Did you know, Steven Gerrard is the longest-serving captain in our club’s history?
He took the armband off Sami Hyypia in 2003 and held it for 12 years until he left the club in the summer of 2015.
You need to be seriously thick-skinned to live through all the highs and lows that the responsibility entails, and in a new book called “Liverpool Captains” by author Ragnhild Lund Ansnes he has offered his advice to any future players who are lucky enough to be given the honour.
“On good days you’ll feel on top of the world. On bad days you’ll feel sad and lonely. If you can’t handle the low days, when the shit hits the fan and everyone’s out to get you, if you can’t handle those days mentally, don’t take the job,” he said (Echo).
“Every single day, even when I wasn’t playing badly, I felt that pressure. But I loved it, even on bad days. When we’d had a bad game or if I’d played badly, I used to tell myself: ‘I’m the captain. I need to put this right, and I’ll have another chance to do that in three or four days.’
“I dreamed about wearing the captain’s armband from when I was about 10. So when I got it, I wanted to enjoy it, even on bad days.”
He also admits he learned a lot from Robbie Fowler and Jamie Redknapp, both of whom wore the armband while he was working through the academy and learning his trade as a professional footballer.
The whole book should be a great read. Lund Ansnes spent three years travelling across Europe speaking to 16 of our former captains.
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Phil Neal, Ron Yeats, Tommy Smith, Souness, Ronnie Whelan, Glenn Hysen, Mark Wright, Ian Rush, John Barnes, Paul Ince, Redknapp, Fowler, Sami Hyypia and Jamie Carragher all feature.