The hero who always delivered will leave a chasm
THE great football clubs revere their finest players, but at Liverpool they cherish their legends more dearly than most. Names like St John and Liddell, Hansen, Keegan and Dalglish, right through to the capricious Suarez, form the currency of conversations on Anfield Road. Yet there is just one man
who perfectly represents the soul and the spirit of the team in red.
Steven Gerrard, who has announced that he will be leaving at the end of the season, is the captain from Central Casting; not simply a sensational footballer, but a man whose energy and pride has so often captivated a club, a city and a sporting nation.
Ever since the news was announced, we have been treated to tales of that wondrous evening in Istanbul, when he won the Champions League final virtually single-handed. There was also a magical day in Cardiff, when he practically seized the FA Cup.
But while his career was alive with dramatic occasions and rousing triumphs, the lingering memory will be of the individual who delivered them.
Gerrard was the finest English midfield player of his generation by some considerable distance, but he was a good deal more than that. He possessed the kind of gifts which the English crave in their football heroes. He carried himself with the style and purpose of the chosen ones, a squareshouldered, sturdy-chested athlete with running power capable of carrying him through a string of testing seasons.
Then there was the touch; delicate when required, subtle when needed, but always applied with devilishly shrewd intent. We marvelled, too, at the alliance of impeccable technique and latent strength; the crossfield pass arrowed through 50 undeviating yards, or those surging sprints, which disdained challenges and concluded in violent drives.
But above and beyond all this, there was the belief that this outwardly reticent character with the nervous frown and the decent distaste for the spotlight could achieve astonishing things through the ferocity of his ambition.
Time and again, he repaid that faith. An uncommon man, is Steven Gerrard. He will leave not a gap, but a chasm.