Читать книгу Totally Frank: The Autobiography of Frank Lampard - Frank Lampard - Страница 7

ENTERING the ‘Academy of Football’ wasn’t quite what I expected. West Ham United had prided themselves on producing some of England’s finest and most successful footballers. They revelled in the rich history which had seen the graduation of players such as John Bond, Martin Peters, Geoff Hurst and of course, Bobby Moore. They still do.

Three of those players were at the very heart of England’s World Cup winning team in 1966 and their achievements helped make the claret and blue shirt a symbol of all that was great about football. Dad and Uncle Harry played under Ron Greenwood in the same West Ham side as Moore and I was brought up on stories of the glory days.

My nan lived a mile away from Upton Park and used to go to games to watch my Dad before I was born. She is well known around the club and is looked on very fondly by people she once gave sweets out to as kids who still go there now. I was one of those children as were my sisters and cousins. When I was older, I would sometimes play a match and then take her some pie and mash. On other occasions I would pop round and she would make me a sandwich with big lumps of cheese and pickle. We’d talk about the football and catch up on family news. She was neighbours with West Ham and grew up with the club. So did Mum and her sister and when they chose their husbands they joined more than the institution of marriage – they got West Ham United as well.

None of this was strange. When you grow up in a community which reveres the local club the way West Ham is treated by a section of London’s East End, family and football go together like man and wife. Me and my sisters inherited our allegiance and were staunch in our support.

Around our house were little bits of memorabilia which made the film footage of the old days more immediate to a boy born between the two famous FA Cup victories of 1975 and 1980. I have seen the photographs a thousand times and asked Dad to tell me again and again what it was like to play for our team. By day, I would work hard on my football and by night I dreamt of the moment I would follow in my father’s footsteps and pull on a West Ham shirt. The dream was perfect but the reality was less than ideal.

Jamie had been put on schoolboy forms with the club before I joined. Uncle Harry had wanted him to go there because that was where he had learned his trade and with our family tradition, it seemed the natural thing to do. Blood, after all, is thicker than water.

Jamie, though, was not impressed with what he found at West Ham. Eddie Bailey was head of youth development at the club which was ironic given that you would have been hard pressed to find someone who was more old school. The coaching was below par and not aimed at developing and nurturing talent. The people who ran the team were older and it seemed they were still using the same methods which had brought through the likes of Dad, Trevor Brooking and Paul Allen. That was fine except football had moved on significantly in terms of physical fitness, muscle development and technical coaching. It was 1994.

Those aspects were very important and they might have gotten away with an inferior coaching regime had the feeling at the club reflected the community which turned out in their thousands to support them every week. People looked at West Ham as a family club. The East End ethos has always been that you looked after your own. However, that didn’t happen with the apprentice professionals.

Jamie was perceptive and decided pretty quickly that he was not going to learn what he needed there. He was a very gifted footballer and wasn’t afraid to work hard on his game but he left and joined the Tottenham academy before signing a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) form there. I was surprised by his decision at the time. I’m not sure Uncle Harry was shocked but he respected Jamie’s wishes. I asked Jamie about his reasons and we talked a little. He picked up on a certain attitude within West Ham which I had an inkling about when the club first started talking to me about an apprenticeship. Whenever I asked questions about why I should commit to them instead of another club the answer always seemed to be a variation on the same theme. We have a long history of bringing through our own players. We give young players a chance more quickly. West Ham is the Academy of Football.

I wasn’t convinced and clearly, Jamie had gone in the opposite direction. I had played youth football with West Ham for a few years and had trained there extensively. I had also gone to Tottenham and Arsenal where the training was much more skills based and I felt I was improving my technique. There were other reasons too which were important. Most 16-year-olds suffer bouts of insecurity about whether or not they are going to make it. You need to be told and encouraged, nurtured. At Arsenal, I got a lot of attention from people like Steve Rowley who is a very experienced guy and is still the chief scout. He would come and pick me up and take me over for games at Arsenal’s training centre at London Colney and I remember feeling that I wanted to sign for Arsenal simply because of the treatment I got there. They were extremely professional but more than that, it was the personal touch that made the difference, that made me feel wanted.

They were little things. Steve would take me for some dinner after a game – usually sausage and chips – and talk through what had happened, what I had done well, where I might improve. Afterwards, he would come in and talk to Mum and Dad about how I was progressing. He had a way about him which was caring and which made me feel that Arsenal was a place where they wanted you to do well. He scouted me to start with and spent a lot of time with me. But it wasn’t just me. He did it with a lot of other kids as well and that is why he has had such a successful career at Arsenal.

All of this was in stark contrast to my experience at West Ham and I started wondering if I was getting the support I needed there. In a way, it didn’t take much to work out why great players like Tony Adams and Ray Parlour had ended up at Arsenal. Both of them were local boys from Essex. Ray is a Romford lad just like me. They were West Ham fans as were their families and both had played youth football for the club. Neither signed.

John Terry was a couple of years below me and lived and breathed West Ham the same as the rest of his family and friends. Dad remembers him playing and training at the club until he was 14 and then he went to Chelsea. There have been others. Some stay, some get away. That’s a fact of life. I can’t help thinking that it could have been different if the club’s attitude had been less arrogant.

At the time, Billy Bonds was the manager, Uncle Harry was a coach and Dad was a part-time scout. None were directly involved in the youth team and when the time came and I had to decide who to sign for, I was in a dilemma.

I had serious thoughts about playing for Tottenham. The coaching was of a higher quality, they were the first team to scout me and I had links there through Jamie – even though in the end he went back to Bournemouth to do his apprenticeship because he was homesick. I had seen a lot of good players from my area go to Spurs. And they had a new training ground. I confess, I was very tempted. They even offered me more money. In fact, Arsenal offered a better contract as well though the difference between them and West Ham financially wasn’t huge.

The real bottom line was that money would never be the most important factor. I was a fan and had supported the team all my life. Dad sensed my indecision and asked Jimmy Neighbour to come and talk to me. Jimmy was in charge of schoolboys at West Ham and had served the club well as a skilful winger. He arrived at the house and was brought in to talk to me. At the time, I had no idea that he was there at the request of Dad. He told me that the club knew I was in demand and that he wasn’t surprised; that I was a promising young player who had the potential to become a very good professional.

It was nice to hear. Even if it had taken awhile, better late than never and in my case, just in time. Only now can I really see that I signed for West Ham out of emotion rather than good sense, or even football sense. Dad had a lot to do with it. He put pressure on me even though he tried to let me make my own decision as much as possible. He was funny that way. He would insist that it was my life, my career and I should do what I felt was right for me. And then, if he sensed I was straying from what he thought was the right thing he would intervene, like asking Jimmy Neighbour to have a chat with me. Typical really. He made the point that I would get into the first team earlier at West Ham because the standard wasn’t as high there and there were all sorts of other emotional reasons why I should sign – all of which I felt the weight of.

The first YTS contract I signed paid me £30 a week with another £50 which went to Mum for my digs. At that time I was just starting to go out and so all my money could be gone in a single night. Thankfully Mum would slip me some of the other money back though it was still tight. She was good that way. That deal was signed with the proviso that if I did well then I would turn pro at 17. The difference was substantial. My first professional contract with West Ham was £500 a week which rose to £550 the next year and then £600 the following year. But for me, money didn’t come into it. A few of the lads I had played youth football with had also signed forms: Lee Hodges, Danny Ship, and a couple of others. I was among friends and I felt at home.

Fortunately for West Ham, when Dad and Harry took over from Billy Bonds they knew where things had been going wrong in terms of recruiting young players and turned the whole thing round. Things were organized properly and they saw that the whole operation needed to have a more personal touch, one that had been missing. They are both good with people and caring is in their nature.

