STEVIE WONDER

Steven Gerrard may be fearless on the pitch but, as he confides to Mike Pattenden, it was a completely different story when it came to the birth of his daughters.

It’s not uncommon these days for a man to have two families. Steven Gerrard certainly has, but his dual existence is not the product of separation or divorce – though his parents split a few years ago – but of a lifelong love affair with Liverpool Football Club.
Gerrard is devoted to his wife, two children, the parents who brought him up and the club he serves as captain. In turn they are there for him, celebrating with him during the highs, supporting him during the lows. The loyalty, honour and love he shares are key factors in making him the person he is, the force of nature that moves across a football pitch.
The two latest additions to his circle are Lily-Ella, two, and Lexie, four months, the two daughters whose names are stitched into his boots. “I always wanted kids,” he says, sat in a stark interview room off the media area at Liverpool’s Melwood training ground. “I wanted to settle down, have a family and I didn’t want to wait to the end of my career to start having it.”
Gerrard comes from a close-knit family and unlike most young super-rich players who enjoy a lavish bachelor lifestyle, he could not wait to have one of his own. He briefly dated soap star and Hell’s Kitchen winner Jennifer Ellison before meeting her friend Alex Curran when he was just 21 and she 22. Two years later they had their first child, Lily-Ella. The couple are currently planning a lavish wedding next summer with the girls as bridesmaids but, despite experiencing his share of hard knocks on and off the pitch, Gerrard was unprepared for the trauma of birth.
“Nothing prepared me for seeing Alex go through that pain, it was such a relief when the baby was actually born,” he says with a shake of the head, adding with a smile, “I made sure I stayed up the Kop End because it can get a bit messy down the Anfield Road End.”
The couple were undeterred. Eighteen months later Lexie arrived and the delivery was even harder. “Alex was in such pain I didn’t even realise what sex the baby was for a while, I was just glad it was all over. Then I was counting all the bits.”
Despite earning the sort of wages commensurate with a top Premiership player, Gerrard avoided the temptation to go private for the births.
“I try and live as normally as possible, so why not bring up my kids the same way?” he says. “I want them to grow up nice, wellbalanced people, so that's they way it’ll stay.
Just because I’m a well-paid footballer I don’t have to go private for everything.” Will that extend to school? “I’m not sure," he frowns, as if considering the thought of his children installed at a posh school. “I want them to have a good education that’s for sure but I’m not sure whether that means going to a private school. We’ll see. Alex and I talk all the time about how we want to bring them up. We’ve both got their best interests at heart and we’ll always be there for them.”
Whatever happens his two daughters will grow up in a totally different environment to the one in which Gerrard was brought up. He recently moved his family to a £2 million mansion in Formby that boasts seven bedrooms an indoor swimming pool, home cinema and landscaped garden. Their father’s weekly packet of £100,000 will fund everything from schooling to music lessons and ponies but the concern for Gerrard, for any wealthy parent, is that the girls will become spoilt and divorced from reality. “Obviously they’ll grow up well off but it’s our responsibility to keep them grounded and to respect
other people,” he shrugs. “I suppose I’m like my dad in that respect. I don’t think my parents made many mistakes. They were fair, they always encouraged me and took an interest in my schoolwork.”
Likewise he has no intention of allowing his daughters to turn into chat-room-obsessed kids who spend all day in their rooms surrounded by all the expensive hardware his wealth will no doubt be called upon to purchase. “There’s so many diversions indoors these days that the danger is they can end up there all day. I’m a great believer in them getting outside. It’s important that they play sport, learn how to be part of a team, how to win and lose, to play fair – things that will help them in life as they grow up.” Whatever sport they choose to pursue Lilly- Ella and Lexie’s experience will be radically different to their father’s. Gerrard learnt his football on a square of wasteland in front of his council estate in Huyton, an area known in local rhyming slang as ‘Two Dogs Fightin’ because of its tough reputation. It’s a far cry from genteel Formby situated across the Wirral peninsula but Gerrard has never forgotten where he is from. “They do call it that but it sounds so cheesy,” he says, fixing me with his blue-eyes. “It was rough yes, but I wouldn’t change my upbringing one bit. I’m from a council estate and it’s one of the reasons I’m where I am today.”
Huyton is little more than a mile from the room we sit in at Melwood’s plush training complex though it feels like a lifetime away. It was the focus of a major housing development regeneration scheme after the war, throwing up well documented problems. Living on those streets undoubtedly meant growing up fast. “I suppose I was streetwise but I wasn’t really trouble, apart from a few smashed windows. We rarely had the police at the front door.” Rarely? “Well I was caught stealing once and had me wrist slapped,” he say shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I went into the Woolworth’s one day and nicked some pens and paper but the security guy collared me on the way out. I was sat down in a room and the police got called. I was in bits because I thought it was all over. I thought the club would find out and I'd get kicked out of school but I got a warning and that was it. I behaved myself after that.”
It’s easy to paint in clichés, particularly in this city, but just as actors Rex Harrison and Sue Johnston rose from the Huyton streets, so did Steven Gerrard. Rather than the hub-cap nicking scally his confession suggests, he was a normal kid from a loving family. His father did what he could to make ends meet during notoriously tough times in the city – bricklaying, tarmacing, whatever paid the bills.