When some want to catch up with their peers or to remember people from their past, they look for their phone and their diary. James Milner only needs to reach for the remote control or glance at the technical area. “Every time you turn on the TV there are people talking who you played with or you played with the manager in the other dugout,” he reflected. His former teammates include Patrick Vieira, Scott Parker and Frank Lampard and he has seen his old midfield sidekicks directing proceedings from the sidelines in Liverpool games already this season. Milner now lines up alongside the teenager Harvey Elliott and has faced footballers four decades older. “I played against David Seaman and he’s just turned 59,” he said. “It’s mind blowing.”
He played for Bobby Robson, too, who was born 89 years ago. “He was so bubbly and his enthusiasm and knowledge of football was incredible,” Milner recalled. He was 18 when he played for Robson, half a lifetime ago, and has long been the old man of Anfield – it is four seasons since he pretended he had a walking stick in a goal celebration, after a few jibes about his age from Virgil van Dijk – but a rare landmark beckons. He is already the only man to play in the Premier League at both 16 and 36. On Thursday, it will be the 20th anniversary of his debut, a six-minute cameo when Terry Venables sent him on in Leeds’ 4-3 win at West Ham. Few play for two decades; still fewer manage two decades at the top.
