The existential crisis of James Milner retiring

Twenty-four years ago, I looked quite different to how I do now. I was a busy, hardworking, energetic little fellow. I had loads of mates, all of whom I’ve since lost, and fizzed about life with only one clear goal in mind: egg.

The truth is, I was a sperm. Well, probably not even that. I was barely a glint in my father’s eye, reduced to the sack and destined for the hotel curtain. Fortunately enough, the big man kept his little man at bay and a year later, out came a me.

Since then, I’ve been loads of things. First I was a baby, then a child. I became something resembling a grown-up and I’m still hoping the next step might be better. My 22nd birthday came at the end of last year, and I’ve just moved into my first little flat share after graduating.

You could start way back at my spunk formation, include all the parents’ evenings and sleepovers, make it the whole way to last week, and James Milner would still be a professional footballer. Yet I’m supposed to be convinced that my mum is proud of me.

After 658 Premier League appearances, 8,597 days and infinite respect for the Jammie Dodger, James Milner has officially announced his retirement from football. The Horsforth boy leaves the game behind as the Premier League’s most capped player, with the longest continuous career in the competition. Milner joins Gordon Strachan in the list of players to make a top-flight appearance after 40, alongside some other chumps who aren’t as good.

When little Jimmy first made it pro, he replaced Jason Wilcox away at West Ham and became the Premier League’s second youngest debutant at the age of 16 years and 309 days, wearing an away kit Leeds’ recreated last season as a ‘retro’ shirt. I missed it, since the view from my dad’s testes was quite unclear, but I’m sure I enjoyed it nonetheless. Milner broke another record 47 days later, scoring on Boxing Day 2002 in a 2-1 win against Sunderland and surpassing Wayne Rooney as the Premier League’s youngest ever goal scorer.

Two days on, Chelsea come to Elland Road and William Gallas rightfully elbows Harry Kewell in the face. Milner steps up to replace him, and a Teddy Lučić throw-in sinks into Mark Viduka’s chest. The Duke squares it to Eirik Bakke, who hinges his foot open to play it to the youngster on the edge of Chelsea’s box. Milner’s first touch darts him away from the defender’s lunging leg, hopping over his remains to nick it forward into his stride. Shoulders hunkered to the soil, he springs back his right leg and blasts it past the Chelsea ‘keeper and into the far right corner.

By the time Mum was in labour, he’d nipped off to Swindon for a few weeks and returned to score the only goal in a win against Charlton. Some Alan Smith intuition set him up for another against Wolves, and Milner scored his final goal for the Whites with a drilled finish into the Everton net a few weeks before the end of the season. After Gerald Krasner proclaimed him the “future of Leeds”, Milner’s fate was set, and he made a £5m move to Newcastle before the summer turned cold.

He’d stay there until I reached primary school, barring a loan at Aston Villa before making that move permanent. He only played at Villa Park for a few years, too, but it was enough time for my own football career to come to a deflating end. My grandma’s garden — a neutral venue for me and my cousins — dampened with rain, my brother skidded the ball down the right wing. I collected it, put on a display of technical brilliance, and whipped the cross into the six-yard mud. I stopped, but my ankle didn’t, plunging into a divot and sidelining me for weeks. I was shipped back to Leeds and doctors informed me I’d broken my ankle, and with that, Project Seth Johnson was over.

Milner’s move to Manchester City set the stage for the defining era for his career, and began the Justin Timberlake-inspired trilby phase for myself (still can’t believe my parents let that happen). Anyways, Milner slotted into wherever Manuel Pellegrini needed him, and became one of English football’s most versatile outfits. In five years wearing Sky Blue, Milner played over 150 times and won two Premier League titles, as well as an FA Cup and some England caps at the 2012 Euros.

By the time he left City, I’d reached maximum development in the chubby little ginger stage. An odd little fellow, I took my paedo-repellent quiff and my lunchbox off to high school and created the personality I’d keep for the rest of my adult life. Me and James Milner could both donate our bodies to science. Unsurprisingly, for very different reasons.

A free transfer abroad to Liverpool (scouse, not English, after all) made him vice-captain for the club a few months before Jürgen Klopp took the reins. Aside from the Champions League and Premier League wins, monstrous box-to-box performances and inhuman physical output, Milner became best known for not being very interesting.

The Boring James Milner gag became a trope and rewired the ways in which people understood both the man and the player. In reality, Milner exposed himself as being one of the only remaining footballers who isn’t a self-absorbed arse so absorbed in their own arse that they could chew their prostate. Despite the medals and records, Milner remained James, and didn’t opt in to the crushed velvet lifestyle, keeping his media appearances to biscuit debates and plank-offs. Everyone loves biscuits. Stop laughing at him.

Once he’d inevitably grown sick of the accent, Milner moved away from Liverpool and joined Brighton. I reached university, graduated, and started paying taxes. Death is all that remains for me. For Jimmy, though, it would’ve been very easy to kick his feet up, go bird watching and never touch a gym again. But he chose not to retire, and instead to focus three more years of dedicated work on the simple goal of pissing off Gareth Barry. Thirty-nine games over three years on the south coast turned Milner middle aged while he cracked the Premier League appearances record, just ‘cos he could.

A legend of the modern era, James Milner is as age defying as R Kelly. As far as footballers go, Milner has been a constant in my life. I’m 22 now, and I feel like I’ve barely started. At my age, Milner had done loads. But, as it turns out, he still had a long way left to go. Maybe, then, just maybe, I’m still a sperm after all. ⬢