Monday 25 May 2015 12:17, UK
Frank Lampard will call time on English football this weekend but the man whose glittering career has spanned two decades and delivered more than 200 goals was once a shy teenager ribbed for his 'puppy fat'.
Ahead of Farewell Frank, an unmissable hour-long Sky Sports tribute to the Chelsea legend and Manchester City midfielder, reporter Patrick Davison caught up with the man swapping the Premier League for a fresh adventure in Major League Soccer.
From his early days at Swansea and West Ham to his time under Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti, the Lampard tale is an enthralling one of dressing-room awakenings, steep learning curves, unbreakable bonds and yet nagging self-doubt ...
He didn’t want to go. Didn’t feel ready to leave the comfort of the West Ham youth team. Didn’t know how he’d cope without his mum to do his cooking and washing.
He was 17 and had only just passed his driving test – but his uncle and then West Ham manager Harry Redknapp insisted.
And so Frank Lampard set out on a journey: one that was longer than he thought but more rewarding than he could possibly have imagined.
His destination was Swansea, four hours and 200 miles away. A place “where it seemed to rain all the time”. A club then playing in a rundown old stadium with a team on its way to being relegated to English football’s bottom tier.
It was a trip that transformed him.
"It was a schooling for me. It was a man’s dressing room and I was a boy," Lampard said, ahead of Farewell Frank, an extended interview with the player on Sky Sports 1 at 7pm on Monday.
"They used to dig me out for my puppy fat. It’s a ruthless world, the football dressing room at times.
"It opened my eyes, made me realise the game isn’t beautiful all the time."
He returned home, 11 games and a first professional goal – away at Brighton – later.
Two decades on and our interview is taking place in an apartment in central London, one of the great Premier League careers almost at an end.
The shy boy, driving down that endless stretch of motorway to play on loan in English football’s third tier, is gone.
In his place is Chelsea’s record goalscorer, the Premier League’s highest-scoring midfielder and a man who has won 106 England caps and 11 major honours.
His drive, determination and desire to make it - sharpened in south Wales – have taken him to the very top of the game. To heights most thought he’d get nowhere near.
"I meet people who tell me: ‘My son was better than you when he was 12’. But I had a real appetite to get in the box and score goals.”
'Doubt'
That appetite was evident when he scored his first Premier League goal for West Ham at Barnsley in August, 1997, arriving late to scuff the ball in from around the six-yard box. His favourite type of goal, he says, and something he’d do again and again over the years.
Lampard had his problems with the West Ham fans even then. The fact that Redknapp was his uncle and his dad, Frank Lampard Senior, the assistant, led to accusations of nepotism.
There’s a famous clip of Redknapp defending him at a fans’ forum, telling supporters he’d go “right to the top”.
But Lampard wasn’t sure if he was right. And when Chelsea signed him for £11m back in June 2001, he wasn’t sure he was worth it.
"When I tell my daughters I cost £11m, they say: ‘That’s rubbish!' But it was a lot of money and at West Ham I hadn’t pulled up any trees.
"I’ve doubted myself throughout my career, always had a fear of failure - and certainly that was the case back then."
At West Ham, it was old school. He cleaned the boots of Julian Dicks as a boy, there were characters like Ian Wright and Neil Ruddock in the dressing room and there were a few pints sunk on the way back from away games.
At Chelsea he learnt about free-kicks from Gianfranco Zola and about diet from Marcel Desailly.
"I became a man," he says. "It was only 10 miles away but it felt like a different world. I could see the step up and I loved it."
It was already going well. Then Roman Abramovich came in - “and took us all to the moon”.
Abramovich soon appointed Jose Mourinho, who took a good team and a good player to the next level.
"He told me I was the best and I started to think I might be near there,” says Lampard. “It was a masterstroke.”
With a spine that included Petr Cech, John Terry, Claude Makele and Didier Drogba, Lampard believes he was part of a Premier League team that compares to any.
His goals sealed a first title in 50 years at Bolton in 2005, Chelsea won it again in 2006 and have been winning trophies ever since.
Often it was a rollercoaster. "Great coach, great man. Love the fella," says Lampard of Carlo Ancelotti. But Ancelotti’s reign reflected the turbulence that saw Lampard play for nine different managers in 13 years at Stamford Bridge.
He scored 27 goals as the Italian led them to the double in 2010, but a year later he was sitting with the players in the pub having just been sacked.
"The humility of the man was incredible. He sat there with us having just lost his job. The next day we all just said, ‘what a good bloke he is’.”
Lampard’s best moment came when he least expected it.
"The Champions League was the stand-out," he says. "At 33 I thought my time to win it had been and gone. It was the most special day of my footballing life by far."
'Influence'
Not far behind it was the day he scored his 202nd and 203rd Chelsea goals at Aston Villa to become the club’s all-time record goalscorer.
It was close to the end of the season, Rafa Benitez was manager, Lampard thought he might be leaving and time was running out. As he broke the record – again bursting into the box to score from close-range – Chelsea fans poured onto the pitch and Lampard was filled with emotion.
His mum Pat had died suddenly of pneumonia five years earlier. His point to the heavens that day at Villa Park meant even more than usual.
"I was so close to my mum, she was certainly No 1 for me. She was the biggest influence. She never leaves me and that moment would have made her really proud," he says, the pain of that loss clear in his voice and eyes.
In the end, Lampard stayed beyond that season. Instead, the moment to leave Chelsea came last summer, in Jose Mourinho’s office.
"There’s no fancy way to say goodbye, I’m a big boy," he says. "The only disappointment is I didn’t get to say goodbye at home. I would like to have had that moment."
Instead, his Chelsea farewell came in a Manchester City shirt – applauding the fans after scoring against them at the Etihad in September and getting something of a Stamford Bridge send-off when coming back with City in January.
In City, he sees shades of Chelsea. Two sides intent on dominance, but doing it “with a soul”. He also thinks his experience with another big club will help him should he choose to make the move into management.
For now, though, he says he’s “done” with the Premier League. There will be no loan spells, no return to the divison he has graced with 176 goals.
He’s off into the MLS sunset with another great midfielder and perhaps his greatest rival of all – Steven Gerrard.
During their playing days Lampard admits the rivalry between their clubs made it difficult. "I was a Chelsea man and he’s Mr Liverpool," he says.
“I certainly respect him, I always have.
"I think it’s great for us that we’ve both made the decision to go there. We’re at the back end of our careers, we know that, but we’re still very driven."
Being driven is something that comes up again and again with Lampard. It’s the thing which gets him into the box to score when others wouldn’t, the attribute that has seen him rise above all those kids who were better than him, the quality which has been with him since he set out for Swansea 20 years ago.
Watch Farewell Frank - a look back at the Premier League career of Frank Lampard ahead of his summer move to MLS side New York City FC - at 7pm on Monday, 25 May, Sky Sports 1HD.
