Jamie Carragher Interview in Big Issue in the North

We have been given permission to republish the Jamie Carragher Interview below by the Author Mark Metcalf who wrote the Article for The Big Issue In The North.

After reading the excellent article below we urge you to visit both Mr Metcalf’s Site and The Big Issue In The North Magazine site, links to both site are at the bottom of the article.

Jamie Carragher Interview with Mark Metcalf

The extra-marital affairs of John Terry and Ashley Cole and the outcry over the huge level of debt carried by some football clubs are damaging the game, according to Jamie Carragher.

“I look forward to the time when football returns to the back pages and focuses on what’s happening on the pitch,” said the Liverpool vice-captain.

Carragher was speaking to The Big Issue in the North after talking to a group of Liverpool schoolchildren recently about the importance of strong family relationships.

Now 32, the defender said he would like to continue playing at Anfield for some years yet –despite last week’s press reports to the contrary – and that it would be difficult to contemplate moving away from his beloved Merseyside because of the needs of his two children, who with his wife are “the most important things in my life”.

Tactics 4 Families is a programme for schools run by Liverpool Football Club’s community department.
With funding from the Premier League and the Professional Footballers’ Association it has engaged with over 4,000 children since its inception just over 18 months ago.

Activities last for five weeks and include a family session at the end with the children’s parents or carers. Central to the programme is getting children to interpret how seven qualities that go to make up a successful football club might help them in their family life.

Thus Sing Your Support – the Anfield Kop is famous worldwide for its singing – is translated into encouraging each other in the family by praising or giving them a hug.

In the first session at Northway Primary and Infant School in the Wavertree area of the city, attended by Carragher, the theme of working as a team was taken up enthusiastically by a packed class of close to 30.

The session was bright and breezy and, according to the school’s headmaster Paul Anderson, carried on
from previous work by the football club, which has “had a very positive effect on the children’s social and emotional skills”.

The children were encouraged by Mark Chester, the programme’s organiser, to see families as coming in all “sorts of sizes and shapes” – although interestingly, given the recent calls about the need to tackle homophobia in the game, there was no mention of single sex families. But this aside, no one was made to feel left out. With the relaxed Carragher’s help the children were immediately involved, offering answers and taking on some difficult subjects.

It was an impressive show, especially coming directly after the long lunch break when children’s classroom enthusiasm can wane. With family breakdown identified as a major contributing factor to social problems – those experiencing it are 75 per cent more likely to fail at school and 35 per cent more likely to be unemployed – the programme is a bold move aimed at helping young people in some of the most deprived parts of Liverpool.

Carragher, whose own parents split up when he was just nine, said: “I’m pleased to be working with the children. It is a fact that many look up to footballers and so any positive messages I can highlight are pleasing.

“I know from meeting many Liverpool children that they are bright and confident. The aim with this programme is to assist those who need help. “Family breakdown happens to a lot of children but that doesn’t mean their parents don’t love them. Mine were incredibly supportive of me as I worked to become a professional footballer.”

That began at an early age. Spotted playing for Bootle Boys at little more than eight years old he was invited along for an hour’s training a week with Liverpool.

As a then Evertonian it’s probably true to say Liverpool weren’t necessarily his first choice. But back then, in the late 1980s, there was nothing like the animosity generated today when the two Mersey giants meet on the pitch. Derby day was when families of split loyalties went to the match together.

Yet in recent seasons a rise in the numbers of players sent off in the games has been accompanied by increasing levels of abuse and sporadic episodes of violence off it.

Carragher is reluctant to be drawn but admits:

“There is a problem and one I hope can be tackled quickly. I’d like to see it go back to the way it was previously. I think football has got so big today with huge press and TV coverage that people can get much
more worked up by it than in the past.”

With more than 600 appearances behind him in a Liverpool shirt does Carragher foresee a time when he might move to play or manage a club away elsewhere?

“I don’t know what the future might hold but with two children not yet at secondary school it might be difficult as their needs must come first. I am hoping though to play a few more years yet for Liverpool
before I retire.”

Not so, of course, England. Having made 34 appearances for his country Carragher quit in 2007, citing frustration at flying around the world only to sit on the substitutes bench watching the action.
Since then various managers and players, including Fabio Capello’s predecessor Steve McLaren and Terry, have called on the man who won a Champions League winners medal in 2005 to reconsider.

With their defensive problems mounting England could certainly do with him as Rio Ferdinand has already missed much of the current season, Cole is still weeks away from recovering from a broken ankle, Wayne Bridge doesn’t wish to be considered because of Terry’s involvement and the latter on recent form appears a long way from his best. All of this with the World Cup kicking off in three months.

So what will he be doing in the summer? “I will probably be watching every game in front of the television,” he smiles.

The above article was republished with the kind permission of the author Mark Metcalf who wrote the article for the Big Issue In The North

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