The look on Frank Lampard’s face when he scored for Manchester City against Chelsea early this season took his father back more than 30 years, to his son’s first football match. ‘Solemn,’ says Frank Snr. ‘That was his expression that day which seems a lifetime ago now and it was the same when he scored that equaliser against his old club.’ Young Frank was five when his dad took him to a park near their home on the Essex-East London borders and asked the organiser of a schoolboy five-a-side if his lad could join in.
‘It was his first proper game of any sort,’ says Lampard Snr. ‘He scored with almost his first touch. Smashed it between the sticks.’ So why the subdued emotion?‘It was an own goal,’ says Lampard with a chuckle. ‘One of the first things I’d told him about football was that if he wanted to really make his mark he would have to score goals. So when the ball came to him in front of the posts he just banged it in, before remembering which way he was supposed to be kicking.’The grown man who ended Chelsea’s winning run to the start of this Premier League season knew exactly what he was doing in the rather grander environs of the Etihad Stadium in September. This time the restrained response stemmed from his maturity of 36 years, rather than childlike innocence.
He took professional pride in yet another of his almost 300 goals for club and country – but derived no specific pleasure in scoring against the team he served so brilliantly for 13 winters.
His father, as has been his wont down the years while young Frank has been surpassing his own distinguished career with West Ham and England, was in the crowd. Yet he missed the moment, not seeing the goal or the reaction until he watched Match of the Day back home that evening. ‘I left my seat with about 10 minutes to go,’ he says Lampard. ‘Frank was on the bench. It seemed too late for City to bring him on and I wanted to beat the traffic for the long drive back to London.‘As I reached the car a friend inside the ground called my mobile to tell me they’d put him on. As I got in the phone rang again to tell me he’d scored.’
The memories come flooding back on the eve of Frank the Younger’s return to Stamford Bridge wearing the paler blue of Chelsea’s rivals for the Premier League title. The circumstances of Saturday's second reunion have been altered by the controversy concerning the way City manoeuvred his transfer via New York. But something else happened that day in Manchester. Something which reassures the Lampards as they go to this high-tension fixture, one which could virtually decide the championship, that they will be greeted with respect and no little affection by the home supporters.
Lampard Snr recalls: ‘As soon as I turned on the car radio the first thing I heard was the commentator on 5 Live screaming ‘’I can’t believe this….they’re singing Lampard’s name…..the Chelsea fans …..incredible.” ‘What did I feel? Well, yeah, it was extraordinary. I felt proud. Not only of Frank but even more so of the punters. Fantastic. I also felt a twinge of relief for my son. But then they’ve always been brilliant with him and I’m sure they will be again on Saturday.’
That confidence is fuelled by the knowledge that it was not by Lampard’s volition that he has found himself spending this season playing for another major Premier League club.
Frank Snr says: ‘He had not been offered a contract by Chelsea. So he would have to leave. There were no gripes from his side. This happens in football. All good things come to an end. Especially at a great club like Chelsea, the time comes when they want to move on. He accepted that and decided he would like to broaden his horizons by playing abroad. ‘So he signed for New York City, not Manchester City. When that was happening last summer Man City went to New York on tour and Manuel Pellegrini came to see Frank. He asked if he would like to join them until the end of the year as a way of keeping fit while waiting for the start of the season in America this March.‘What was he supposed to do? Suddenly the champions of England are asking you to join their squad for a bit so you can stay in shape. In any walk of business if a company lets you go and someone else offers you the chance to work for them at the same high level, what do you say? ‘Frank spoke to me about it and I said to him that he would never get another chance of Premier League and Champions League football. I said to him: "You are a professional footballer. That’s your job."’ Our family has been brought up in football. It was all I knew.
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