. My career rocketed as a result.’
His progress continued under Nigel Adkins and then, once Premier League football had been secured, Mauricio Pochettino added the finishing touches.
‘When you see Harry Kane, I can understand why he’s that good now,’ says Lambert. ‘Mauricio would have seen Harry, worked out his weaknesses and improved him as a player. He goes into so much detail. The year I played under Mauricio was the best football I ever played. Up front with Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez, we were brilliant as a team going forward.’
That t rise in standards led to a most unexpected international call-up. ‘It was the day my daughter, Bella, was born,’ he says. ‘I didn’t even realise England were playing, never mind announcing a squad.
‘I’d got back from the hospital and gone for a sleep when I woke up to about 57 messages.
‘One was telling me I needed to ring the manager, and Mauricio then told me the news.’
It was an opportunity he did not waste, scoring for England in a friendly against Scotland with what was his first touch in international football. It is a moment he remembers now with the signed England shirt he was handed that night.
‘It was the best header of my career, the best moment of my career,’ he says. ‘I came on for Rooney. Gary Neville just said, “Get us a goal”. But I already knew what was going to happen. I just wanted to get on.
‘We get a corner and I’m just thinking, “If that ball comes anywhere near me I’m going to score”. Leighton Baines puts it right on my head. It was surreal after that.
‘I was sitting in the dressing room afterwards, and these players I’d always looked up to were coming up to me. Wayne, Stevie, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole. I was just sitting there . . . as a kid you imagine the ultimate moment as a footballer, scoring for England.
‘I was struggling to take it all in, these great players all being made up for me, hugging me. I feel emotional just talking about it. I struggled to contain my emotions at the time. I was smiling so much, I could just feel my face twitching.
‘ I went to a World Cup but nothing ever topped that.’