We meet Jamie Carragher at The Brunny on Marsh Lane to talk about his time growing up in Bootle, the concept of the street footballer and the importance of community bonds
Jamie Carragher on Spenser Street in Bootle
Jamie Carragher on Spenser Street in Bootle(Image: Liverpool Echo)
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Jamie Carragher belongs to one of the last generations of 'street footballers' who honed their craft on the roads and playing fields around their home towns. Liverpool has been blessed by a few, many of who went on to reach the very pinnacle of the game, winning Premier League titles and European Cups - players like Carragher from Bootle, Steven Gerrard from Huyton and Wayne Rooney from Croxteth.
All of those names are written into footballing lore, and rank alongside some of the greatest talents this city has produced. All three have spoken about their time playing on the streets or playing fields of their local neighbourhoods, and credit those experiences as helping to shape the footballers they became.
It's a vision which certainly resonates with Jamie Carragher, who we spoke to at the Brunswick Youth and Community Centre (the Brunny), on Marsh Lane in Bootle. He told us: “The first place I ever remember playing football was in here in the Brunny gym, around five-years-old and I always remember my dad asking older lads who were playing five-a-side whether I could play.
"[...] I played on all the streets off Marsh Lane and just across the way, at the blue gate. That was the goal, and at the back of my dad's pub over the road, was the 'field'. Then there was the school playing field, which wasn't the playing field at the time, it was just for anybody really.”
Jamie Carragher on Spenser Street in Bootle where he used to play football as a kid
Jamie Carragher on Spenser Street in Bootle where he used to play football as a kid(Image: Liverpool Echo)
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As football has developed over the last twenty years, the sport has become increasingly business-like. A lot of young talents are funnelled into the academy system at an early age, prompting much discussion around the evolution of the sport, and whether it has resulted in the 'death of the street footballer'.
In footballing parlance the 'death of the street footballer' refers to the perceived decline of unstructured, community-based football, replaced by formal academy coaching, leading to the apparent loss of creativity and individuality.
It's fair to say this argument carries some weight among football fans, and touches on some of the anxieties around the increasing commerciality of the sport, where footballers are seen as both on-field talents and financial assets.
Nonetheless, there remains an essential romanticism around 'street footballers'. It harkens back to a time when goals were regularly painted on brick walls, jumpers were used for goal posts, and kicking the ball off your neighbour’s wall would guarantee a telling-off.
Jamie said: "I think people do romanticise street football too much. It was great, we all loved it and doing it, but I think the attention the kids get now at academies, I think is better.
“[...] I was part of a street football culture where professional clubs didn't really have much hold on you. I used to go to Liverpool once a week for an hour, in a gym over the road from Anfield, the Vernon Sangster.
"You’d finish with a five-a-side at the end for 15 minutes, you'd have a warm up for 10 minutes, and you'd do a few little bits and bobs.
Jamie Carragher on the corner of Marsh Lane and Spenser Street in Bootle
Jamie Carragher on the corner of Marsh Lane and Spenser Street in Bootle(Image: Liverpool Echo)
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"All the footballers came from the street, so everyone would say 'oh that proves that it was right', but there was no other way you could come through, there was no academy to go to back then.
"Now, if you asked me, would I rather have gone and been at Liverpool three or four times a week and played for Liverpool of a weekend rather than playing for my Sunday league team? I'd have rather been at Liverpool.
"Most professional footballers are the best player in the Sunday league team and they normally play for the best team in the league and they normally win 7-0 every week. Who’s getting anything out of that?
"When you actually think about it, you look back at it, I'd rather have been playing against Everton or Man United and close games against people of the same ability, playing with the same ability as you and against the same ability.
"I always think the best level of football I played in was actually school's football, not Sunday league football. So when I played for Bootle Boys, and I played for Sefton, you were playing against the best in Bootle playing against Liverpool, Wirral, Kirkby. They were tight games and they were good games, so I always think of that as a good level of football.
Jamie Carragher was recently named as a local ambassador for Bootle's bid to become the UK's first ever Town of Culture.
The competition is open to small, medium and large towns, and has the aim of bringing local investment, and to create opportunities for people in the arts and culture sectors.
Bootle's involvement is being facilitated by Sefton Council which has made sport and community two of the central pillars of the bid, and certainly of interest to Carragher who speaks about the importance of these concepts in his own life.
Jamie mentions the role of places like the Brunny and how they have evolved into vital community hubs. He said: "Youth clubs are massive for life in general, up and down this country.
Jamie Carragher at Brunswick Youth and Community Centre in Bootle
Jamie Carragher at Brunswick Youth and Community Centre in Bootle(Image: Liverpool Echo)
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"It's where you go as a kid, and you need these bases, you need these youth clubs for memories, making mates, going on little trips like the Brunny would go on when we were kids, and keep you out of bother. I think they're vitally important, and it was very important for me.
"The Brunny has been here since the 60s, and it's a landmark and front and centre of Marsh Lane. Places like this are more important than the pubs now, because the pubs are all shutting down. The Brunny has evolved and it's not just known as a youth club now, but it's a community hub where people of all generations come and get together.
"Today we have bingo in one part and the older fellas playing walking football in the back. It's good to have a place to come to and get together, because that's what community is all about, people coming together, socialising, sharing stories and updates on their lives.
"These places, youth clubs, boxing clubs, whatever they are, they have to be a 24/7 entity. It can't just be for the kids to come after school, it has to be what's going on from sort of 9 o'clock in the morning until sort of 6 o'clock at night. It's got to be open and available, so the whole community can come and use it."
Bootle's bid to become UK Town of Culture comes after last year's announcement of the Pride in Place programme, a multi-billion pound regeneration scheme which will deliver vital funding to communities across the UK, including 11 areas in Merseyside, with £20m being allocated to Bootle.
Sefton Council said Bootle's bid puts local people, creativity and community pride at the heart of the town’s future. If successful, it will fund a programme featuring arts, music, performance, heritage and wellbeing activities designed and delivered with local residents, artists, businesses, schools and community organisations.