Almost immediately they went to see Joe Cole and his family to discuss his future. Joe was widely regarded as the most promising kid of his age in the area and was known to just about every club in the country. Unlike me, Joe is a not a West Ham boy – he’s from Camden which has no real tie to the club – and Dad and Harry recognized that they could not depend on tribal ties with him even as a starting point. They were perceptive that way, and persuasive. West Ham was hardly the most glamorous of Joe’s options but they made the right noises when they spoke to him and his parents about where he should sign up. They knew what it was to have their own sons coming through and the decisions which parents had to help their kids make when it was time to choose. Again, it was the little things. Joe was invited to travel to an away game on the first team coach. He was made part of the squad for a day which was a huge thing for a young kid but hardly a massive gesture by the club. It didn’t matter. The signals were right and that was the most important thing.

They sold West Ham properly and brought in Tony Carr as youth team coach. A couple of years after I signed it was pointed out that myself and Rio were knocking on the door of the first team. At last, they could deliver on the promise that this was a club which cared about the next generation. They gave youth a chance. They returned West Ham to its roots and once again made it a family club. Somewhere along the line that had been lost. It may seem strange to those who see Upton Park as the breeding ground for some of the best young talent in the country but for a long time they didn’t bring through any players. Under Dad and Harry all of that changed. Apart from myself, Rio, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Jermain Defoe, and later Glen Johnson, all came through the ranks and helped make West Ham a fantastic team.

Of that batch Rio and Joe were the two most naturally talented. Rio had the edge though because he also had the physique needed to succeed quickly. Joe had to work hard on that and has continued to do so. Carrick was probably the most technically gifted of the group while Defoe was a pure goalscorer. Rio and I were talking about this while on England duty and it made me wonder where I came. I guess it was somewhere in between. I had a bit of talent, some skill and I could score a few goals. Rio agreed and I suppose that has come to be the case given how my game has developed since then. For West Ham, it was a great position to be in, to have such a talented crop coming through, though later they would also benefit considerably from selling players who had cost them nothing. That, however, is another story.

Having signed my contract I could not have been happier. I was finally living the life which I had aimed for ever since I could remember. After years of eating, drinking, and sleeping football I was also being paid to do it. It was the best feeling I could imagine. First year youth is about as much fun as football gets. You have your own little community of team-mates and you are still way under the surface of the cut-throat world of the first team and making it as a real professional. It was a period where school met work and there were elements of both environments about it. We trained knowing that this was part of our job and our education. There were a lot of chores to do as well but I didn’t care. I was a footballer now, a West Ham player, though that sense of awe and privilege was soon knocked out of me in my first pre-season.

Billy Bonds was always very good with the young players. He knew your name, how you were getting on and would often have a joke with you. Unfortunately, he was also a very good long-distance runner. Actually, he was better than anyone else at the club. Running? He was the best and he liked to show it.

Every player accepts that plodding endless mile upon mile is the painful and tedious part of pre-season, consequently it’s also the part that most of us hate. I was a decent runner at school and never minded that much though I know some lads who would rather clean the stadium toilets after matchday than go on one of Billy’s marathons. We would plough our way through Hainault Forest, up hills, down hills, through streams. Then we would start on Epping Forest and all the time Billy would pick up the pace at the front and then run to the back of the pack and give them some ‘encouragement’. He was remarkable – like Steve Ovett in football boots.

I would finish the thing but was completely knackered. My legs had turned to concrete. It was never like that at school. You could stop, tell the teacher that you just could not go on, and they listened. Not here. This was more like army training where there is no choice but to keep going. It would go on like that for between two and three weeks. It was relentless and I quickly realized that I had entered another world, one where there were no boys, only men. You got used to it but I couldn’t help thinking that it was all a bit archaic.

Claudio Ranieri was a big fan of running though not like that. It was only when Jose Mourinho became Chelsea manager that I came across the idea that extreme running in pre-season is not a pre-requisite for a successful campaign. As Rui Faria, our fitness coach, eloquently put it: ‘If I am working with a concert pianist why would I make him run round the piano until he drops? Will it make him a better pianist?’ I am not sure how much better at football I became as a result of those cross-country runs but I gritted my teeth and got on with it. It also built up mental strength and created a threshold within me for that kind of exercise which is invaluable.

We moved on to sprinting and when the ball eventually came out, it was more drills than anything else. We practised heading and little volleys back and forth, running with the ball and passing and shooting. This was more like it. This was what I signed up for. Tony Carr was our coach and he was great with me. He set the tone just right as far as I was concerned. He never showed me any favouritism and when he needed to have a go at me he would. I appreciated that. It was a potentially difficult situation because of who my Dad and uncle were and he helped me a lot.

Tony was quite strict about our routine as YTS boys and always asked that we start our day an hour before the professionals arrived for training. On Mondays and Wednesdays we had to run the mile – which was measured by five laps of the pitch. We’d get in at 8.30 am and by nine we were out on the field. It could be quite a daunting prospect. We would have played on Saturday and had Sunday off so the idea of kicking off your working week by running as fast as you can for that distance was not exactly appealing. Neither was there any let-up.

We’d come straight back into the dressing room and we would prepare the training kit for the first team squad and make sure the boots were clean. Then we would set up the gear outside while the pros were getting changed. It was all part of the routine though one of the worst jobs was collecting the balls after they had finished training. That was mainly because Julian Dicks took particular pleasure in booting them as far as he could. Anyone who ever saw him play will know that Dicksy has a shot on him like an express train. He didn’t slow it down when he was blasting the balls to all corners of the training ground either. He also had a wicked sense of humour. When we’d managed to collect most of them back into the bag he would sneak back and start smashing them all over again. If there was one missing then a search party was sent out to the fence which surrounded the area to find it.

I liked doing the jobs around the ground. Traditionally each trainee was assigned a couple of pros whose boots you were responsible for keeping spotless. I was given Dicksy and Lee Chapman. Dicksy was particularly pedantic about his footwear and if he spotted a smudge on one of his boots he would call you in and throw them at you. The big thing for us about that job was the Christmas bonus, when the pros – who were on big money – would bung us a few extra quid for doing the job all year. I was already on a promise. Dicksy had pulled me at the start of the season and told me that if I did a good job he would see me all right come bonus time. I gave him my word and he was as good as his. Just before Christmas he called me over and gave me a hundred quid. I was quite shocked – and made up. It was a lot of money but then Dicksy was a generous guy who respected people whom he thought had done the right thing.

Not for a moment did I think he would tip like that though. Expectations were raised and so was the ante. Lee Chapman was one of the club’s biggest earners and I had scrubbed, scraped and polished his boots until the skin on my fingertips was peeling off. He gave me twenty quid. Just my luck but I didn’t complain. How could I? These were the guys I aspired to be and I was chuffed if they just called me by my name. It’s something that I do now with the youth team players – try to learn their names, remember them and give them a bit of my time. I was that young player once and I haven’t forgotten what it’s like.

Dicksy could be nasty to me sometimes but he never meant any harm by it. I didn’t mind because at least he was paying me some attention. Anyway, Dicksy was a legend. To say he had a beautiful left foot would be the equivalent of saying Paolo Maldini was a half decent defender. Before training, everyone else would dutifully do their warm-up. It was group stretching and loosening off before the real stuff started. Not Dicksy. He would go out with a bag of balls over his shoulder and set up in front of goal. While we were touching our toes he was smashing, volleying and bending vicious shots into the net.

On the pitch, he had the reputation of being a real hard man though he would likely have done more damage with one of his shots than his tackles. He was, however, a fantastic player. He could bring the ball down and beat men, and to the fans he was an absolute idol – the captain and main man. Maybe there were times when he went a bit too far. He did go right through people now and then. But as I got older I learned he was actually quite a sensitive guy. He had a certain way about him. He was a maverick and I liked that about him.

Certain senior players would behave around me in a specific way because of Dad and Harry. I would never know if they were being genuinely nice or whatever but Dicksy would tell me to ‘F*** off’ the same as he would anyone else. He couldn’t care less if my Dad owned the club. I respected him for that.

