Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher - at one time Everton's biggest fan - can't stand the Toffees now
Demolition derby: Carragher loves beating Everton
Everton used to occupy Jamie Carragher's life 24/7. Now the Liverpool defender wants to beat the team he supported as a boy more than any other.
The one-time self-confessed 'Biggest Blue in Bootle', admits in an interview with the Daily Mirror: 'Losing the derby is worse than losing any other game. My passion has gone full circle.
'I was made up on the first day of the season when Blackburn scored that late winner at Goodison. We were getting ready to play Sunderland and it gave me a big lift.'
This from the 11-year-old who, when Michael Thomas scored the last-gasp winner at Anfield in 1989 to deny Liverpool the title, celebrated in delirious fashion, applauding lads who scrawled 'Thank You Arsenal' on the wall of a Bootle pub.
'I was a total Everton fanatic right through my childhood and teens,' says the defender who went on to play over 500 games for Liverpool.
'Everton controlled my life and dominated my thoughts 24/7. I went to the away games, followed them across Europe and in the mid-80s went to Wembley so often it began to feel like Alton Towers.
'When I talk about that Everton team I still say 'we'. Even when I was playing for Liverpool reserves I'd want Everton's first team to win the derby every time.'
The 2005 European Cup winner's love for the Toffees has firmly disappeared.
He added: 'I hate what they sing about Steven and his family. It's disgusting and goes way beyond the kind of banter that's acceptable in life, not just football.
'Robbie Fowler suffered the same type of scandalous taunts which really hurt him and his family. I'm not saying Liverpool fans are blameless because they're not. They dish out abuse during games with our rivals too. But it ends when the game ends.
'Evertonians spread the lies around the streets of Liverpool and chant them whether they're playing us, Reading or Portsmouth.
'I even hear it on the telly when they're playing away in Europe and I think that could be my family they're singing about.'
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