I was about six, and Liverpool had a community summer camp. They sent a few invites to my school and my age group, to my class specifically, and they were like, 'Who wants to go?' So every lad in the class put their hands up, as you'd imagine, so the only fair way was to pick names out of a hat, and luckily, my name was picked out.
The odds are stacked against you becoming a footballer, so my family made sure I always had a backup plan.
It is a thing of dreams to make your European debut for your boyhood club. Especially to make it with a goal was very special for me.
As a kid, I used to go and wait at the gates of Melwood or look through the cracks in the wall just see if I could see any of the people I was looking up to, who we all wanted to aspire to become, when we were in the Champions League, the likes of Gerrard, Carragher and Alonso.
As long as everyone does their part - the attackers score the goals, and the defenders keep the clean sheets - then you can't go too wrong.
It's something you dream of. It's very special to play in the Merseyside derby and, especially, win.
To beat City twice is no easy feat.
I had a lot of idols like Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, and Xabi Alonso - all of them. I really looked up to them.
Technology is playing an increasingly important role in the life of a footballer, and I guess that is true across most sports now.
I'm just a lad playing for Liverpool, trying to achieve his dream, so to see a lad with my name on his shirt - when I grew up having the names of other players on my shirt - it meant a lot.
I started playing football with my mates and my brothers, in the playground or the park or the front garden. It was just about enjoying it, having a good time playing. I wanted to play all the time.
Once I reached about 14 or 15, I started to steady myself and get into a midfield role and carried that on until I was 17. Then I dropped into right-back, and I have played there ever since.
My mum and dad always knew that my dream was to be a footballer, but they also warned me that it doesn't always work out.
My mum and dad pushed me to work hard in my earlier years in education.
Football and chess can seem like sporting polar opposites, but there are so many similarities with the modern game.
It's just about keeping the momentum going, and it doesn't matter whether it's Champions League or Premier League or whatever trophy you're going for, you've got to focus on the opponent that lies ahead.
To be a Premier League player is something that not everyone can say; even some of the best players in the world can't say that!
It's always great to see someone's life change for the better, and to be involved in something like that is really uplifting for me.
The way myself and my brothers have been brought up is that you don't give to receive, you give to give, and that is the way life is.
No matter how good you are, your mentality has got to be right. A lot of young players, that's where they go wrong, and that's what I've always seen when I was growing up - players who are almost there but couldn't quite get there because the mentality wasn't right.