Cleaning his and anyone else’s boots was not the worst job by a long way. We had to clean the canteen, corridors, dressing rooms and scrape the gym floor once everyone else had gone. Then, at the end of the day, we would be made to sit in the canteen while Tony Carr would check all of the jobs to make sure they had been done properly. It was a nervous part of the day. We waited patiently because if there was a single bit of sloppiness then we all had to stay behind while it was corrected. It was a pain in the arse if someone hadn’t pulled his weight properly but I could see the point. It was all about teamwork and not letting your mates down.

There was the odd occasion when we were made to stay on and more often than not it would be Rio’s fault. A few years later Sven-Goran Eriksson apparently described Rio as ‘a bit lazy’, but he was wrong. Rio isn’t ‘a bit lazy’; he is a complete lazy bollocks – off the pitch that is. At training, during matches, and in his spare time there are few players I have come across who are as committed to their game as Rio. He’s like that now and was the same then. He was very dedicated to his football but he also hated doing the chores and was always trying to duck out of cleaning the gym and stuff. Sometimes he would sneak off and other times just go into a big strop about the state of someone’s boots or the mess in the showers. I found this quite amusing.

It didn’t stop him claiming the credit for a job well done of course. I found it very funny and Rio is so loveable that you would end up doing most of his part as well while he made you laugh. It was carefree and I loved it. There was a camaraderie then which was unique and which I haven’t known since. It was founded on the excitement of starting off on that adventure but also on the fact that we were realizing every boy’s ambition.

We would lark around and dig each other out for things that happened in training and that would carry over into our daily jobs. Rio and I became mates right away as soon as he joined West Ham. He was promoted to my team almost immediately even though he was a year younger but he was very good and made the grade.

We used to have a game called ‘D’s’ where we played two versus two in the gym hall. Me, Rio, Hodgey, and Joe Keith were thick as thieves. The rules were simple enough: you had just one touch to control and the other player had to knock it back to the other team inside the D which was drawn on the floor. It was good fun but we were very competitive. The fact that one man could easily cock it up led to banter which could drag on for days. We spent so much time together it was best not to be on the receiving end.

Hodgey was always the stronger player between us in that first year. He could play anywhere in the midfield or off the main striker. He was strong and athletic, the talk of the town then. He had played for England schoolboys and was head and shoulders above the rest of us. He also had a real eye for goal. Not just any old goal either. Hodgey had the Midas touch – the golden bollocks of our team. Whatever he hit flew in the top corner and usually from thirty yards, on the volley. I’m sad to say that his career was ended prematurely by a bad knee injury though glad that we are still good mates.

They were great times, for football as well as the social life I was discovering. We were 16 or 17 and we would play a game on Saturday mornings and then go for lunch at McDonald’s. Not quite the perfect after-match nutrition but we loved a burger and fries. Stan, who used to drive our minibus, would take us there and wait while we got our food and we would eat it in the van while we drove to Upton Park. Those were the best days, when West Ham were at home and we would get to the ground a couple of hours before kick-off.

As trainees we got to stroll around behind the scenes and I loved soaking up the excitement around the dressing room and tunnel during the build-up to the match. There might be jobs to do: the kit-man might need a hand or a message would need running. All the time the ground would be filling up and three o’clock was getting closer. There was such a buzz around the place and I fed off it. Watching the players pull on the jersey and then walk out on to the pitch as the crowd cheered and sang ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.’ I would drift into a daydream, picturing what it would be like to be one of the eleven about to start the game. Just the thought gave me goosebumps and made me nervous in my stomach.

I was quickly brought back to earth. If the team were losing at half-time or worse – had lost the match – you had to be careful what you said. Harry would be in a temper and if he caught any of us laughing at each other’s jokes as we hung around would shout ‘What the f*** are you smiling about?’ That usually had the desired effect of scaring us into silence. He would have the real hump but we were just young lads.

Harry doesn’t just love football – he lives it. He takes defeat very seriously and is not two-faced about his reaction whether you are in the first team or the youth team. It was just his instinct, then and now. I remember he came into the gym when we were playing D’s and having a laugh. He was in a foul mood about something and he banned us from our favourite game – picking on one of us in particular. ‘You should be out practising your f***ing heading instead of in here playing.’ We looked at our feet instinctively. He could be quite foreboding when he wanted to but in this case we knew he was right. D’s had become too much of a jokey culture with us. True, it was good for our skill development but we were neglecting other parts of our game which weren’t as much fun to improve.

Harry was very adept at calling situations like that. He has a sixth sense for certain things happening around his club which he develops through taking a keen interest in every level of how it operates. More important, he knows all of the people involved including the youth team. People say Harry is a players’ man but he’s also a man of the people. Whether you are first team, reserve, coaching staff or the laundry lady, Harry treats you the same and makes sure you know how important you are to the success of the club.

When he came down heavily on us we realized it was because he wanted the best for us, because he cared. He was very capable of taking the piss and having a laugh like he was one of us. As young lads we craved his attention, and even if that meant facing his wrath at least we were on his radar.

We didn’t know the pressure of playing in the first team – or managing it. After everything was cleared up and we had successfully stayed out of Harry’s way, we would all head home and get our best gear on to go out for the night. One of the good things about that youth team was we would all go out together. There were no cliques or splits. There was a spirit we shared, a bond that was quite unique. Only now do I realize that it was one of the happiest times of my career, a life without the constant pressure I would come to know later.

Rio was a year younger which meant he started YT in the year below me. For that, his antics around the training ground, and some of the outrageous gear he wore, he took a bit of stick. He deserved it. Never mind the fact that he was always the last to turn up on a Saturday night because he had to travel across town to Peckham and back.

It’s easy to feel nostalgia for certain times in our lives. Everyone has memories which can conjure up a certain feeling inside that enhances the mental image. For me, those Saturdays were very special. They still are. Can you imagine what it felt like to wake up knowing that you will play football for the club you love, then go watch the club you love play, and round the whole thing off with a night out with your best mates in the company of some gorgeous girls? Living the dream, that’s what I was doing, living the dream.

Our keeper was Neil Finn (Finny) and he, along with Hodgey and me, were the ringleaders. Finny and I are still close. He never quite broke into the first team but played one game. He was 17 and not ready for first team football. He travelled to Manchester City as back-up for Ludo Miklosko. Ludo pulled out the night before the match and Finny was thrown in. It was a great achievement to become the youngest player to appear in the Premier League at that time. I spoke to his Mum and Dad before the game and they were rightly very proud of their boy. I could understand how they felt, though I also wondered how nervous my goalie mate must have felt just before kick-off.

It was a fantastic moment for Finny and I was jealous, which means I still take the piss out of him even now because they lost 2-1 and Niall Quinn scored twice. Regrettably for Finny, he dived at his feet for the second but Niall just chipped it over his body. I reckon it was the only classy goal big Niall ever scored and I won’t let Finny forget it. He plays non-league now with Romford and hasn’t lost any of the cheek he had then. If I begin to cane him for his performance he just reminds me that at least he was there, in the first team.

I could give out a bit of stick but I was used to taking it as well, mostly behind my back, but it was probably inevitable given the fact that Dad and Harry were in positions of influence. I can’t say I was overly aware of it, more like I sensed it going on around me – just little episodes or the undercurrent of friction with some people at the club. I never really let it get to me or hamper how I thought I should be getting on but there were a few players who I know were funny about it.

My reaction? I just tried to win their respect for playing the way I could. Dad’s reaction was a bit different. He would have a few digs at me if the result hadn’t gone well just to make sure I wasn’t getting special treatment. I understood. And I was used to it.

My greatest concern was learning as much as I could and becoming a better player. Our youth team was good. Very good. We won the league and I scored twenty-five goals from midfield that first season. I felt comfortable. I have always played there even though it was commonplace for young players to try a few different positions. I was the exception to the rule though. I always played central midfield. Always. I remember Rio playing up front and in defence but I always stuck to what I knew and now I can feel the benefit of that early experience. Things were changing though.

