Steven Gerrard looks awkward. Liverpool’s captain has been asked to recall the events of September 27, 1999, and initially there is reticence.
The date marks Everton’s last win in an Anfield derby. Soon, however, the mood is lifted and Gerrard is able to laugh as he tells a tale that starts with a sending-off and ends with him at the centre of an unusual confrontation in the toilets of a plush city-centre bar.
Gerrard was a substitute for that 1-0 defeat but, as an impetuous 19-year-old, he had a burning desire to make a mark when he was thrust into the action after 66 minutes.
He did that literally, as he embedded his studs into the thigh of Everton goalscorer Kevin Campbell with a shocking tackle.
With Campbell writhing on the floor, Gerrard was shown a red card by referee Mike Riley but, as he would discover hours later on the city’s waterfront, in a bar appropriately named Blue, the incident wasn’t over.
‘I had a gut-wrenching pain in my stomach after that defeat,’ Gerrard reflected. ‘It took a long time to go. We’d lost, I’d been sent off but I’d booked a meal at the Albert Dock for afterwards, thinking we were going to win. I really didn’t want to go but I don’t like letting people down.
'So I went with a face on me and the first person I bumped into in the toilet was Kevin Campbell! He dropped his keks and showed me the stud marks I’d left on his thigh.
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