Totally Frank: The Autobiography of Frank Lampard. Frank Lampard

then I wanted to be like him. I appreciated how he was dealing with everyone. It was a lesson I wanted to be able to emulate. There’s no doubt that the more famous you become the harder it is to have time for everyone. Even now, you can be in a rush or have the baby in your arms and the last thing you want to do is sign an autograph but I think about Jamie in that square and what it taught me.

      There was something about Jamie – he could cope with the demands and the pressure even though he was only 22 at the time. He just handled it and got on with things. We didn’t get to spend too much time together because of the distance between us when he lived in Liverpool but he always had good advice for me on the phone and I could call him whenever I wanted. He always had time for me and wanted to know how I was doing.

      Even when I was 18 I was still learning from him. He came to train at Chadwell Heath when he was recovering from an injury while he was at Liverpool. We had a goal painted on a wall in the gym and in the corners of the goal were circles no bigger than the size of a ball. Each circle had a different number attached so that the top right corner was 1 and bottom right 2 and so on. Jamie and I wandered in there after I had finished a session and started messing around. He lined up a shot and shouted a number.

      ‘One.’ And the ball flew dead on target.

      ‘Four.’ Different corner. Same result.

      ‘Two.’ And again. And so on.

      It was my turn. I was lucky to hit the goal never mind a circle. Jamie didn’t laugh or take the piss. He stopped me and started lining my body up and then gave me some advice. That was Jamie all over. Always wanting to help. I guess because of that it was quite weird when we came up against each other on the field.

      I played against Liverpool with West Ham and we were head to head in midfield. He went in hard on me and it was a little bit over the ball on the knee. He got up straight away, panicked that he had hurt me. Like me, he is very family orientated and I would not have thought for a moment that he had tried to do me but he was concerned that I was okay.

      The tables were turned a few years later when we faced each other again when he was at Spurs. I caught him with my studs and almost ruined his good looks with a scar. I remember feeling the same panic he must have felt all those years ago. He ended up with about thirty stitches in his mouth and had to have surgery. He reminds me of it sometimes. I cringe at the thought.

      I love Jamie the person – our relationship as mates has really blossomed over the past few years. We speak all the time and one of the things which says a lot about his character is that despite all the difficulties he had with injuries and sheer bad luck there has never been a single shred of jealousy about him. He has been a positive influence and encouraging voice throughout for me.

      Jamie is one of those people in life who genuinely wants to know about others, their thoughts and views on the game as well as on life. He makes people comfortable and that’s why he is such a natural on television and why he will succeed in management if he chooses to go into it.

      Jamie was as good a role model as I could have wished for and as I got older the competitive spirit which had emerged in football began to manifest itself in just about every sport I took part in. As well as football I played cricket and was good enough to play for Essex at Under-12 to Under-15 level.

      By that time my week was crammed full of sport. On Monday nights I went to Chelmsford to do nets with Essex cricket team. Tuesday was West Ham training and Wednesday was school team match or training. Thursday was Arsenal training while Friday was Tottenham and then on Saturday there was a school team game and then back to Sunday playing for Heath Park.

      There was a point when I liked cricket almost as much as I did football. I was about eleven or twelve and Dad had played cricket for England schoolboys and was very good – probably better than me. He pushed me a bit but was wary that it might become as important as football. I liked it because I went to a school where they paid a lot more attention to cricket than football. I enjoyed batting and bowling. I was happy doing them and was more of an all-rounder, and that was what made me love the game as a younger kid.

      At 14 I was playing in the first XI at cricket a year before I was at football which made it appear that I was better at cricket than I was at football but that wasn’t true. Maybe the cricket team wasn’t quite so good. I was a very stubborn little batsmen. I wasn’t strong enough to whack it everywhere but I was dogged. I would just block what I couldn’t hit far and stay in as long as I could – the Geoffrey Boycott type.

      When I got older I had to field and that’s when I lost patience as well as interest. A lack of patience is one of my weaknesses. My Dad also started to slip into conversations the fact that professional footballers earned a lot more money than cricketers. That may sound odd but as you get older and money starts to mean something to you, it has an effect. Not just the money but the glory as well. Football is the national game and number one sport after all.

      I’m not sure how far I would have gone in the game – I can’t imagine I was going to be a Freddie Flintoff – but it got to a stage when it was getting on my nerves. Mum and Dad had to pick me up at school at Brentwood and we set off on the journey to Chelmsford which took about fifteen minutes. I had to get changed in the back of the car which was a nuisance and I remember having the hump about it and started to make excuses so I didn’t have to go.

      I glossed over the issue with my parents with some petty story but the the over-riding reason for quitting was my obsession with perfection. There were a few people who were better than me at cricket and I didn’t think that I could bridge the gap and that frustrated me. It was fine with football where I was good and thought that I could be better than everyone else. Being honest, that was why cricket faded out of my life. I accepted my limitations but it didn’t mean I wanted to remind myself of them every time I played.

      I focused on football and at 14 went to Lilleshall for the annual trials. At the time, Lilleshall was the FA’s school of excellence for young footballers. They provided a two-year residential course which consisted of schooling as well as expert coaching. It was exciting but I was also nervous. I had broken my arm a couple of months before and I had it in my head that I wasn’t as fit as I should be. There were thirty-two kids trying out for sixteen places. We had two days of tests and training as well as playing games.

      I got down to the last twenty-four which meant I was on the way. Then we did the bleep test where basically you run between two electronic markers until you drop. The highest level was around fourteen and I only managed to get to eleven. I wondered what they thought of me as a result but there was nothing I could do. I was absolutely exhausted.

      The day ended and I went home to wait for the final selection process which was done by letter. Two weeks later the envelope dropped through the door. It was nerve wracking. I had tried to prepare myself for the disappointment by telling myself that my broken arm had handicapped my chances. Deep down, I knew that wasn’t true.

      I was right about not getting in though. I was gutted. It was hard to accept the rejection. I was at a stage where I was regarded as one of the best players in Essex and I wanted to be the very best. To be told that I wasn’t even in the top sixteen in the country was a heavy blow. Lee Hodges, who I later played with for West Ham youths, was accepted though he decided to turn it down.

      I wondered what Dad would think. In the end, he wasn’t that bothered. Lilleshall had a reputation for being very old school and the kind of coaching they utilized wasn’t necessarily what I needed. Players who have graduated from there have good things to say about it. You can’t argue with the talent of the likes of Joe Cole and Michael Owen who went there and have become top professionals. In retrospect, though, it may have been a lucky escape for me.

      I had been exposed to very different methods and levels of coaching. After the age of ten I started attending academy football at West Ham, Tottenham and Arsenal. They each had their good points – and their bad.

      West Ham were quite antiquated in their attitude. They didn’t really encourage you to become part of the club. There was a kind of arrogance where they just assumed that because you were a local boy who supported them then you automatically wanted to be part of their set-up. It