‘I played 308 times for Liverpool but should have retired at 26’ | Football | Sport

Becoming a professional football player is what most kids grow up dreaming of. But for one ex-Premier League ace, he wishes he’d have packed it in earlier.

Jamie Redknapp notched up over 300 appearances for Liverpool, but the former midfielder has admitted he’d have been happier retiring in his mid-twenties. Redknapp eventually continued until he was 31, but claimed he only stuck around for the money.

Speaking in a tell-all interview with The i, he said: “I was too eager to please everybody [during his career], coming back from injuries too quickly. I had my meniscus (knee cartilage) taken out when I was 18 or 19 and I played again 12 days later, which was just completely ridiculous.

“I retired at 31 but I should have retired at 26 or 27. At the end it was just almost mercenary, doing it for the money and I didn’t enjoy it – I couldn’t play to the level I wanted. I was doing it for the wrong reasons, but you think you’ve got a family and you’re a long time retired. You don’t know what your career is going look like, I didn’t know what I was going to do next”

Redknapp was always under an added amount of pressure from an early age, given his father, Harry, was already an established manager in the professional game. But it wasn’t just his dad who came from a football background, given his grandad was also a player, while Jamie’s cousin, Frank Lampard, went on to become one of the greatest Premier League stars of all time.

Reflecting on his upbringing, the ex-Liverpool ace said: “If I started saying I wished I’d done this and that, people would think ‘what a greedy git’! I did everything I wanted to from being a kid – playing in the Premier League, playing for and captaining Liverpool, playing for my country, I had an amazing time. That brought me to TV. I’m so lucky. It would be remiss of me to say I’ve got regrets when I’ve been so fortunate.

“My grandad was such a fantastic footballer, so I’d just watch him. We’d go on holiday to Isle of Sheppey, at a caravan site, and we’d be playing football for hours and hours.”

Before adding: “In Bournemouth I obviously had my dad to look up to, but having a brother three years older than me who was a talented footballer was ideal preparation for life in the game. Every single picture I have a football in my hand. Those days in Bournemouth as an apprentice, on £27 a week, were as much fun on the pitch as I have ever had.”