Thought some of you might like to read this, I copied the article from the paper as I've not seen it posted online. Taken from yesterdays Scottish Sunday Times.
Hammill Tiger by Simon Buckland
On-Loan Liverpool winger Adam Hammill has added fight to his abundant skill to aid Dunfermiline's battle to beat the drop.
The house rule of getting a team away from the relegation trapdoor is to send football out the window. Results are ground out the ugly way, the pretty stuff is what caused all this trouble in the first place the standard rationale. The very last thing you do in such dire circumstances is sign an untried teenaged winger on loan and attempt to turn him from a self-confessed showpony into a workhorse. This is what manager Stephen Kenny did, however, when he introduced Adam Hammill to Dunfermiline from Liverpool.
It is Thursday lunchtime at Dunfermiline's Pitreavie training complex and Hammill is obliging a photographer by running though his extensive tricks repertoire with a ball. He walks across the pitch transferring it from one foot to another without breaking stride; he flicks it up into the air, traps it on the back of his neck and lets it roll onto his thigh. Nobody at Liverpool has ever doubted what Hammill can do with a ball. It is what he was failing to do without it that was the concern. Being at Dunfermiline is helping to resolve Hammill's problem, just as he is alleviating those of the Fife club.
The mutually beneficial arrangement started with Kenny watching Hammill at Wrexham playing for Liverpool reserves against their Sheffield Utd counterparts. Hammill's representatives had been speaking with Liverpool about a possible January loan deal for several months and, when Kenny made his interest known, it was the Anfield club who effectively chose Dunfermiline for him. Hammill wasn't unwilling, but had his doubts about the over-physical image the Scottish game has south of the border. Kenny had reservations of his own when he collected Hammill from the airport, commenting to the still boyish-looking player, as he led him to his car, that he though his younger brother had turned up instead.
The concerns of player and manager alike have, happily, been misplaced with a loan deal that has exceeded the expecations of both. Hammill has been instrumental in adding a creative edge to Dunfermiline which has seen them gradually close the gap on St Mirren at the bottom and still find time to reach the Scottish Cup final against Celtic later this month. At Liverpool reserves, Hammill admits, he too often played for himself, perhaps unwittingly. Being at Dunfermiline has given him a cause. Something to fight for other than his own future: that of others.
"When you're in the reserves at Liverpool your're wanting to impress and I think I overdid it by trying to be too individual at times," says Hammill, "You try to do that bit extra to make people watch you and say, "Wow, look at that", but here I've learned there's no place for that. Extravagant little flights don't really work in your own half, you've got to be workmanlike and solid. It's not all about you, as long as we win I don't really care. Since I've come here I've matured and become a team player. Working with Stephen Kenny has helped me a lot. It's worked wonders for me as a player and brought me on as a person as well.
"I think Liverpool will see a big difference in my attitude and commitment because it wasn't always there with the reserves. It wasn't that I couldn't be bothered, I just became a bit lackadaisical. It's been an eye-opener coming to Dunfermiline and a real taste of what football's about. Joe Cole's the perfect example for me. If I got a tape of him playing at West Ham I think it would be similar to how I was before coming to Dunfermiline. Looking at him at Chelsea now, he tracks back and defends, which I never used to do when I was younger. Here it's the least expected of you."
Hammill was playing for a local under-nines team at the age of just six when Liverpool first took note of him and invited him on a trial. He wasn't old enough to make the association with the club more formal, but did so a year later and, unsurprisingly perhaps, of all those youngsters involved with the club at that time he is the only one to still be there. "Since I was seven, I've seen hundreds of kids come and go", says Hammill. "It's hard when you see someone go, but it's every man for himself at that stage, you're playing for a professional contract with the club that you love. A few of them have dropped out of football completely. You do feel sorry for them, but you're still glad it's not you."
At Liverpool's Academy, the biggest influence on Hammill has been its now retired director, Steve Heighway., a former winger himself. Hammill texted all the Liverpool players involved in the recent FA Youth Cup victory over Manchester United at Old TRafford, as they had done him after Dunfermiline reached Hampden. "I'm a year above them now, but it's a fitting way for Steve to leave," says Hammill. "I've done a lot of training with him behind the scenes. I never played left midfield until I was 15, Steve basically converted me from playing in the hole because he saw my potential."