Both physically and mentally I was becoming much more aware of football. I realized something very important at that time, that I wanted to be more than a little ball player who just got a hold of possession and then passed it on so someone else could do the next part. I wanted to dominate my position and get forward and score goals.

When I first joined as a trainee I found almost everything harder than I ever had before. The physical demands were greater and I needed to go to the gym to build a level of strength and stamina that would allow me to compete with my peers. Dad would drum into me all the time that I needed to do the basics of midfield as second nature. Learn the basics of your trade he would say, then add the rest. The beautiful side would come later. He was right. That’s partly why I feel comfortable whenever I have the ball. The ugly side of midfield – tracking runners and blocking play as well as tackling – I learned during that time and it was a while before I actually concentrated on practising shooting and started scoring goals. The nasty side of commanding the middle of the park was the foundation on which everything else would be built. I needed to be strong and to be mentally tough.

Training with the youth team is much more tedious than with the first team. I supplemented that with training on my own. I had routines which I practised off my own back. I would spend a lot of time banging the ball against the wall and forcing myself to control it and do the same thing over and over to improve my reaction time. I would vary the exercise and let the ball run behind me and sprint after it. Then I would start again and put myself under pressure. Other kids would wander into the gym and do something that was fun – the way we did playing D’s. There are things we could all do that were creative and not such hard work but it was harder to make yourself do exercises that were boring and strenuous.

West Ham were able to attract some of the best young players. I knew that. I was playing with some of them. One guy who came in at 17 though had not grown up with the likes of me and Hodgey. His name was Martin Mullins. He was a Scotland schoolboy cap and had been signed from under the noses of the Old Firm as well as a few English clubs. He was quite a big lad and arrived with an air of self-assurance which suggested he knew he was the real deal. I had heard he was a good player and he looked the part in training. On one occasion everyone else had finished up for the day but it was time for my spikes. It was wet and I went outside to do my sprints. The sodden grass was perfect for ‘doggies’ – short bursts between two fixed points. The rain meant I could slide to one end simulating a tackle before getting up and repeating it from side to side – nothing you would ever find in a coaching manual but Dad had told me to do it and I knew I had to. Mullins walked out dressed for the weather to find me darting around and sliding in the mud. ‘What the f*** are you doin’?’ he asked incredulously. I didn’t say a word. I stopped very briefly and then just carried on. I felt very self-conscious about the extra training I undertook and even though I believed in what I was doing I was too shy to defend it to anyone else. Mullins was a flash kid who thought he had everything he needed to make the grade. He just looked down his nose at me and walked away shaking his head. I was nervous but it didn’t stop me going out and doing it again because I knew where I wanted to get to.

Dad was responsible for a lot of the regime but inventing new challenges was entirely my idea. I would start off to do eight box-to-box runs and as I was approaching the target number I would up it to ten. Then I would do it with the ball because that was harder. Later, when I got into the first team, I came in on my day off and would do the same drill. It could be slightly embarrassing. I was out there and Tony Carr was taking the youth team and all of a sudden I realized they were all watching me. It was nothing like the Mullins incident though. Tony was simply pointing out that it was my day off and there I was. Maybe they thought I was mad. I don’t know. I just knew that I wanted to become a better player and to do that I had to train more and harder. It’s a lot easier to think that you’ve got everything in your locker to make it than it is to go out and do what is required. It takes a lot of hard work.

Dad had always told me that it was a slog to make it as a professional footballer so I grew up not expecting anything less. From the time I arrived at West Ham I had some ground to make up. I knew that. The mile runs which we would do twice a week were a nightmare when I first started. I used to be sick trying to run it as fast as I could. Tony Carr and Frank Burrows – who was reserve team coach – helped me to build up my strength. I suffered because I hadn’t developed physically the same as some of the others and my legs couldn’t get the pace in training. Players like Hodgey were already men – I knew that because he would show off the hairs on his willy in the showers.

I played in the youth team when I was 16 and my first year YTS was split between the youth team and a few games in the reserves. That was a massive step up for me at that time – one I really felt. In the first year of YT we won the reserve League Cup which was a two-leg tie for the final and it’s significant for two reasons.

The first is because we played against Chelsea. The second is Rio. In the first leg we went a goal up – which I scored – but got beaten 4-1. In between the first match and the return, the first team went to Australia. It was the end of the season and they were going on a tour. The club had given up the ghost on the final after the hammering in the first leg and I suppose you couldn’t blame them. As a result, a few of the older reserves went down under and some of the younger trainees came into the side for the second game at Stamford Bridge. Everyone, including Chelsea, assumed it was a formality.

We weren’t expected to salvage it and as a result we played without pressure. You can’t lose what you’ve already lost and so the coach put this young gangly kid in the hole behind the two strikers for the match – Rio. What happened was remarkable. Rio was just on fire. He was playing like Ronaldinho complete with the tricks and flicks. There were moments when I just stood back and watched in complete amazement. The rest of the team was playing well but Rio was having the match of his life. We were two up, then three before they pulled one back. It didn’t matter. We were on a roll and wouldn’t be denied.

We won 5-2 in normal time and the game went to extra-time and then to penalties. We held our nerve and scored our kicks. We won – a bunch of young lads who were left to do whatever we could in the name of the club after they opted to take the majority of the regular players away. It was my first taste of glory and it was special. That it came at the home of Chelsea made it even more so. Rio was ecstatic. So was I. It was an incredible experience, one of those which can really only happen in football and we had been right at the heart of it.

Dad was a bit shocked but not surprised. He had played a big part in bringing Rio to West Ham. Rio tells the story about when Dad turned up at his little flat in Peckham where he lived with his Mum and brother Anton. Rio was impressed right away. Dad had a big black Mercedes and the kids around his place had never seen a car like it. He was funny when he first came to our house as well. He thought it was some kind of mansion. We were quite well off and I realized that, but Rio’s face was a picture when he came in the front room and looked around as if someone had dropped him on Mars.

Signing Rio was a big coup for West Ham. He was a real prospect. He struggled with his co-ordination as everyone does when they are growing up. I certainly did. I remember going to watch him and being amazed at how leggy he was. He was all height and pace but not quite as graceful as he is now. He was a good player, no doubt about that. At that stage he was playing in midfield but he was very insecure about his physique. I knew exactly what that was like because I had suffered from growth spurts and I knew how disorientating they could be.

‘I’m not going to make it. I’m not going to make it,’ Rio would say all the time. He was a bit clumsy and I remember worrying that he might be right. He overcame that insecurity and found his feet when he got into the youth team. And, for whatever reason he was played in the hole in that League Cup final second-leg, it doesn’t matter – it was tactical genius.

After that, Rio developed quickly. His control was always great and he was a natural at bringing the ball down with his first touch. He improved further and the word came from Harry that he wanted Rio moved back into defence. There was a bit of consternation. Rio and I gave each other puzzled looks but we were used to doing what we were told. Harry believed that with Rio’s physique and ability there was the potential to make him a great ball-playing centre-half. West Ham had a history in that position and when Rio is mentioned in the same breath as the late, great Bobby Moore I often think of exactly that moment when the decision was made.

People can say a lot of things good and bad about Harry but he saw something in Rio that could be great for club and country. And he was right. Even then Rio played much the same way as he does now for Manchester United and England. He has always been able to dribble the ball out of defence and to be honest I can’t remember a time when he didn’t, from youth team right through the system and into the first team. There were a couple of times when he lost possession and, of course, he was given stick. It’s the English way. Criticize, don’t encourage him. Put him down and tell him he should have punted it long. Rio, though, was very single-minded. He knew what he was capable of and football for him is more than just defending. He probably improved his defending more when he left West Ham for Leeds United. David O’Leary was a man devoted to the art of defending and he was good for Rio. Maybe he needed to improve his focus during the game.

