A Heart-Warming Football Tale: A career turned full circle for Liverpool new signing Rickie Lambert

Posted on June 3, 2014 in Articles

By Tom Simmonds. Sunday marked a special day in the life of Rickie Lambert. The 32-year-old striker put pen to paper on his move back to the club he was released from at the age of 15. He also headed off with the England squad to Miami, as the national side ramped up their preparations for this summer's World Cup. However, the move has caused a fair bit of head-scratching amongst some...

When it was announced last week that Liverpool had launched a surprise bid to lure Rickie Lambert away from Southampton, a certain opinion quickly dominated the debate. This was, to paraphrase, “Why would Lambert move to a club where he will not be first choice and will not play as many games as he does for Southampton?”

Rickie Lambert scored with his first touch in an England shirt against Scotland in August 2013

Lambert is the wrong player to ask that question of, and his desire to push the move through was a heart-warming reminder that there are still footballers who think of the game as something more than a vocation.

Lambert’s eagerness to sign for the club he supports, who released him aged fifteen, is a gesture to tug at a football fan’s heartstrings. If you examine his career trajectory, you have the perfect tear-jerker. Lambert, after 5 years playing for Macclesfield, Stockport and Rochdale, went on to score fifty-one goals over three years at Bristol Rovers. This prompted Southampton to pay a seven-figure fee for him in August 2009. What has happened to Lambert in his five years at St Mary’s is barely credible. 106 goals for Southampton across three divisions (including 27 goals in the Premier League), two promotions and a goal on his England debut with his second touch have culminated in him earning a place in England’s World Cup squad.

Lambert has scored 27 Premier League goals in two seasons with Southampton

Lambert has achieved a huge amount in recent times, and he will see interest from the club he supports as the happy ending in his personal fairytale, particularly at thirty-two years of age. In other words, he’s thinking like a fan. It would be easy to be cynical and speculate that the impending raids on Southampton’s squad over the summer are a factor in Lambert’s choosing to move. Liverpool are also unlikely to offer Lambert peanuts in wages, but I prefer not to think of that. I prefer to smile because a talented, honest professional’s efforts have earned him a move back home.

What Lambert’s story also reminds us of is that there are some modern footballers who sit firmly outside the cheap clichés bandied about them. Accusations of players being ‘detached’ and having ‘forgotten where they come from’ are the two most common. Neither of these can reasonably be levelled at Lambert after this episode. His origins have been the key factor in his decision to move to Anfield. Again, a cynic would say that joining today’s Liverpool is not something for a player to agonise over. Maybe not, but Lambert has a profound personal motivation for joining, and is not making a cold, flinty career decision here.

The striker returns to the club he left at the age of 15 – he has since played for Blackpool, Macclesfield Town, Stockport County, Rochdale, Bristol Rovers and Southampton

Besides, rewards beyond money and medals lie in remaining true to your roots. Borussia Dortmund’s general manager Michael Zorc, a Dortmunder by birth, also holds Dortmund’s appearance record and serves as a formidable, and trusted figure. In England, Wolves legend Stan Cullis managed their great side of the 1950s after a being a one-club man as a pre-war Wolves player. A stand and a statue at Molineux are permanent monuments to Cullis’ achievements and moral fibre (he refused to perform a Nazi salute before an international in Berlin in 1938). Stands throughout England are also named after such loyal, grounded men; Ronnie Clayton (Blackburn), Jimmy Armfield (Blackpool) and Barry Kitchener (Millwall) are but three examples. What will be interesting to see is, if an upturn in the numbers of the ‘one-club man’ occurs. Will players who, already rich beyond reason, seek in greater numbers the higher purpose of becoming part of a football club’s fabric and soul?

Do you think Rickie Lambert was right to follow his heart and sign for Liverpool, or do you think he should have stayed at Southampton? Do you think the likes of Ryan Giggs, John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher will inspire a new generation of players to be ‘one-club men’?