*Warning to readers with even a shred of dignity: do not read any further if you are offended by any and/or all references to Steven Gerrard's penis. Thank you.
Chapter six of Steven Gerrard's new book, "My Story," starts like this:
"The magic of the FA Cup was ruined the day my penis was bloodied and then stitched shut on an unromantic night in Bournemouth."
You have my attention Stevie. A little further down (no pun intended):
"But the only surprise that sunny Sunday afternoon, on 25 January 2014, was an eye-watering laceration to my private parts."
This is maybe not the thing I would write in a book that other people are going to read. The surest sign that Gerrard is never coming back to the Premier League is this passage in his book. Think of what the Evertonians would yell at him.
"I closed down one of their wingers. I tried to block his cross but felt a stinging in my privates. I thought, 'Shit — that doesn't feel right.'I'd slid into the tackle and so i didn't know whether I'd sat on my own studs or if his boot had followed through and caught me. I just knew my dick was stinging like fuck."
And then what happened?
"After making sure the TV cameras were focused on play far away, I took a tiny look. I pulled my shorts a couple of inches away from my waist and managed a sneaky check. My underpants were bloodied."
To summarize the rest of the passage, which is probably too long to print in full here:
Stevie went over to the trainers, who formed a huddle around him while they stitched up his little Stevie, which had a "gash right across the middle" and there was "plenty of blood." On the field. They stitched up his little Stevie on the field.
Now the Steven Gerrard "he's big and he's f*cking hard" song will have a slightly different connotation.
But that's not the only entertaining part of the book. Gerrard also offers us a fascinating glimpse into the making of the greatest video in human history.
Stevie was on the phone with Kolo, who couldn't make it to Dubai with the lads, and the rest of the lads started singing the Yaya/Kolo Toure song. This continued after they got out of the stretch Hummer they were riding in and went into a restaurant. Then Mamadou Sakho grabbed Stevie's phone and the rest was history (a security guard took the phone from Sakho and filmed so Sakho could be in the video).
This video always cheers us up when we're having a bad day, and the backstory cheers us up even more.
Most athlete autobiographies are devoid of anything resembling the intelligence worthy of a real review (not that athletes are unintelligent), so instead we're going to play a fun game called "Stevie G out of context," in which we take the best quotes from the book and present them here without any sort of explanation ot back-story.
"I will always respect Pearce the player — but I have lost a lot of respect for the man after that day in the toilet."
"Wayne cuffed me playfully around the face a few times and then lifted me up onto my feet."
"The argument wasn't over Phil Collins and the guy wasn't even a DJ."
"I don't smoke, I don't take drugs, I'm anti-everything that is wrong."
"Ginge, who was in his boxer shorts in bed, went into protection mode, covering himself up."
"It was carnage and Steve Finnan looked like he had either seen a ghost or witnessed a murder. I soon worked out that it was closer to murder."
"'Yeah, I'm with you.' I thought as the fans flooded towards me. I'm one of you. I'm fucking coming in . . . '"
"I was suddenly desparate. I wanted to be infected."
"I began to understand. No wonder it had felt as if I was being stabbed in the bollocks."
"I decided I'd get my fucking chimp in a headlock and I'd fucking muzzle him."
"'What have you just done?' I asked my chimp. 'Are you fucking stupid?'"
"We're all meant to be greedy footballers, they're all meant to be heartless sleeze-merchants."
Two extra favorite parts from the book:
Stevie refers to Costa Rica as "a tiny island with a population that was virtually the same as the number of people crammed into South London." Costa Rica is not an Island.
Stevie briefly considered, for his speech at his last game at Anfield, the Wolf of Wall Street "I'm not fucking leaving!" speech. Needless to say, this would have been the greatest moment in the history of everything.
"You still never did a review!"
Fine. Ill do a review. Here it is:
In his book, "My Story," Steven Gerrard plays into every single white English footballer stereotype while spending an uncomfortable amount of time talking about Rafa Benitez's icy black heart.
I hope you're happy. Philistines.
Contact The18 Staff Writer Sam Klomhaus at Klomhaus@The18.com or follow him on Twitter @SamKlomhaus