At the time before he left Upton Park he saw himself very much as an all-round footballer but all players need to learn and improve. I have and so has Rio. We have lost a bit of that closeness we used to have because he has moved up north but when we are together on England duty it feels like yesterday when we were playing at West Ham.

Back then everyone was talking about Rio being the one who would be a great player. I was jealous. I wanted to be the one everyone was talking about. Rio was already a great player – even in midfield. I was different from him. Where Rio was blessed with amazing football talent, I knew I had to work harder. We were also physically different. Though I was slightly embarrassed about it at the time I know I was a chubby kid. There’s no getting away from it. I had good feet and a good touch so I could score a lot of goals through using my head and the talent that went with it. Things changed for me when I went to West Ham at first though. I struggled with my mobility and had trouble getting round the pitch. I realized quickly that it was harder to get in the box and score goals at that level and as that season passed and the next one started there was a difference again, moving from first year YT and into the second.

Fortunately, nature kicked in and helped me out. I was a bit of a late developer and through the age of 16 I grew up. I stretched a bit in height and as a result lost some of the weight. I was stronger and I remember thinking that I was all grown up but that season taught me I still had some way to go. To Swansea and back to be precise.

I remember vividly Harry telling me that he wanted me to go on loan. I was lying in bed chilling out in the afternoon after training at my Mum and Dad’s house when the phone went. Mum answered and brought the handset to me.

‘Listen Frank,’ he said. ‘An opportunity has come up for you to go on loan.’

‘Where?’ I asked nervously.

‘Swansea. I know it’s lower league but it’ll be good for you. Build you up son.’

I was very unsure. It felt like I was being rejected. I had spent all of my life at and around West Ham and here I was being told that my best chance of staying for a long time was to leave in the short term. I was also confused. I didn’t want to leave home. Not even for a few weeks. What if it went well? Maybe I would end up being there even longer? Home and my family had always been very important to me and I kind of wanted to make that point to Harry. He would understand. He was my uncle after all.

‘I’m not sure Harry,’ I replied. ‘Maybe it would be better if I stayed with the club and did a bit more training, maybe a bit more in the gym and stuff. That’ll build me up.’

I don’t know if he was listening to me or not. I was so panicked that I wasn’t able to sense a reaction one way or the other to my plea for leniency.

‘You have to be there tomorrow,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’ll be fine. It’ll do you good.’

I didn’t even know where Swansea was. I had just passed my driving test and had to get a map out. I was just getting to feel a permanent part of the set-up at Upton Park and Wales seemed a very long way away.

Dad – though he believes that I have gone on to a higher level than he played at – experienced similar things to me in terms of improving himself. The late Ron Greenwood was manager at West Ham and pulled him in when he was 18 to be told that he was going on loan to Torquay. At the time, going on loan was not the same as it is now for a young player – it was almost like being sold. He resisted though it must have been a very hard call for him to make; he thought the world of Ron Greenwood and respected him greatly as a manager and a man. To refuse his wishes was a big step. West Ham was a successful club at the time and there seemed to be a conveyor belt of talent which spanned the youth and first team from which good players would simply fall into positions all over the pitch. Dad knew what he wanted though. He got his head down and grafted. He did his spikes and worked phenomenally hard and had to go through a very tough process to get where he wanted to be – at West Ham, nowhere else.

One of Dad’s favourite sayings is something which Greenwood told him and Harry when they were youth players at the club. Occasionally he would turn up at their training session, and when he spoke to them he always said the same thing: ‘Simplicity is genius.’ Greenwood was widely seen as being ahead of his time technically and tactically and in my Dad he had a willing pupil. At the age of 17 he and Harry went back to their old school to coach fourteen year olds – something I did at the same age when I was at West Ham. Teaching kids helped me realize what I had learned – and how to apply it better. Maybe I was more talented but he wanted to instill the same work ethic in me. It was good for me. Though I understand Dad’s decision to stick it out at West Ham he didn’t give me any choice – he also told me I had to go.

I was full of trepidation about leaving home. I had only just got my Ford Fiesta Si and was worried about driving on the motorway. I was also worried about the football. I was 17 and saw myself as a ball-playing midfielder. My strength – because I didn’t have much physically – was getting on the ball and playing a bit. How was I supposed to do that in the old Second Division? I wasn’t even sure what kind of football they played on the pitches of the lower leagues. I wasn’t disrespectful. I was ignorant. I genuinely didn’t know. I am actually quite proud of it though. The experience made me stronger physically and mentally and I am grateful for it. It turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. I believe that I went there as a boy and came back a man.

I had to grow up in many ways. For a start, I was lodged in a hotel which was a bit traumatic in itself. I was used to being at home and having my family around for support. Just eating dinner with Mum and Dad or mucking around with Claire and Natalie helped take the pressure off. And I was separated from my mates.

Swansea’s training ground was a bit grotty and I was shocked at the lack of facilities, never mind the difference in the way they played. There was an Irish lad there who was on loan from Wolves – Robbie Dennison. He was an old pro and had a cynical side to him which goes with years of experience at the less glamorous end of the game. I’m not sure what he thought of me at first but he ended up being a really good lad. We were in the same digs and had a couple of beers together on the odd night.

Though I was homesick I made the most of the time. I learned a lot from training and playing with guys who only ever knew football as a hard slog of a job, where making enough to pay the bills was the first priority. I learned respect for my fellow professionals – regardless of ability.

Everything was very different from West Ham and most of it was a surprise. When you got there in the morning the kit was all rolled up and if you were late in you might not get something you needed for training. We had to fight for everything. We walked a few hundred yards to the training pitch and it always seemed to be cold and raining. I was a bit of a novelty for most of them but they all turned out to be decent lads. It was old school though – training at the stadium before the games and then doing some weights. At West Ham we were pampered by comparison – your kit was always laid out nice and neat and everything was prepared for you. At Swansea, a different player would take the whole kit each week and clean it. I managed to avoid that chore as I was staying in a hotel and because I didn’t stay long enough for anyone to notice I hadn’t taken a turn.

In all, I stayed two months and played a few games. I even scored at Brighton and we won but there was neither room nor time for glory boys down there. I was clocking up the miles in my little dark-blue Fiesta at weekends, dashing back to Romford listening to a few dance tunes and wondering what Rio and Hodgey had been up to, knowing I would get the full story as soon as I arrived. The Swansea boys were a good bunch though and near the end of my time we had a couple of nights out in the town after games. We were in one particular pub with Robbie and few of the lads when this huge Welsh bloke squared up to me. I think he knew who I was. ‘Why don’t you f*** off back to London you cockney bastard,’ he growled. I was small compared to this bloke and not really in the mood to lose most of my teeth. I didn’t want to involve anyone else and just said ‘All right, I’m leaving.’ And I did leave.

For my second last game while I was there I was put on the bench because they knew I didn’t want to extend the loan and stay another month. It was coming up to Christmas and I wanted to be back home. It was the right time to go back. We only won about two games and there were only a couple of thousand fans there at best watching us struggle to avoid relegation. But it was worth the pain. Rio agreed: he went to Bournemouth and came back much improved, as I had. I see kids at 17 now at Chelsea and I know they wouldn’t last five minutes at that level of football. West Ham then was probably more than they could cope with but I went to Swansea and survived. I came back stronger. Though not that strong apparently.

I still had skinny legs and I knew I had to build up my muscles. Dad knew it too and he used to get me running from box to box after training. A real midfielder’s run: get up, get back, get up, get back. I now had a better idea of what was needed to sustain myself in the competitive environment. I developed a lot after that and when I broke into the first team properly at West Ham the next season, at age 18, I was capable of scoring ten goals due to making those runs. I was a different player. I wouldn’t get involved in play in the middle of the pitch the way I do now because I was trying to get on the end of those balls from a forward run.

