Ben Woodburn aiming to show Jurgen Klopp he can be trusted in the big matches for Liverpool
Ben Woodburn is the village boy with a hint of steel who is busy finding his feet and forging a bright future at Liverpool
On school mornings, he was up at six and ready for the taxi. The journey could take an hour. Then breakfast, lessons, training. If there was a youth game, he might not be home until evening. This was every week from aged 12: commitment, long hours. Ben Woodburn is a young footballer with the ability to achieve great things but the urge, also, to graft. He’s from Tattenhall, a prosperous village near Chester, where father Chris is a regional manager for BP and mother Alison worked for a company supplying fences. A good home, a nice rural life. This caused dilemmas when he reached secondary school age. Liverpool recommended he enrol at the club’s Education Centre at Rainhill High, but Rainhill lay 30 miles of busy commuter roads away and Woodburn did not want to leave the family base for digs. Hence the 6am taxi.
“You did have mornings you didn’t fancy it. Days when you’d try to be off sick and go and see your mum,” he admits. “If I was too tired I’d sit in the front and try to go to sleep.” But “you got used to it, it was all right”. There were other scholars from around Chester in the car and it could be a laugh. “Maybe not at six in the morning, but on the journeys home.”
Still, Woodburn’s three best friends are boys he grew up with in Tattenhall and they had more carefree lives. “There were loads of parties going on but you’d rather play football than have a few parties. You can have fun after your career. I mean, I did have fun, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between being a footballer and normal life.”
That’s Woodburn, a soft-spoken lad of hard-nosed focus, described by his manager Jurgen Klopp as “that perfect balance of talent and attitude”. He’s an international goalscorer and Liverpool record-breaker, yet he’s still attending Rainhill, twice a week, to complete his BTec and still in the family home; always with his village mates playing FIFA. You can spot him out with the lads, a spy tells me, at the Ice Cream Farm. “That’s right next to Tattenhall,” he says. A nightclub? “No! Just an ice-cream place. I go with mates over the summer. Play mini golf there. It’s for children really, but it’s fun.”
Today marks one year since Woodburn became Liverpool’s third youngest debutant, versus Sunderland, and Wednesday is the first anniversary of him smashing home against Leeds to break Michael Owen’s record and become Liverpool’s youngest scorer at 17 years and 45 days. There was no choreographed goal celebration (“I don’t have one”), he just yelled with joy in front of the Kop — a powerful, innocent, timeless moment.
Afterwards, mum and dad drove him home, he saw his goal a couple of times on Instagram, played FIFA, then tried to sleep. At school, “it was a bit different after the goal. You’d hear kids going ‘it’s Ben, it’s Ben’ but [BTec students] have our own rooms anyway, it’s quite quiet”.
That’s how he likes it. When promoted to first-team training the year previously, he was doing his GCSEs. “I didn’t tell people at school that I was with the first team. Just act normal really.”
This is Ben’s first national newspaper one-on-one and he’s 18 now. We meet at sheltered housing near Anfield, where he’s visiting as part of Liverpool’s outreach programme helping the deprived community around the stadium. He does a Q&A and plays bingo with residents and he’s shy, but polite and genuine. The old folk love him. This season, after nine first-team games in 2016-17, he has played only 45 club minutes. It’s part of a development strategy, with Klopp preferring to deploy him in Liverpool’s bigger under-23 games and hand him a key role in the Uefa Youth League, where Steven Gerrard’s under-19s are blazing a trail.
Home truths: Woodburn pays a visit to a sheltered housing scheme near AnfieldDAVID RAWCLIFFE
He is patient. “I just want to show the manager that he can trust me in games. Big games. Try and get as many games on the pitch and hopefully, in a few years or whatever, get a proper place in the team,” says Woodburn. And regarding being Liverpool’s record-breaker, his attitude is he has achieved nothing yet. “Anyone can score a goal really,” he says. “You’ve just got to be in the right place. You’re not going to have a career off one goal. I’ve got to keep working hard.”
Woodburn signed for the academy aged nine, having also trained at Crewe and Everton. At Liverpool, the sessions were the most fun and he was a fan whose favourites were Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina — even if his first idol was David Beckham.
That middle-class, village background did make Liverpool coaches wonder: would he be tough enough? After all, their academy is full of hungry estate lads and inner-city boys. But Ben tells of his formative football experiences: dad was a decent amateur player, and a coach himself, who always gave it to him straight. Then there’s George, his younger brother who also spent some time at Liverpool and is now on Chester’s books.
