Jamie Carragher speaking on Sky Sports.
Jamie Carragher speaking on Sky Sports.
Michael Ball Like fellow Scousers Rooney and his team-mate Jeffers, Ball was a lifelong Evertonian who’d progressed through the Blues academy ranks. He joined Scottish side Rangers in 2001, a couple of months shy of his 22nd birthday, but over two decades later, the ECHO columnist revealed Goodison Park chiefs were prepared to sell him to local rivals Liverpool. Ball said: “I was 21 at the time and it was 21 years ago but I’ve never spoken about it before. Liverpool had a first bid rejected but then they came back in and had an offer accepted so if I’d have been willing to go then they would have sold me to Liverpool and that’s what really hurt the most. “I’d been away on holiday, having agreed a new contract but when I came back I was told that the board had changed their mind, they’d received offers for me, would speak to my agent and I could pick the club. “There was no chance I was going to join Liverpool though. I just couldn’t do it. “Nick Barmby had made the same move just a year before and look what happened over that – and he was from Hull while I was a local lad.”