That came from a lot of hard graft doing weights to build up my legs and upper body strength. I was helped by some killer sessions with Paul Hilton who was the reserve team coach. He would make us lap the pitch in sixty seconds at three-quarter speed and then the next group would go and sixty seconds later you had to go again. We used to hate him for it though he was actually a good lad. Not that he seemed very nice when a lot of us were throwing up by the end and he would just stand over us, shouting. I could do that pretty easily now. It only makes me realize how far I have come physically in my career. It was a level I had to achieve before I could even think about making the first team.

I see now that was what Dad had been aiming for through all the years of training, exercise, and routine after routine. It was also what Harry knew when he packed me off to Swansea. I wasn’t ready for West Ham then – not physically anyway, maybe not even mentally – and they recognized that. I didn’t see it of course. I couldn’t. As a young player you have a certain confidence about you that makes you think you are invincible. I wasn’t absolutely sure that I could perform for the first team but it didn’t stop me from believing I could.

It was probably just as well since my debut came unexpectedly and as a substitute against Coventry City at Upton Park. Gordon Strachan and I came on at the same time. He was about 38 at the time and there was I, twenty years his junior and coming on for my team for the first time. Harry could sense my nerves. He put his arm around both of us and made a joke about the age difference. ‘Go easy on him!’ he said to Strachan. Given that we both played central midfield we were actually going head to head. Strachan might have been at the end of his career but it doesn’t stop you from thinking about what he had achieved. And there I was at the very start of mine and about to make my senior debut. I was excited – terrified actually. I watched my Dad play for West Ham, and Harry too. I had grown up listening to their memories of the good times and the bad. Both were there with me now: Dad in the dugout, smiling but looking just as nervous as me; Harry telling me what he wanted me to do when I got on there. I had dreamt of this moment so many times – as a child and a teenager. The numbers were held up indicating the players who were coming off and I heard the crowd roar as I crossed the white line for the first time.

It was a great reception from the fans and it’s a good memory. Even now, looking back over my career – the different stages with West Ham, Chelsea and England, and the success that I have worked hard to achieve – it was a great feeling. I didn’t however do much in that game. Ran around for a few minutes and touched the ball a few times. The best thing was the applause I got and the feeling of excitement in the crowd about Frank Lampard’s son coming on. I felt that I had arrived but I knew for sure that I hadn’t made it.

As expected, I was back on the bench for the next game. Making my debut was part of my development, another step on the long way up. Some players make an incredible impact in their first game. Wayne Rooney did it for England against Turkey but I was no Rooney. Mine was more a rite of passage than a ticket to the first team. I knew it would take a bit longer before I would be pushing my way on to the team sheet.

The next time I played was against Stockport in the League Cup in the first leg at home. Someone got injured on the morning of the game – I think John Moncur had been sick – and I got a phone call from my Dad who was at the ground.

‘Frank. Get yourself down here,’ he said. ‘You’re playing.’

I was actually in the park over the road from my parents’ house doing a warm-up, just some stretches and sprinting. It was still enough to panic me. I wondered if I had overdone it and how it might affect the way I would play in the match. I needn’t have worried too much. I did okay but the thing I remember most was how hard it felt athletically. I felt like a boy playing against men. It was a really hard contest which we ended up drawing 1-1. I had a chance to score and missed. I felt gutted afterwards and came away from the game feeling nauseous.

The fans were turning on the team at that time. We had drawn at home and then lost away to Stockport and were struggling to score goals. Even the lads were a bit fractious in the dressing room as a result of all the pressure. I was a young kid coming into all that. I didn’t actually play a lot after that game. That season I made seven more appearances as sub and the Stockport game was the only one I started.

Next season came round more quickly than I had wished for, but physically I felt stronger than ever after a hard pre-season in Scotland. Rio and I were the only two young players who were taken. It was pretty intense – especially with guys like Iain Dowie and Ian Bishop around. I enjoyed the stint and felt more comfortable than ever when we played a couple of warm-up games.

We had a really tough opener away at Arsenal and I started but was taken off after seventy minutes. It was traditionally a hard place to go for West Ham, indeed for most teams. We lost 2-0. I was disappointed, for the team and myself. I really wanted to make an impact but it was Highbury and Arsenal were just beginning to look the part under Arsene Wenger who had taken charge the season before.

I always put myself under pressure to perform but there was even more significance now because my contract was up for renewal. Now it was even more important for to me to show what I was capable of but I didn’t start any of the next seven games. Worse than that, I was beginning to take a bit of stick from the fans. I had been aware of it before then. Just a couple of games after my debut against Coventry there were a few instances when I heard fans shouting a bit of abuse at me. It turned really quickly and I couldn’t understand why. It probably didn’t help that I was on the bench because that was seen by some as a compromise. Being Frank Lampard’s son brought with it different rules than those which applied to every other player. If someone else was on the bench it was simple – they were recovering fitness or form or were seen as being able to make a difference if called upon. With regard to me, a section of the support believed that I wasn’t good enough for the starting line-up so I was put on the subs’ bench as some kind of favour. And they let me know this every time I moved to do a warm-up.

Obviously, it subsided when I didn’t play but that 96/97 season I came on twice more after Arsenal but didn’t make much of an impression. I tried as hard as I could but once the New Year came in I was already looking towards the pre-season, devising ways of becoming a better player. I worked harder than ever before but apparently I still wasn’t quite ready for the first game of the 97/98 season when we played Barnsley away. I knew that I would be on the bench. It was both exciting and disappointing. I wanted to start but had to bide my time. I knew the script and until you got a chance to play the part you had to stick at being understudy.

I’m not sure if that was an excuse for breaking the rules. I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last but it was the first time for me. Dad always said never to go drinking on the Thursday night before a Saturday game. And, of course, I never did. Finny – who was youth team goalie and effectively number three – phoned me up and asked if I fancied going out for dinner. It was a Thursday night. We did, and we had a few beers. I turned up at training on Friday feeling very guilty. It got worse. I was told I would definitely be on the bench. It’s hard enough to feel physically and mentally attuned for a pre-season match. My body felt fine but there was a voice in my head telling me that I must be below par because I had been out for a few hours two nights before. It was Dad’s voice, and my own.

It didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t a competitive game. Everything I had trained so hard for in my life was aimed at being the best I could be. Not just some of the time. All of the time. There wasn’t a lot I could do. I warmed up when told to and was soon wondering if I might get a chance to go on. On the pitch we were doing all right. The score was 1-1 and I wasn’t sure that I would get the call when, of course, I did. By this time I had managed to convince myself that everything would be fine. I briefly thought back to the Thursday night but knew there was nothing to do but just get stuck in there.

So I did. Won a few tackles and when a chance came for me to shoot I let fly and saw the ball soar into the net. I had scored but I wasn’t quite sure what to do. With all of the time I had spent worrying about what had happened before the game I didn’t have time to wonder what might happen during it. I turned around and spotted Rio. He was way back in his natural home in the centre circle. We were on the attack after all. The natural thing to do was to run to him. We were mates and I wanted to share the moment. What happened next though was entirely unplanned and unexpected.

Rio was waiting for me – I didn’t expect him to leave his comfort zone – and we just started dancing. It was very spontaneous. Afterwards, people thought we had prepared it. But we hadn’t. We had been to Cyprus that summer and Rio was fond of doing this mad dance where he lifted one leg up, kind of like a demented flamingo. I stood in front of him and copied it. Actually, he still does that dance even now when he’s on a night out. I couldn’t have cared less if he had waltzed me round the pitch. I had just scored my first goal for the club.

We calmed down and as the ball came back to be kicked off I looked to the bench and saw the smile on my Dad’s face. I think it was pride rather than amusement at the celebration, though there was probably a bit of both. It was an incredible high but unfortunately it was followed by the predictable low.

