Ricket Lambert: “My Liverpool dream quickly became a nightmare”

Ricket Lambert: “My Liverpool dream quickly became a nightmare” Rickie Lambert Opens Up on Liverpool Nightmare and Life After Football Rickie Lambert’s Liverpool story was supposed to be one of those tales football likes to keep close. A boyhood Red, released by the club at 15, works his way through the lower leagues, plays for England and finally comes home. Lambert has now explained how that dream unravelled. Speaking to Alison Bender on the After The Final Whistle podcast, the former Liverpool striker gave a deeply personal account of his career, his time at Anfield and the years that followed retirement. For Liverpool supporters, his description of what happened at Anfield is particularly striking. “Going to Liverpool was the toughest time,” Lambert told Bender. “It should have been the best time. It should have been your dream come true, but it quickly became a nightmare.” Liverpool rejection created Lambert’s drive Lambert’s relationship with Liverpool began with rejection. He recalled being released as a 15 year old by Steve Heighway and returning home devastated. “My dream was to be a football player and to be a Liverpool player and then to be told you’re not good enough on both. It was devastating.” Lambert remembered “crying in my bedroom, unconsolable” before his father came upstairs and told him: “You’ve got to prove them wrong now, son, cuz I think you’re good enough.” Those words stayed with him. “I didn’t realise it at the time, but I think that stuck with me throughout my career.” That determination survived Blackpool, Macclesfield and the lower leagues. Even while working on a farm and in a beetroot factory, Lambert told Bender he pictured something entirely different. “I visualised myself playing for England, playing for Liverpool.” He added: “Even though I was getting told by various people I was not good enough, in my mind and in my heart, I knew I was good enough.” Eventually, Liverpool came back for him. Lambert was preparing for the 2014 World Cup when his agent called. “He said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ And he said, ‘Liverpool are coming for you.’” Lambert called his parents. His mother cried. After everything that had happened since he was 15, he was finally going home. Liverpool dream became a nightmare The reality proved painful. “I ran out of steam. My legs ran out,” Lambert said. “My ability to make everything turn to gold had ran out.” What hurt him most was seeing the effect on his family. “When it kind of goes wrong in a city like Liverpool, it’s tough. It’s tough to live in that. Not myself, I could handle it, but what I couldn’t handle is the way my family was affected.” His father and close friends urged him to leave. Lambert refused. “Even till the very end, Brendan tried to get rid of me two or three times and I said no every time.” There was another burden. Luis Suarez had left Liverpool for Barcelona following the 2013/14 season and Lambert felt the weight of what followed. “I felt like Luis Suarez had went and I was his replacement. So it was such a pressure. It was such a hard thing to feel.” Lambert stressed that Brendan Rodgers had attempted to make clear that he was not Suarez’s replacement. The perception remained difficult for him. “The fans were gonna always see that because they had Luis who almost won the league and then he left and I came in with Mario.” Lambert’s description of the mood around Liverpool is stark. “The club was in trauma. They almost won the league the season before.” For Lambert, a Liverpool supporter himself, the footballing problems became personal. His children were also dealing with the consequences at school. “That’s what was tough. Kids can be quite harsh.” Real Madrid trip brought painful realisation One moment appears to have convinced Lambert that his Liverpool career was slipping away. Liverpool travelled to face Real Madrid in the Champions League and Rodgers left him out of the squad. “It should have been one of the highlights of my career and that was the first time Brendan left me out of the squad.” Lambert said it was the first time in 12 years that he had found himself without regular football. “It was kind of, I knew then, it’s not going to work. It’s not going to work.” Still, he refused to accept defeat. “As long as I was in that building, I’m still gonna turn this round. I just need that time on the pitch and I’ll turn it round. And I believed it until the very end.” There was tension inside the dressing room too. “I felt a frustration from the lads towards myself, football wise,” Lambert said. “They were so used to playing with Luis and then obviously they’ve got me and I tried to help as much as I can, but it wasn’t Luis.” He did not blame Liverpool for the situation. “I don’t think it’s so specific to Liverpool. I think that happens in most clubs.” Lambert added: “They gave me the chance to succeed at Liverpool and they give everyone a chance to succeed at Liverpool and if you’re not going to help push that club forward then there’s not much else that they can do.” His conclusion was painfully simple. “At Liverpool, you’re not going to get chance after chance.” Life after Liverpool brought another battle The most powerful section of Bender’s interview comes when football disappears altogether. Lambert described entering a “black hole of self-pity” after his career and spoke candidly about alcohol. “When I drank heavily, I wasn’t a nice person. And I was coming to the end of playing that character. I didn’t want to play that character no more.” Asked by Bender what had changed him, Lambert replied simply: “Alcohol.” He contacted the PFA and attended Sporting Chance. “I didn’t go there thinking I’m an alcoholic or I needed help with alcohol. I went there because my life was in tatters.” Lambert said his “self-worth was non-existent” and connected his struggles with the loss of the game that had defined him. “The purpose I had in football, in life, was I had a football at my feet.” Eventually, a moment involving his daughter forced him to act. “It was a look from my daughter after a night out, another blackout. I’d obviously upset her, upset my wife, her mum, and that was it. It was enough to pick up the phone. It was enough to say that I’d had enough.” He told Bender: “I haven’t drank since that day.” Lambert now sees his life differently. “I don’t see myself as this big ex-footballer. I just want to be there for the kids when they need me emotionally.” His Liverpool career did not become the triumphant homecoming he had spent years imagining. His conversation with Alison Bender on After The Final Whistle reveals what that disappointment meant to the person living through it, and how the battle to prove people wrong eventually became a very different battle after football ended. As Lambert puts it now: “Life’s quite boring now. I prefer it like that.”