FRANK LAMPARD has opened up on how his “dominant” dad would shout at him until he cried when he was just 12.
The Chelsea boss revealed the tough love that Frank Snr, now 71, would dish out – and how it turned him into a top class player and manager.
Chelsea boss Lampard says his dad saw him as a ‘project’ to mould into the perfect footballerCredit: Rex Features
Lampard will be dreaming of his first Premier League title as a manager after his side’s £200million cash splurge this summer.
Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner and Thiago Silva among others have all been brought in to spearhead Chelsea’s title challenge.
But orchestrating it all from the dug out will be dad-of-three Lampard, whose drive to be the best was hammered into him by his old man from a young age.
Speaking on the High Performance podcast, Lamps, 42, spoke of how his dad, who played for West Ham and Southend, would never shy away from pointing out his weaknesses while late mum Patricia offered a loving touch.
He said: “My dad had a tough upbringing, much tougher than mine. He lost his father when he was very young, and had to fight to become a professional footballer.
“And he kind of carried that demeanour, very old school, very strong.
“I remember driving home from Sunday morning games and he would be sort of shouting at me in the car.
“Looking back I was like, ‘I don’t understand how you can be shouting at me when I’m 12 or 13 years of age’.
Lampard opened up on how he had to ‘cut loose’ from the feeling of constantly having to impress his fatherCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
“And then I’d get home, and I’d be crying, and my mum would be the one that would bring me my lunch or a cake or something.
“That’s probably why I was a chubby kid.But she would be the one that would settle me down.
“And so I’d like to think that I took both of those sorts of sides to it in my professional career.
“I was driven by my dad in that tough way, but had my mum giving me those little moments.
“My dad’s actions were probably what kind of moulded me not only in a footballing sense, but in a life way as well.
Lamps said he still worried about how his dad would judge him when he signed for Chelsea in 2001 and that he had to work to “cut loose and be my own person”.
He added: “I think he took me as a bit of a project, as a son, to try and see if he could make me into a professional footballer.
“I didn’t really cut loose from that feeling with my dad until my mid-20s really, of like, I must impress dad when it comes to football.
Lampard now loves the pressure of being Stamford Bridge bossCredit: PA:Press Association
“I used to remember looking up in the stands at West Ham, or even my early Chelsea days, and I’d think what he would have thought.”
Asked how it changed, Lampard said: “I turned from being a bit of a boy to a man.
“I think it was a bit like I relied on that, because my dad was quite dominant of me in a footballing sense, and actually in life to be honest, I became a little bit reliant on that.
“It was like, follow his word and his lead.
“And then when I moved across to Chelsea, started playing for England, started probably gaining some success, I kind of thought actually, no, no.
“When I thought everything dad said was right was when I was 12, and actually, some things I don’t agree with, some things I don’t see the same as he sees them.
“And maybe I started to look at my mum’s side then, or different things in life, and I actually started to be my own person really, and I probably moved away.”
Frank Lampard rejected offer from another club before joining Chelsea last summer and ‘loves pressure of being coach’
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
