We all have people who inspire us, be it parents, friends, artists or even footballers. But inspiration is an odd thing. What is it? We all think we know, but when you try and grasp it, it disappears like a dog's breath on a cold morning.
One of my early inspirations was my granddad, Fred. A coal miner from Castleford, he spent most of his life stripped to the waist and three miles deep under the coalfields of West Yorkshire. But that wasn't why he was inspiring. I still sling to his memory, even though he died over 40 years ago, because he was a kind auld fella with a roguish sense of humour and a rebellious spirit, and was full of working-class philosophy.
He would take me around Castleford on little adventures which involved all sorts of odd things, such as brewing beer from nettles or cooking curry in a bin lid on his allotment. One of his favourite tricks was to walk out into the road, flag down a car, get in the passenger side and basically blag a lift home. It was a form of mugging and too real chutzpah. This is how he moved around town for years.
He used to tell me that I should always have a passion for something - one thing you totally love - and that would see you through life. He would encourage me to enjoy every sandwich and live for the moment. "Now is all you've got, our John," he would say. Cheers Fred.
He was great, but I didn't hero-worship him; if I had, he would have told me not to be so bloody daft. He wouldn't have wanted to be seen on a pedestal, and this may be why I feel so uncomfortable when a footballer is treated in that way. For all the inspiration he provided for me and others, he was still just a bloke.
I do understand why footballers are held in high affection but the mawkish display at Anfield this weekend was almost unpleasant in its bizarre sugariness. I'm not really sure what was going on. It seemed very odd for the crowd to stay behind in order to wave goodbye and say thank you to a man whose name they have been chanting for 15 years. Was that not enough recognition and adulation already? Why was it necessary to do it all again. For longer.
It isn't as though playing for Liverpool was an act of selfless sacrifice that has gone without accolade or reward. This wasn't a nurse who wiped backsides for 20 years on minimum wage for little or no recognition. It was a man paid beyond the dreams of avarice to play football. It wasn't a small, unrecognised act that needed extra praise. It had already been acknowledged thousands of times.
This business of genuflecting at the feet of the one-club man is slightly bizarre. Again, he didn't play for free, it wasn't a massively unselfish act. So what was he being thanked for? For enjoying playing for his club? OK. That's weird enough, isn't it? Where does that stop? I'm not saying it's wrong to appreciate a footballer, but this soap opera treatment owes much to the weird celebrity culture of 2015 and little to common sense or appropriateness. And why were his children involved? Were the crowd being invited to celebrate his fertility? His ability to reproduce? Clearly this wasn't about him just being a sportsman. It was about who he is; a celebration of his character.
We are encouraged to think of Steven as not just a great footballer but as a great man. Football does this to its favoured sons. Because you're good at football, it is almost by osmosis assumed you are also a good man - as if the two simply go together. But that's a very uncomfortable assumption to make. Just because we like a footballer, so we have to like him as a man? Do we have to share his values? His politics? I don't know anything about Gerrard's life but I would wager, like all of us, he is a mixture of saint and sinner. This is being human. so all this public adoration is to say 'thank you for being human'. I find it all very puzzling when done on this scale. It feels wrong. It's too much about not enough.
Who had asked for this event to happen? It wasn't a testimonial game and all it involved was him walking around a bit, looking a little awkward, which is pretty much all he has done on the pitch for the last couple of years anyway.
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