FeatureThree things we learned from Steve McManaman on 'We are Liverpool' podcast

Here are three takeaways from his visit to the AXA Training Centre studio with co-hosts Robbie Fowler and Peter McDowall...

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A pair of King Kenny's boots saw him turn down Everton for Liverpool

McManaman rose through the youth levels at Liverpool to go on and make 272 first-team appearances between 1990 and 1999.

He could have done so for Everton, had it not been for a meeting as a 14-year-old with Sir Kenny Dalglish when the Reds were putting on a hard sell.

"I'd just been to the cup final – Everton v Liverpool – with Everton actually because they wanted to sign me at that age," McManaman recalls.

"For Kenny to know so much about you – listen, we know it's scripted, of course it is – but for him to know so much about you and your father and your upbringing and who you play for, what position you play. And then he's talking about, 'It'd be great if you can get into Liverpool's first team and do this and that.' It's starry-eyed stuff.

"So there was a pair of football boots on the side and they were Kenny's. They were like these special editions that he'd worn. They were gold with white on the back.

"He said to me, 'You can have them.' They were miles too big for me. These were handmade, limited edition, especially for me. I just thought, 'Brilliant.'"

'I would have loved to have done this with Liverpool'

An honest McManaman goes in-depth about his decision – controversial at the time – to leave Liverpool for Real Madrid on a free transfer in 1999.

His spell with Los Blancos was a resounding success, with his first season ending with a goal in the Champions League final and winner's medal. Another European Cup and two La Liga titles would follow.

But there was still a pang of 'what if?' even as he was achieving something all footballers dream of.

He explains: "We'd just won the first Champions League and I'd only been at the club 10 months.

"The lads were in the dressing room, singing Spanish songs and lifting the president in the air – which I did. But I just felt as if I was a bit of a fraud. I just thought to myself, 'This is just weird.'

"I got my phone and took myself out of the dressing room and went along the corridor and sat on the floor and listened to messages.

"I remember thinking, 'I would have loved to have done this with Liverpool' – because I would've been right in the forefront of it all and really throwing myself into it.

"I was very much on the periphery of all the celebrations just because I didn't understand it."

He made Robbie Fowler a La Liga winner

When paying a visit to his good friend, Fowler enjoyed a unique bus trip around the Spanish capital, courtesy of McManaman, immediately after Real had clinched the league title.

Fowler tells the tale: "He came into the players' lounge afterwards and threw two T-shirts at me and my painter-and-decorator cousin. He went, 'Come on, we're doing a tour of the city.'

"So I get on the bus, there were the likes of Zidane, Figo, Raul and I'm getting on the bus thinking, 'What's this?'

"As far as you could see, there were people. What happens then is that all the players get off the bus and they go and dance about in the fountain.

"I know it's the first time I'd won the league but it might really take the michael if I get off and start dancing in the water!

"It was an unbelievable night and, quite rightly, I was ready to celebrate because it was the first time I'd won the league."

McManaman replied: "I was made up for him. Congratulations!"