Jamie Carragher reveals he was in 'dark place' after receiving panicked phone call from his son last year
He might be a former football player turned pundit, but first and foremost, Jamie Carragher is a father.
Luckily for the former Liverpool ace, 46, his young son James followed in his footsteps and embarked on a career in professional football too, so he's never too far away from a ball and a pitch.
But although the ex-defender managed to make it through his 17-year stint with the Reds without sustaining any career-threatening injuries or muscular issues for the most part, his son hasn't had the same luck.
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James, who Carragher shares with his childhood sweetheart Nicola Hart along with their daughter Mia, spent several years in Liverpool's youth ranks before moving to League One club Wigan Athletic in 2017.
The 21-year-old spent the second half of the 2023-24 campaign on loan at Inverness Caledonian Thistle in Scotland and is regarded as something of a rising star - who has given his parents more than a few scares over the years.
You might reckon that Carragher is living the dream watching his son pursue his passion for football just as he did, but the dad says he has experienced some of 'the darkest moments' of his life while supporting James.
That's because the centre-back has been crippled by a reoccurring knee issue which almost scuppered his career before it had really began - and Carragher isn't afraid to admit that his son's health woes put him in an extremely 'dark place'.
In a special episode of The Overlap x Gillette to celebrate Father's Day on 16 June, the star explained it isn't easy being a father to a professional footballer - especially when you receive panicked phone calls while you're out of the country.
Carragher said: "12 months ago I was in a dark place over my son's injuries. I wouldn't wish that on my own enemy.
"I didn't get injured [as a player]. I'll be honest, my mentality with injuries, even when I was at Liverpool... I'd go in the treatment room and see people on the bed and think 'they're faking it, they're not tough enough', because I didn't get injured, I didn't understand how people got injured.
"Now I had a broken leg, I had a knee operation, but in terms of hamstrings, calves or something not feeling right, I would always play through things, that's just the way I was brought up.
"I would dismiss people for it because I couldn't understand, but then my own son went through it."
Carragher went on to explain that his son's knee problem flared up 'on the back of Covid', making the circumstances even more difficult to navigate.
The father-of-two continued: "So Covid came in so no one could go to the training ground, so I said, 'You'll have to do a bit of training on your own, because we don't know when you'll go back'."
"One-on-one coaching and his knee blows up, but everything was closed, you could get an operation or go to physio, nothing. His knee would keep swelling up and swelling up," Carragher added.
"It went on for a couple of years, and he had the operation and I'm thinking he'll be back now. He'd been playing on with it, taking anti-inflammatories, played non-league at Oldham.
"He then got a knock on the knee so we said let's get the operation.
"He then starts pre-season, I go on holiday, and as soon as he phones me - it was a big day, his first day back with the group - I knew already, my stomach dropped."
Carragher went on: "As soon as I got that phone call I booked a flight that night, I knew he couldn't be at home on his own.
"Seeing him and what we did to get to the bottom of the issue last summer, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
"I was thinking, 'Is he going to play again?' I remember on the flight home I made a list of things that me and him could do together if he couldn't play again, I was thinking I've got to keep him going, because mentally... I knew where I was, but what about him?
"For me, it was probably one of the darkest moments of my life."
Topics:Â Celebrity, Football, Health, Mental Health, Parenting, Jamie Carragher
Olivia Burke