James Milner was busy being a Leeds-born cyborg long before Erling Haaland was a thing. The Liverpool vice-captain isn’t stopping anytime soon
Who’s this then?
James Philip Milner is a teetotal, 36-year-old, Leeds-born legend who has been playing for 20 years and shows no sign of stopping with Liverpool, who have offered him another year on his contract. He has, just this week, been made an MBE in recognition of the foundation he set up to promote healthy recreation for young people, so I decided to revisit and update the appraisal of Milly I wrote two years ago.
A 5ft 9ins multi-purpose player who excels in several different positions, he has played everywhere on the pitch apart from goalkeeper and centre-half, is built like a brick sh*thouse, is hard as nails and quite possibly still the fittest footballer playing today even at 36. He also speaks fluent Spanish.
Legendarily indefatigable since an early age, he has been excelling at pretty much everything he’s ever done. A total of 11 GCSEs mark him out as anything but the archetypal intellectually uninterested footballer. A special school award for PE was an early marker for his quite extraordinary physical prowess.
He played for his school at football, cricket and long-distance running, amateur football for Rawdon and Horsforth and was on Leeds United’s books from the age of ten. Making his first-team debut at 16, his first goal for the club made him Premier League’s youngest scorer – a record he held for two and a half years.
He has made a total of 814 appearances for Leeds, Swindon, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Liverpool, with a further 61 caps for his country from 2009 to 2016, having made a record 46 appearances for the under-21s. Add all those games up and it comes to 921 in total. And he ain’t done yet. He must have 100 more in his sights. There is absolutely no sign of him retiring and no-one would bet against him playing in the top flight aged 40.
For many years…
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