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Published 19:25 16 Jan 2015 GMT
Updated 10:17 17 Jan 2015 GMT
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I really didn’t want to do it but my agent made me and Kenny was a bit in my face. He said: ‘I hope you enjoy playing in Southport’ and I said ‘why’s that’ and he said ‘because that’s where the f*cking reserves play’.
My head went as my hero was battering me. I just told him I wanted the chance to do what he did and play at Anfield. I met him a few months later when I was in the first team and we shook hands and he wished me luck so there were no hard feelings and we laugh and joke about it now whenever we bump into each other.
When it came to leaving Liverpool in 1999 it was down to being unhappy at the club. Gerard Houllier had come in, I wasn’t playing and there was a lot of change at the club.
A lot of the lads at the club were looking to move on and it was very difficult as all the players liked Roy Evans and not many liked Gerard Houllier.
I was a regular in the Irish team and I really didn’t want to jeopardise my spot in that by not playing first team football with my club and I really wanted to play every week.
Brian Kidd, who had just taken over at Blackburn, called me and said that he wanted a few new faces at the club and he would like me to be one of them. Getting those calls is a bit like being asked out on a first date. They try to woo you, say all the right things and convince you that you are one of the best players in the world.
At Liverpool the next day, Gerard Houllier calls me in and says they have received a £4m bid from Blackburn and I’m free to speak to them if I want.
After speaking to Blackburn I went back to Liverpool and spoke to Gerard Houllier in his car. He told me he didn’t want me to go. I said that’s great but you’ll have me on the bench. He said he couldn’t guarantee me a place in the first team and I said to protect my international career I’m going to have to go.
So I said, ‘right, I’m going to go then’ thinking he’d say ‘please stay’ but he just said ‘okay’.
That night I rang Brian Kidd and said I’d sign. I went down the next day, had the medical and then it was time for the press conference the day after. On the way to the press conference I realised I was making a mistake. It didn’t feel right and I wanted to go back to Liverpool.
As the press conference wore on I started to get upset and in the end I started crying at the table beside Brian Kidd.
The papers the next day had the pictures under the headline ‘McAtears’.
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