“He’s a full-back. He’s got a massive throw in,” he smiles. “Rory Delap. We played in the garden and one person would always end up in tears, after someone took a step too far. He puts a tackle in. Did I nutmeg him? All the time. Maybe it made us both the players we became.”
The picture he paints is of him trying to run rings round George — and George attempting to nail him. So when he joined academy training, “at first all there really was were players from Liverpool [city] there. They could tackle! Some training sessions would get feisty and you had to learn quick or get found out.
“You’d see some players who didn’t want a tackle, and other players would just go for them. But I don’t think they looked on me as a weak one. Once you prove you can take it, people leave you. Maybe I’ve my brother to thank.”
The question that the coaches ponder now is his best position. The under-23s’ manager Neil Critchley believes he can fulfil any of four or five offensive roles. The first-team development coach, Pep Lijnders, used Woodburn at No 10 when managing the under-16s and has had him understudying Adam Lallana, seeing similarities in his attacking flexibility, tactical intelligence and pressing ability.
Where does Woodburn think he’ll end up? “Don’t know,” he laughs. “I think it depends on how you grow. I can be a winger now, but I could get bigger and slower, or I could get quicker. So. I could stay on the wing or go in midfield. I don’t really mind.” In any case, flexibility “is what he [Klopp] likes. He likes everyone rotating, different movements. You can end up anywhere really. If he can trust you in a few positions you’ve got more chance of playing.”
Having Trent Alexander-Arnold and Rhian Brewster in the first-team group helps. They’re mates. Brewster will break through soon, he believes (“his finishing is unbelievable”). Alexander-Arnold is his best friend at the club. They did their initiation together duetting Stand By Me.
Klopp calls him “Prince of Wales”. He has six caps, scoring brilliantly on debut against Austria — yet he was born in Nottingham and has lived in Cheshire since he was two. He qualifies through a Welsh grandfather and he has been in the Wales system since joining a regional development squad at 12. Does he ever wonder, though, whether he should have chosen England — especially with England winning Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups?
“It’s a great achievement,” he smiles, “but I’d rather play for Wales’ first team than England’s Under-18s.” And there it is, a glint of that quiet and hidden steel.
Ben Woodburn is the village boy with a hint of steel who is busy finding his feet and forging a bright future at Liverpool
On school mornings, he was up at six and ready for the taxi. The journey could take an hour. Then breakfast, lessons, training. If there was a youth game, he might not be home until evening. This was every week from aged 12: commitment, long hours. Ben Woodburn is a young footballer with the ability to achieve great things but the urge, also, to graft. He’s from Tattenhall, a prosperous village near Chester, where father Chris is a regional manager for BP and mother Alison worked for a company supplying fences. A good home, a nice rural life. This caused dilemmas when he reached secondary school age. Liverpool recommended he enrol at the club’s Education Centre at Rainhill High, but Rainhill lay 30 miles of busy commuter roads away and Woodburn did not want to leave the family base for digs. Hence the 6am taxi.
“You did have mornings you didn’t fancy it. Days when you’d try to be off sick and go and see your mum,” he admits. “If I was too tired I’d sit in the front and try to go to sleep.” But “you got used to it, it was all right”. There were other scholars from around Chester in the car and it could be a laugh. “Maybe not at six in the morning, but on the journeys home.”
Still, Woodburn’s three best friends are boys he grew up with in Tattenhall and they had more carefree lives. “There were loads of parties going on but you’d rather play football than have a few parties. You can have fun after your career. I mean, I did have fun, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a difference between being a footballer and normal life.”
That’s Woodburn, a soft-spoken lad of hard-nosed focus, described by his manager Jurgen Klopp as “that perfect balance of talent and attitude”. He’s an international goalscorer and Liverpool record-breaker, yet he’s still attending Rainhill, twice a week, to complete his BTec and still in the family home; always with his village mates playing FIFA. You can spot him out with the lads, a spy tells me, at the Ice Cream Farm. “That’s right next to Tattenhall,” he says. A nightclub? “No! Just an ice-cream place. I go with mates over the summer. Play mini golf there. It’s for children really, but it’s fun.”
Today marks one year since Woodburn became Liverpool’s third youngest debutant, versus Sunderland, and Wednesday is the first anniversary of him smashing home against Leeds to break Michael Owen’s record and become Liverpool’s youngest scorer at 17 years and 45 days. There was no choreographed goal celebration (“I don’t have one”), he just yelled with joy in front of the Kop — a powerful, innocent, timeless moment.