I was sub for the next few games and didn’t get a look-in until there was an injury in midfield which meant I got a run of games. I was still just a young kid. I would come on and try to get involved. There were times when I might have been pushed off the ball or whatever but I was trying my best. Harry kept putting me in there and soon I started to score. I got a hat-trick against Walsall in the League Cup which was amazing in my first full season. I was 19 and happy as Larry. I finished with ten goals to my name and had established myself as a regular in the first team squad. To be honest I thought I had made it. I was wrong.

My Dad went to meet the chairman, Terence Brown, and Harry to talk about a new deal. The chairman had a habit of reading fanzines and listening to the views of more extreme supporters – some of whom had started to turn on me. I had been aware of it but tried to ignore it and just get my head down and play. There was a conspiracy theory among them that the manager had been putting me on late in games to get me appearance money because I was his nephew. The punters read these things and I think there was a small group who decided to make it their cause when the team was playing badly. It started with a few people from the local area who thought I was getting an easy run. Things like that spread around the ground like a cancer and other people jumped on the bandwagon, though to be honest, I never dreamed the chairman of the club would be among them.

Once again, I was wrong. Brown brought this nonsense up claiming that there had been allegations of nepotism. He asked Harry to explain it.

‘What the f*** are you going on about?’ Harry responded angrily. ‘Do you think I bring a player on to get him five hundred quid? Frank is a very good player who we need to get on a long-term deal.’

When I was told about all of this I was pissed off and a bit shocked. I had been slogging my guts out for the club and was desperate to do well for West Ham. I was a West Ham boy, born and bred. I had come here to support the team as a child. I had signed for that reason.

For the first time I felt suspicious about the people running the club and from that moment I would never trust them again. I began to question the way they looked at me and the way they viewed Harry and Dad. I had thought Brown was a genuinely good guy but he wasn’t a football man and we all called him ‘Mr Dead’ – a character on the Harry Enfield show at that time. Brown wore the same pinstripe suit and had a very serious demeanor when he came into the dressing room.

After he mentioned nepotism I was more sensitive about what was going on around me. A couple of times I heard murmurs from the punters behind the dugout when I was called to warm up or was about to go on. But it got worse. It had been getting worse from two seasons earlier when I made my debut. There was booing from a certain section of the crowd behind the dugout when I was told to leave the bench and stretch. That wasn’t even the worst part of Upton Park. That was on the other side at the ‘chicken run’. I wasn’t being paranoid. It was becoming an ordeal for me just to be a sub, to the point where I didn’t want to be there. I still had my pride and my determination to succeed but I couldn’t tell Harry how I felt. When you are playing away and the punters give you stick it’s fine – it’s different, it’s what you expect. Not at home. I was extremely conscious of what was going on. It was very clear. Shouts of ‘Sit down, you!’ and ‘Go sit down with your Daddy!’ were common.

Sometimes it was worse than others. Sometimes it was so bad that I would rather have been sitting in the stand, or at home well away from it. Hodgey was on the bench with me for one game. Harry had told me to get stripped and it started almost immediately, the odd shout and rumble of discontent; I was expecting it. Hodgey grabbed my arm. ‘You have to get out of here as quick as you can mate,’ he said. ‘You don’t need this s***. You don’t deserve it and you’re better than this.’

I didn’t say anything. He was right. I knew he was but you can’t just wipe away your childhood supporting a club or the love you have for it. I am a loyal person by nature and I wanted to do well for West Ham and for my Dad and Harry who found their professional integrity being questioned. I didn’t feel sorry for myself; I felt sorry for them. I thought about all the years they had been good players there, loyal servants. They had brought success and they were doing their best to bring success again. So was I. We were in this together whether we liked it or not and I felt reassured by the fact that I had people I could trust with my life fighting for me. I would never give anything less than everything for them and they knew that.

I understood that they were in an awkward position but they are both strong and sometimes quite foreboding characters. When I was young I was quite wary of Harry. I was also in awe of him. Between the ages of 8 and 14 there was no real football relationship between us. Like most kids that age, I kept my distance from adults when the conversation turned to serious stuff. From my point of view, even as his nephew, he was exactly the same person that people outside of the family knew him to be. He was outspoken and a real character. Though desperate to learn about football I was scared to say anything in front of him in case I would embarrass myself even though as an uncle he was very loveable. That made what happened when I was older all the more difficult.

I never really lost that innate apprehension after he became my manager at West Ham. Somewhere deep inside me I was still that little boy and he was still Uncle Harry. There were times at the club when I would have the hump with him like every player has with their manager but of course everything was so much more complicated by our relationship.

There was a time when I wanted an explanation about why I wasn’t playing. Instead of just knocking on the door and confronting him like anyone else I found myself outside his office pacing around. I was scared to go in and I know that stems from the days of being in his company as a child and feeling inhibited.

He and my Dad had their disagreements. There were times when I was dropped from the team and Dad would make a case for me playing. Maybe he was taking my side as a father, that’s only human nature, while Harry was protective of his own position.

I understood that. I sensed when Harry was feeling uncomfortable about something to do with me. It became still more complicated though when the fans started to have a go as well. When I look back now I have a lot more sympathy for the situation Harry found himself in at that time. He protected me when he thought I needed protecting. He also stood up for me when it really mattered in situations with Terence Brown and the likes. It’s part of our nature, our family. The culture of London’s East End means looking after your own, which is fine. But when it’s carried into professional football, where the environment is very cut-throat, it changes. You have to act differently. That was tough on the family at times, though they tried to hide it from me.

People just looked at the fact that my Dad and uncle were in charge and they thought the worst of it. That was where the agitation and aggravation came from. When they saw the unique situation which existed at West Ham they were not happy with it. I know what it’s like from the other side. Jamie will speak to me after a game now and I know that he is talking from my point of view rather than an objective one. It’s our point of view, the Lampard/Redknapp point of view.

There was no getting away from it and the situation was both strange and stressful. I understand just how fractious it was because when I speak to Harry now it’s completely different. Now we speak on a much more equal basis. Until I left West Ham that wasn’t possible but I feel I have earned his respect. There have been occasions – winning the Football Writers’ Player of the Year in 2005 – when he called me up to say well done that I realized we were finally free of the difficulties which affected our relationship at West Ham. That was very liberating – not just for me but for all of us.

Harry was sitting with Aunt Sandra in front of me at the Player of the Year dinner and I could see she was quite emotional as I spoke about ways in which they had helped me. Sandra is very much like Mum. She gave support and encouragement to Mark and Jamie but when I was around she found just as much time for me. She was kind and understanding – even when I was helping Jamie obliterate her beloved bird cage in the back garden – and I realize now that it wasn’t just my relationship with Harry which was affected. I could relate to Sandra in the way I did to Mum and I respect her for the way she would be the gel in her family during the highs and lows which a life in football brings. I regret that it became impossible for us to enjoy a normal family friendship during those times. I found myself being pushed a little farther away from someone who I had been very close to as a child. We are relaxed and we can talk more now. It’s a shame we had all the years of pressure when we were so involved at West Ham.

My experience was different from Dad’s and Harry’s. During my childhood and development as a player it was quite hard to have a Dad who was a famous player. Dad is someone who is extremely well regarded in the history of West Ham and I was following on. I also had an uncle and cousin who I was, inevitably, compared with. But Jamie was a peer and gave me something to aim for and emulate. It was a huge motivating factor to have a cousin as good as him. I lived that moment with him and was desperate to get up there with him. The flip side, as I discovered, was being referred to as a poor man’s Jamie Redknapp. I had hardly had a chance in the first team but already I was being compared unfavourably with my cousin. The thing with my Dad and Harry was only there when I was at West Ham but with Jamie it extended beyond that because he was the top man.

I wanted to reach that level and win the league and there was real pressure behind that. In some senses it took me quite a long time to overcome that pressure. I was nowhere near as confident. Jamie was seen as a player who exuded natural talent whereas I have been perceived as someone who had to graft. People still say that Jamie had more talent and that I work harder. I know why that’s said but in all honesty I think it’s a very lazy assessment. People who have raw talent can smack you in the face with it and by that I mean someone like Ronaldinho who is mesmerizing to play against.