Dunfermiline, who meet Motherwell tomorrow, have already mooted the prospect of extending Hammill's loan arrangement into next season. The 19-year-old's preference, however, will be to return to Liverpool. Asked when he believes he will be ready to challenge for the first team, he is categoric. "I want to do it next year. Many nove I've reached the level they wanted. I'm just hoping for the chance, if Rafa (Benitez, the manager) gives me that, I think I can justify it. I'm not saying I could be a regular, but maybe coming off the bench.
"A Liverpool debut would mean the world to me. I've always been a massive Rreds fan. You get allocated two tickets for home games and while some lads only go to the big ones, I'm at them all. When I was sitting on the Kop as a kid I used to tihnk to myself 'This is the level I want to play at and this is the team I want to play for'. To be able to achieve that, I'd do anything. I'm not saying I was a whild child at school, but I just didn't like going. I had my eyes set on football, Liverpool is a massive club, if they said to me, 'You'll have to wait 10 years for your chance', I would, just to be able to play for them."
Should Benitez decide Hammill is still an unfinished product he would happily go out on loan again next term, though, be it to Dunfermiline or elsewhere. "This has toughened me up, definitely," he adds. "Down south it's not perceived as a footballing league, but there are a number of teams here that are good on the ball with a lot of undiscovered talent. Players like Scott Brown (at Hibernian) could easily make it down south. I've been targeted in a few games, but if you take a kick you just have to get on with it."
Hammill accepts it is harder than ever for a player like to him to make it at Liverpool. Whatever happens next, however, he senses being at Dunfermiline will have made it easier for him to achieve it. "I idolise Steven Gerrard and he's been though the same Academy system as me. All the lads look to him and Jamie Carragher because it shows if you've got the ability, yuo're capable of getting there," says Hammill. "If you're born with ability, it's about developing it and not wasting it."
Kennany has taught his willing pupil all the right things to say at his Dunfermiline finishing school of hard knocks.
Hammill Tiger by Simon Buckland
On-Loan Liverpool winger Adam Hammill has added fight to his abundant skill to aid Dunfermiline's battle to beat the drop.
The house rule of getting a team away from the relegation trapdoor is to send football out the window. Results are ground out the ugly way, the pretty stuff is what caused all this trouble in the first place the standard rationale. The very last thing you do in such dire circumstances is sign an untried teenaged winger on loan and attempt to turn him from a self-confessed showpony into a workhorse. This is what manager Stephen Kenny did, however, when he introduced Adam Hammill to Dunfermiline from Liverpool.
It is Thursday lunchtime at Dunfermiline's Pitreavie training complex and Hammill is obliging a photographer by running though his extensive tricks repertoire with a ball. He walks across the pitch transferring it from one foot to another without breaking stride; he flicks it up into the air, traps it on the back of his neck and lets it roll onto his thigh. Nobody at Liverpool has ever doubted what Hammill can do with a ball. It is what he was failing to do without it that was the concern. Being at Dunfermiline is helping to resolve Hammill's problem, just as he is alleviating those of the Fife club.
The mutually beneficial arrangement started with Kenny watching Hammill at Wrexham playing for Liverpool reserves against their Sheffield Utd counterparts. Hammill's representatives had been speaking with Liverpool about a possible January loan deal for several months and, when Kenny made his interest known, it was the Anfield club who effectively chose Dunfermiline for him. Hammill wasn't unwilling, but had his doubts about the over-physical image the Scottish game has south of the border. Kenny had reservations of his own when he collected Hammill from the airport, commenting to the still boyish-looking player, as he led him to his car, that he though his younger brother had turned up instead.
The concerns of player and manager alike have, happily, been misplaced with a loan deal that has exceeded the expecations of both. Hammill has been instrumental in adding a creative edge to Dunfermiline which has seen them gradually close the gap on St Mirren at the bottom and still find time to reach the Scottish Cup final against Celtic later this month. At Liverpool reserves, Hammill admits, he too often played for himself, perhaps unwittingly. Being at Dunfermiline has given him a cause. Something to fight for other than his own future: that of others.
