Carra: My Autobiography Read Online Free PDF Page B

for footballers. We had to attend lessons and do all the usual school stuff, but we also trained with the best coaches every day and were all given our first taste of international football while we were there, so there was always something to look forward to.

After it was shut down, critics argued it was too elitist, focusing too much on a select group to the cost of others. This doesn't make sense to me. The fact I could go from a Bootle Sunday League side to Lilleshall proved how fair the scouting system was, while even those who didn't get in didn't necessarily suffer from having to stay with their clubs. What Lilleshall guaranteed was that the most highly rated youngsters in the country were given every chance to progress, and if any of those went on to represent England, as I did, it was a success. Ray Clemence's son Stephen and Gavin McCann were the other players in my year who went on to play at the top level. My Liverpool teammate and former rival from Pacific Jamie Cassidy was also there. We shared digs. He's responsible for my now being known as Jamie rather than James. To my family and friends, I'm still James, but during my spell at Lilleshall, Steve Heighway would refer to the 'two Jamies' away from home, so at Liverpool it's stuck.

Our eyes were opened to the standard of player elsewhere, but also to the financial differences between the Scousers and others. Me and Jamie were proud of our YTS contracts, while others were telling us about being paid as much as £10,000 in signing-on fees. In every sense, this was a taste of a world beyond Liverpool, which broadened our horizons.

By the end of my first year there I couldn't wait to go back. Steve Heighway had other ideas. Lilleshall played Liverpool towards the end of year one and I didn't play well. 'That's it, I'm bringing him back here,' Heighway told one of the coaches. 'They're ruining his game.' I heard this news later. He was wrong, though. I'd simply had a poor match and there was nothing to worry about. I was progressing at least as well as I would have had I stayed on Merseyside.

I was overlooked for England Schoolboys, but made my international debut representing Lilleshall at Under-16 level, partly because the aptly named nononsense Keith Blunt was manager, and he seemed to take a shine to the street fighter from Liverpool.

Yorkshireman Blunt was my type of boss. It was he who convinced Heighway it wasn't necessary to take me out of Lilleshall. He coached Joe Cole later, who told me how when he tried a Cruyff turn in the centre circle he was met with a scream of disapproval. 'Stop!' cried Blunt in his Brian Glover-inspired accent. 'We won't be having any of that nonsense here, lad.'

I was one of the smallest players in our group, but what I lacked in height I compensated for in spirit. I heard a few years later Wayne Rooney was shown a photograph of me standing beside Marlon Broomes, a six-foot-tall defender who's played for a host of First Division clubs, and asked, 'Which of these do you think became an England international defender?' Marlon dwarfed me, so the point was made: there's an obsession with physique at a young age, but it's no indicator of where a career can go.

Coaches like Blunt saw my attributes, although my language gave him the opportunity to indulge in a form of physical torture. There was a rule that anyone caught swearing had to do a lap of the pitch. Suffice to say, I ended up resembling a marathon runner. The Bootle Tourette's syndrome was no help to me: I cursed every misdirected shot or pass. I might as well have been wearing spikes rather than boots. I couldn't be bothered with the school lessons either. I was only interested in football. Michael Owen attended Lilleshall a couple of years later and told me the headmaster would discipline the players by shouting, 'We're not going to have another James Carragher here!' Michael, or Mo as I'll refer to him, said that by the time he met me he thought I must have been some