On the other hand, is it fair to say that someone like Roy Keane doesn’t have any talent, or John Terry, because it’s not right there in your face? Talent isn’t just the ability to do tricks and beat men. Yes, that is a fantastic skill, and maybe some people are born with that ability where others aren’t. But there is also a different kind of talent which is about how much you drive yourself inside to be the very best. I am insulted when people say that I have worked hard because I am not the most talented. My talent is what I am now. It combines how hard I have worked, how much I have learned, how many goals I have scored and how many games I have played.

It’s a generalization which I don’t think is right. I may have agreed in the past because I was ignorant of what constitutes genuine talent. Keane has as much technical ability and talent as Ronaldinho and has proven that, when he has pushed himself in his career – through perseverance, application, and sheer desire to achieve. That, takes real talent.

I understand the argument when you look at someone like Wayne Rooney who exploded on to the football scene at 16. It’s easy to describe his as God-given talent. At 17, I wouldn’t have had the strength or the mental maturity to play for England but there is no rule which says that everyone needs to peak at an early age. Very few do – especially for their country. Talent is what you make of it and it’s not all about hard work.

I had to build myself up physically to make it as a professional. I recognized that but there are lots of people who don’t and just go out of the game because they think they can make it on ability alone. I played with some great youth teams, players who had great feet, could score goals but never realized that you had to bridge the gap between having the potential to be a player and doing what was necessary to become one.

I had the ability. I used to run past people for fun at school and with my club team and youth team I was banging in twenty odd goals without difficulty. But then I realized that when I tried to make the step up I was struggling to make it round the pitch. I didn’t have the physique to battle it out in tackles. I was a chubby kid and I needed to work on my speed and agility and I spent hours trying to improve myself. I would often just go to the park near the house and do stuff with Dad. We would practise shooting or running, just to sharpen me up. It was a useful exercise partly because it made me a very keen trainer from an early age but not all the sessions were positive.

Once when I was around 14, Dad was crossing balls for me to head or shoot into the empty goal. I couldn’t hit a single ball. I don’t know if I was having a growth spurt or if I was unwell but nothing I tried came off, not even the simplest thing. I was devoid of co-ordination and eventually got so upset that I ran off. I couldn’t tolerate that I wasn’t able to do it well and a massive fear overcame me that I wasn’t good enough to be a footballer. I was beginning to wonder about the future and whether or not I would be offered a contract as a trainee professional. I got back to the house in tears. Dad asked me why I had given up but I was having a panic attack that I wasn’t going to make the grade. Yet next day I went back and tried again, and it was better.

I learned that there are certain times when I knew that I had to improve a part of my game or my body to make sure that I could compete. I have always worked hard to overcome any obstacle. If that didn’t work then I would work harder still. It’s something which has been apparent in everything that I have done in my life and I am sure a lot of people will recognize it. For me it really hit home that in order to get a contract at West Ham, get into the reserves, make the first team, I had to work for it.

There have been moments when maybe I wasn’t ready for the next step. I had to do a bit extra to get there. Maybe players like Rooney have it straight away but I didn’t. I am lucky in some ways to have had that because it has made me respect the effort it takes to achieve your goals. Whatever I succeed in it is because of hard work. I can play football and score goals well enough but the minute I stop training or working hard I know that I won’t be what I am. If I slack off in training I know that I won’t score as many goals or be such an imposing figure in a match.

Now if I have a quiet game I ask myself a whole host of questions. Am I training to my optimum? Have I been making as many tackles in ‘keep ball’ or getting tight on my man in practice games? Have I been standing off the pace? I need answers and I will lose sleep until I am satisfied that I know why. At other times I will know that I am not at my best during a game and I try to up my tempo to make sure that I am competing. There are occasions when you might be able get away with it. Maybe you score a goal and get man-of-the-match. But I know if I haven’t been putting myself through what I should, and I have to get my head down and start again.

Trying harder is a natural cycle for me. When I was in my first year as a pro at West Ham my Dad got Manny Omoyinmi to run at me one-on-one. Manny was lightning quick and skilful on the ball. He skinned me – ran at me and round me – ten times on the spin. Then on the eleventh I got a little touch and the next I knocked the ball away and by the end of the session he couldn’t beat me. That was a great lesson and reminder to me that you can always work out how to deal with a situation. I still do it. Even now in pre-season I can sometimes have a shocker in five-a-side when I’ve had a few weeks off. Someone once said I’m a slow starter. I don’t think that’s the case. I do everything to make sure I come out of the blocks quicker than my opponents. I try to better myself. I am aware that I need to be put under pressure to get on the right level.

You learn what you need and I know what I need and one of the great things about working with Jose Mourinho is that he respects his top players and recognizes that they know best what they need. Claudio Ranieri would always try to tell me that I should do this or that even though I felt that I needed something else. Claudio had a thing about shooting practice. He would tell me that instead of hitting a hundred balls all I needed to do was imagine hitting one and picture it as it beat the keeper. I understand that this is quite a common exercise in sports psychology. But different players need different things. I would always opt for knowing that I had spent half an hour hitting the target with a ball than simply thinking about it. Doing it properly is my idea of positive thinking. It always has been. With younger players, Mourinho will be strict because they need to learn but he is very instinctive about what the senior players require and I never experienced that before working with him.

Working with Dad and Harry was becoming more complicated. Life was getting harder instead of easier. Having a Dad-and-uncle management team was a unique scenario in English football. There were advantages and disadvantages to having them in charge and I think that during my time at West Ham I saw and felt them all, more than I care to remember. On the positive side I got extra time in coaching and as far as my development was concerned, having that close proximity was fantastic. Dad and Harry saw every strength and weakness in my game and so I was never short of people who mattered to me telling me what I needed to do.

I was still young though and needed the off-the-pitch stuff like a hole in the head. Unfortunately I didn’t have the courage or knowledge to deal with certain things directly and so had to depend on others. One of the worst experiences I had was when I went to a Fans Forum. I was sitting on the podium with Iain Dowie and Marc Rieper, Peter Storey and Harry. No one wanted to know about me. I was just the young kid on the end and as is normal with these things, the questions were mostly about the price of season tickets or directed to the senior players about how the team was playing. I wasn’t even sure why I was there to be honest. They were handing out a bit of stick but I don’t think anyone had even noticed me. Then, one guy stands up and addresses Harry.

‘Frank Lampard isn’t good enough for West Ham,’ he announced.

‘Uh oh, here we go,’ I thought.

‘Why are you playing him? Is it because he’s your nephew?’

I sat there thinking, ‘What the hell?’ The guy was entitled to his opinion even if I thought he was out of order; what really pissed me off was that not one other fan who was there said a thing to counter him. I had become sceptical about what was thought of me but I was still a West Ham player and deep down I believed we were all in this together – all fans. Surely I deserved more of a chance than this guy was willing to give? I was just a kid but already I wasn’t good enough. Strangely enough, it turned out that the guy asking the question was the uncle of another youth player who was older than me who hadn’t got a chance in the team. Again, this wasn’t my fault but somehow it had been turned into an issue because of who I was. I was devastated. It was a killer blow to my confidence, which was already fragile. I didn’t speak but Harry did and was calm about it.

‘Frank was one of only four young players to be called into the England squad under Terry Venables at Euro 96,’ he began. ‘Terry said that he is a great prospect and a future captain of his country. We are lucky to have a young player of Frank’s ability at West Ham and it doesn’t matter which family he comes from. He’s a great young player who will become even better. Just you wait and see.’

I appreciated the support. I realized what Harry was doing. In short, it wasn’t just my uncle and my Dad who thought I was any good. Afterwards they said they would get the guy banned from West Ham but I never saw him again.

I would love to see him now though. What a coward, standing up and attacking a kid in front of 300 people. That’s when it really started going against me at West Ham. That’s when I knew that Hodgey was right. I had to get out.