Afterwards, mum and dad drove him home, he saw his goal a couple of times on Instagram, played FIFA, then tried to sleep. At school, “it was a bit different after the goal. You’d hear kids going ‘it’s Ben, it’s Ben’ but [BTec students] have our own rooms anyway, it’s quite quiet”.
That’s how he likes it. When promoted to first-team training the year previously, he was doing his GCSEs. “I didn’t tell people at school that I was with the first team. Just act normal really.”
This is Ben’s first national newspaper one-on-one and he’s 18 now. We meet at sheltered housing near Anfield, where he’s visiting as part of Liverpool’s outreach programme helping the deprived community around the stadium. He does a Q&A and plays bingo with residents and he’s shy, but polite and genuine. The old folk love him. This season, after nine first-team games in 2016-17, he has played only 45 club minutes. It’s part of a development strategy, with Klopp preferring to deploy him in Liverpool’s bigger under-23 games and hand him a key role in the Uefa Youth League, where Steven Gerrard’s under-19s are blazing a trail.
Home truths: Woodburn pays a visit to a sheltered housing scheme near AnfieldDAVID RAWCLIFFE
He is patient. “I just want to show the manager that he can trust me in games. Big games. Try and get as many games on the pitch and hopefully, in a few years or whatever, get a proper place in the team,” says Woodburn. And regarding being Liverpool’s record-breaker, his attitude is he has achieved nothing yet. “Anyone can score a goal really,” he says. “You’ve just got to be in the right place. You’re not going to have a career off one goal. I’ve got to keep working hard.”
Woodburn signed for the academy aged nine, having also trained at Crewe and Everton. At Liverpool, the sessions were the most fun and he was a fan whose favourites were Gerrard, Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina — even if his first idol was David Beckham.
That middle-class, village background did make Liverpool coaches wonder: would he be tough enough? After all, their academy is full of hungry estate lads and inner-city boys. But Ben tells of his formative football experiences: dad was a decent amateur player, and a coach himself, who always gave it to him straight. Then there’s George, his younger brother who also spent some time at Liverpool and is now on Chester’s books.
“He’s a full-back. He’s got a massive throw in,” he smiles. “Rory Delap. We played in the garden and one person would always end up in tears, after someone took a step too far. He puts a tackle in. Did I nutmeg him? All the time. Maybe it made us both the players we became.”
The picture he paints is of him trying to run rings round George — and George attempting to nail him. So when he joined academy training, “at first all there really was were players from Liverpool [city] there. They could tackle! Some training sessions would get feisty and you had to learn quick or get found out.
“You’d see some players who didn’t want a tackle, and other players would just go for them. But I don’t think they looked on me as a weak one. Once you prove you can take it, people leave you. Maybe I’ve my brother to thank.”
The question that the coaches ponder now is his best position. The under-23s’ manager Neil Critchley believes he can fulfil any of four or five offensive roles. The first-team development coach, Pep Lijnders, used Woodburn at No 10 when managing the under-16s and has had him understudying Adam Lallana, seeing similarities in his attacking flexibility, tactical intelligence and pressing ability.
Where does Woodburn think he’ll end up? “Don’t know,” he laughs. “I think it depends on how you grow. I can be a winger now, but I could get bigger and slower, or I could get quicker. So. I could stay on the wing or go in midfield. I don’t really mind.” In any case, flexibility “is what he [Klopp] likes. He likes everyone rotating, different movements. You can end up anywhere really. If he can trust you in a few positions you’ve got more chance of playing.”
Having Trent Alexander-Arnold and Rhian Brewster in the first-team group helps. They’re mates. Brewster will break through soon, he believes (“his finishing is unbelievable”). Alexander-Arnold is his best friend at the club. They did their initiation together duetting Stand By Me.
Klopp calls him “Prince of Wales”. He has six caps, scoring brilliantly on debut against Austria — yet he was born in Nottingham and has lived in Cheshire since he was two. He qualifies through a Welsh grandfather and he has been in the Wales system since joining a regional development squad at 12. Does he ever wonder, though, whether he should have chosen England — especially with England winning Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups?
“It’s a great achievement,” he smiles, “but I’d rather play for Wales’ first team than England’s Under-18s.” And there it is, a glint of that quiet and hidden steel.
