Jan Molby on Fowler...

[655321]

This'll pull at your heartstrings...

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N146210040930-1621.htm

[SuperElf]

This'll pull at your heartstrings...

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N146210040930-1621.htmShame. I felt worse when I read the article last week about Keegan removing him from the side until he gets his fitness back up, but still.

I started following Liverpool in 1992, and he was the first player that I just couldn't take my eyes off of, even when he didn't have the ball. Otherworldly talent. Too bad it had to come to this . . .

[liverbird]

There is a certain melancholy about the loss of preternatural talent through
dissolute behavior. Maradona, Mickey Mantle, George Best etc etc. Robbie Fowler may not be as much a wastrel as those folks, but it might be close. For a time he was God, much as Maradona was at one time. I hope he can get back into shape to get a few more years.

[Matt Clark]

I think the crucial point is about desire. A lot of players lose their conditioning and their focus because the natural, automatic desire they had to continue excelling just evaporates. Fowler has been unfairly labelled in this way in the past, but he's also the sort of guy who eventually lets shit like that get to him. I don't doubt that an increasingly voluble part of his inner thinking is questioning whether it's all still worth it. When something that used to come to you as easily as breathing or walking starts to suddenly be an effort, then you reach the point where a long litany of sports stars through history have just tailed away.

He certainly doesn't need the money. He's been ploughing most of what he earns into property for well over a decade now and his earnings from that already outstrip what he earns from football. It also gives him an immediate focus outside of the game, a business to run and to improve. One suspects that football stopped being an all-consuming central part of Growler's life some time ago.

A shame. A real, real shame. But we'll always have the memories. And what memories ...

[imasyko]

He certainly doesn't need the money. He's been ploughing most of what he earns into property for well over a decade now and his earnings from that already outstrip what he earns from football. It also gives him an immediate focus outside of the game, a business to run and to improve. One suspects that football stopped being an all-consuming central part of Growler's life some time ago.

A shame. A real, real shame. But we'll always have the memories. And what memories ...

That's actually good to hear, Matt, that a player has enough sense to know his career won't last forever and to do something about his future while he can. Hopefully, Robbie won't be a 'hanger-on', ala Gazza, and will move on after his playing days end.