Story of Joe Gomez’s rise from Charlton kid to Liverpool and England starter – by one of the men who knows him best

Blood Red: The Liverpool FC Podcast

Reach Podcasts

News, Soccer, Sports, Sports News

4.4 • 979 Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2018

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Best Liverpool player so far this season? Joe Gomez would have to be in with a shout, and his fine form was recognised by Gareth Southgate at the weekend when he chose the 21-year-old over Manchester City’s £50m man Kyle Walker to start for England against Spain at WembleyIt continued a remarkable rise for Gomez that started when he landed a deal with his local club Charlton Athletic – at the second attempt – and it is a rise that has been overseen by one of the men who knows him best, Steve Avory.Steve is the long-serving manager of Charlton’s highly successful academy and we spoke to him to get the inside track on the player he calls the ‘ultimate professional’.Steve tells a tale of a level-headed kid who is always able to meet the challenges put him front of him and who boasts the mental toughness to overcome any setback, including the cruciate ligament injury he sustained not long after signing for Liverpool and, more recently, the ankle problem that ruled him out of the Champions League final as well as the World Cup.Steve also has his say on where Gomez’s best position is and how his former protégé will never forget his roots.And there is also a little bit about England manager Southgate, who Steve used to teach in his previous career as head of PE at a secondary school in Crawley, and who he sees real parallels with Gomez.Enjoy. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is a Liverpool Echo podcast on Anfield Plus, the home of your daily
0:05.3	podcasts bringing you the inside track from Liverpool FC.
0:08.8	Hello and welcome to your latest Blood Red spinoff podcast.
0:12.3	I'm Paul Relock and here at the Echo we've had to think
0:15.2	a little bit out of the box during the dreaded international break which thankfully is now coming
0:19.6	to an end. But fully enough it's one of the Liverpool players who have been away on international duty
0:24.8	who is the subject of this special podcast. It's well documented just how good Joe Gomez has been so far
0:31.0	this season, but I decided to take a look into how he has grown to become
0:35.0	a starter for both Liverpool in England at the age of 21.
0:38.6	To do that, I picked up the phone to Steve Avery, who is the long-serving Academy manager at Charlton Athletic.
0:44.0	Now when it comes to young players, Steve knows what he's doing.
0:48.0	Along with Joe Gomez, he's oversaw the development of the likes of John Joe Shelfy, Harry
0:52.0	Arthur and Adamola Luckman into Premier League players in recent years.
0:56.0	But we mainly talked about Gomez and Steve offers a fascinating insight into the person behind a player who is quickly becoming first choice for
1:03.7	Yergen Clop and Garof Southgate. Speaking of Southgate, Steve used to teach the
1:08.4	England manager in his previous life working in a school, so we got him to talk
1:12.2	about that too and the pride he feels at seeing Gomez
1:15.0	lying up for Southgate Side.
1:17.5	We spoke when Steve was on his way up to his hometown of Sheffield to watch Charlton's
1:21.0	under 23s in action.
1:22.8	So apologies in advance if the sound quality is not perfect.
1:26.1	But hopefully what Steve has got to say will make up for it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Reach Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Reach Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.