"When you're in the reserves at Liverpool your're wanting to impress and I think I overdid it by trying to be too individual at times," says Hammill, "You try to do that bit extra to make people watch you and say, "Wow, look at that", but here I've learned there's no place for that. Extravagant little flights don't really work in your own half, you've got to be workmanlike and solid. It's not all about you, as long as we win I don't really care. Since I've come here I've matured and become a team player. Working with Stephen Kenny has helped me a lot. It's worked wonders for me as a player and brought me on as a person as well.
"I think Liverpool will see a big difference in my attitude and commitment because it wasn't always there with the reserves. It wasn't that I couldn't be bothered, I just became a bit lackadaisical. It's been an eye-opener coming to Dunfermiline and a real taste of what football's about. Joe Cole's the perfect example for me. If I got a tape of him playing at West Ham I think it would be similar to how I was before coming to Dunfermiline. Looking at him at Chelsea now, he tracks back and defends, which I never used to do when I was younger. Here it's the least expected of you."
Hammill was playing for a local under-nines team at the age of just six when Liverpool first took note of him and invited him on a trial. He wasn't old enough to make the association with the club more formal, but did so a year later and, unsurprisingly perhaps, of all those youngsters involved with the club at that time he is the only one to still be there. "Since I was seven, I've seen hundreds of kids come and go", says Hammill. "It's hard when you see someone go, but it's every man for himself at that stage, you're playing for a professional contract with the club that you love. A few of them have dropped out of football completely. You do feel sorry for them, but you're still glad it's not you."
At Liverpool's Academy, the biggest influence on Hammill has been its now retired director, Steve Heighway., a former winger himself. Hammill texted all the Liverpool players involved in the recent FA Youth Cup victory over Manchester United at Old TRafford, as they had done him after Dunfermiline reached Hampden. "I'm a year above them now, but it's a fitting way for Steve to leave," says Hammill. "I've done a lot of training with him behind the scenes. I never played left midfield until I was 15, Steve basically converted me from playing in the hole because he saw my potential."
Dunfermiline, who meet Motherwell tomorrow, have already mooted the prospect of extending Hammill's loan arrangement into next season. The 19-year-old's preference, however, will be to return to Liverpool. Asked when he believes he will be ready to challenge for the first team, he is categoric. "I want to do it next year. Many nove I've reached the level they wanted. I'm just hoping for the chance, if Rafa (Benitez, the manager) gives me that, I think I can justify it. I'm not saying I could be a regular, but maybe coming off the bench.
"A Liverpool debut would mean the world to me. I've always been a massive Rreds fan. You get allocated two tickets for home games and while some lads only go to the big ones, I'm at them all. When I was sitting on the Kop as a kid I used to tihnk to myself 'This is the level I want to play at and this is the team I want to play for'. To be able to achieve that, I'd do anything. I'm not saying I was a whild child at school, but I just didn't like going. I had my eyes set on football, Liverpool is a massive club, if they said to me, 'You'll have to wait 10 years for your chance', I would, just to be able to play for them."
Should Benitez decide Hammill is still an unfinished product he would happily go out on loan again next term, though, be it to Dunfermiline or elsewhere. "This has toughened me up, definitely," he adds. "Down south it's not perceived as a footballing league, but there are a number of teams here that are good on the ball with a lot of undiscovered talent. Players like Scott Brown (at Hibernian) could easily make it down south. I've been targeted in a few games, but if you take a kick you just have to get on with it."
Hammill accepts it is harder than ever for a player like to him to make it at Liverpool. Whatever happens next, however, he senses being at Dunfermiline will have made it easier for him to achieve it. "I idolise Steven Gerrard and he's been though the same Academy system as me. All the lads look to him and Jamie Carragher because it shows if you've got the ability, yuo're capable of getting there," says Hammill. "If you're born with ability, it's about developing it and not wasting it."
Kennany has taught his willing pupil all the right things to say at his Dunfermiline finishing school of hard knocks.
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