Point to prove

VOCAL PRESENCE: Anthony Gerrard makes himself heard at Crewe.

ANTHONY Gerrard returns to where it all started professionally tomorrow, with a renewed sense of wanting to prove doubters wrong.

If passed fit following trouble with a calf muscle, the loan defender (29) will make a first return to the Banks’s Stadium since he ended a successful four-year stay to move to Cardiff and the Championship six years ago.

The cousin of Liverpool legend Steven, Gerrard grew up on the same street in Huyton and watched in a holiday bar as Steve lifted the Champions League trophy in 2005.

The centre-back had just been released as a youngster by Everton and the Saddlers represented a way back into the - at the opposite end of the scale from his cousin.

Having known what life is like on the outside looking in, he baulks at the idea that a wind-down to summer is on the cards with two games to go and a mid-table finish assured.

“You should have the same enthusiasm every day you walk into training,” said Gerrard. “You could be a builder or a plumber and to do this job is easy, to be honest.

“If you don’t enjoy it and don’t treat every game as if it is your last then you are foolish. In the blink of an eye your career can be gone. You don’t want to look back on having taken it easy.

“That is how I look at it. Every game is an opportunity to impress someone.”

Impress Gerrard did at Walsall, winning a title in 2007. “The way the club is run is brilliant,” Gerrard said. “The fans are top drawer. They get 4,000 every game which doesn’t sound the best, but with the likes of Wolves, Birmingham and Aston Villa, to get that every week is a fantastic achievement.”

A similar argument could be made for Athletic’s own catchment area and he sees similarities between the clubs over dressing-room politics. If any prima donnas existed at SportsDirect.com Park, you can bet Gerrard has knocked them down a peg or two.

“This is a proper football club and environment; banter and lads ripping the back out of each other,” he said. “The higher you go, people take themselves too seriously. They are too interested in what they have got on and what shoes they are buying. Lads here are having a crack, and that’s what it’s about for me.”

A recent YouTube video showed Gerrard killing a ball that came down from a great height stone dead under pressure while playing for Athletic. The free agent hopes it won’t come to his agent putting together a highlight reel of such moments, but he has a few favourites already online, even better than that.

“But hopefully my reputation and where I have played and the big games I have played in will stand me in good stead,” he says.

A move to the United States, which fell through in January, could be on again when Gerrard becomes a free agent at the end of the season. But he doesn’t rule out staying with Athletic.

“Hopefully people have been watching my performances,” Gerrard said. “Three clean sheets in five games isn’t a bad return from someone who was supposedly going to the glue factory.”