Born with congenital dislocation of the hips, Robbie was a 'tiny, little kid' who suffered bad asthma, and was known until secondary school as Robert Ryder, his mum's family name before he registered with his father's. 'I had a new identity,' he says of changing his name. 'It was like being James Bond!' He has a sister, Lisa, a year his senior, and two younger brothers, Anthony and Scott, but his parents never married, nor ever lived together for long under the same roof. 'We were never deprived, even if we weren't loaded,' he says of his childhood. 'If I'm honest, until I got married, I was always at me mum's, even when I had my own flat, and she carried on cooking and washing and ironing for me. And Dad was always there. I reckon he's watched every game I ever played from the age of about 10 and he always took me down to play football and practise, practise, practise. I used to go over the road to his place on Saturdays, watch Match of the Day then fall asleep, and then come back over the next morning.'
An Everton supporter who idolised Graeme Sharp, Fowler's world was contained within three points: home in the council maisonette, school at one end of the road, and the all-weather pitch at the other end. From as early as he can remember, his dad took him to kick balls. 'Wind or rain, snow or shine, we'd be there.'
At the age of six, in the summer of 1981, the Toxteth Riots broke out on his front doorstep. For nine nights 'gangs of lads would start to gather around the top of our road, more and more of them, until it all exploded into carnage'. Rioters charged and smashed windows in the maisonettes. Bottles flew, shops were looted, buildings burnt. Protected by his mother, young Robbie knew little of what was happening. 'I suppose it's funny that, had I been old enough, I could have put the telly on and seen all these pictures of civil war, then opened the curtains and watched it live.' The charred remains of buildings formed the backdrop to his childhood world, but Fowler is proud to have come from his strong, close, family network in Toxteth. 'If there's one thing that does my head in, it's all the stuff banging on about Toxteth being this shit-hole, the inference being that it was miraculous I managed to claw my way out of there.'
As a teenager his world expanded slightly to encompass pool and footie as well as hanging out at 'the benches', or by a phone box where he and his mates would cold-call people and pretend they'd won prizes. He was a regular at Mick's Chippy for pitta bread and crisps. Even after he was a first-team regular at Liverpool, he was still going to Mick's Chippy for his favourite special fried rice with barbecue sauce. His football routine insulated him from the drugs and crime. 'I never got near the dodgy stuff,' he says. 'Maybe if I'd not been able to kick a ball it would have been different, but I doubt it because all my mates are decent blokes now, just normal fellas with families.' He recalls the day he received a letter from the Liverpool Schools Football Association asking him to attend a trial at Penny Lane. Once there, he was embarrassed by his scabby pair of boots. It bothered his parents, too, and, though struggling to make ends meet each week, his father greeted him through the school railings one day dangling a new pair of top boots.
As Fowler describes the thrills of his early progress, you have a sense of a young boy who inspires affection in his elders. Mr Lynch, for instance - as Robbie and his family still call him to this day - who directed his talent with Liverpool Schoolboys. With the celebrated Liverpool scout, Jim Aspinall, too, he formed a lasting bond. As Aspinall lay dying last year, at the age of 72, Fowler went to visit him in hospital. 'I arrived a few minutes too late so I never got to thank him for all he did for me and tell him how much he meant to me,' he says.
Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool manager from 1985 to 1991, was aware of Robbie's early promise and instructed Aspinall to 'get me that little Robbie Ryder at all costs'. Dalglish, who graduated from being the club's star striker, watched Fowler closely once he was attending the club's academy and made a point of happening to be around when Robbie and his father were invited to meet the players. On one occasion, Dalglish even gave them a lift to Toxteth in his large white Mercedes. Dalglish thought they had said Croxteth, which is on the way to where he lived in Southport, but happily switched direction. 'I took an eternity to get out of the car, with Kenny Dalglish hanging out the window saying goodbye,' he says. 'But you know what, not one of my mates walked by, and not one of the neighbours stuck their heads out their windows, even though they were all nosey buggers!'
To Fowler, signing a three-year YTS apprenticeship in 1991 was fulfilment of the ultimate dream. He would clean out the bath, clean the boots and the changing rooms, and hang out the kit. 'I never minded the shitty jobs and I loved being around all the top men like Rushie and John Barnes and Macca.'
Then it was the reserves and the impatient wait for a first-team opportunity. That came soon enough when, at the age of 18, Graeme Souness gave him his debut, playing alongside Ian Rush. Naturally, he scored. 'He scored from day one,' recalls McManaman. 'He emerged with a bang, instantly a hero, instantly breaking records. I remember that time so well. We were both young, both Scousers playing for Liverpool. It was fantastic. He is the best finisher I ever saw.'
Back then, Fowler hadn't yet worked out how to celebrate - 'I sort of had this two-fisted thing, just looking around with a big stupid grin on me face' - but fans would pick him up in the street, put him on their shoulders and walk off singing his praises. He was on a rollercoaster and was soon being asked for his autograph by Nelson Mandela and Robbie Williams.
Was he successful too soon? Schooled in the old ways of football, he entered the game just as its entire culture was about to be radically changed. 'I was a boy, suddenly treated like the men and expected to act like them,' he says, reflecting on his glorious early years when he seemed destined for greatness, with both Liverpool and England. 'When I emerged Liverpool had a tradition of their players working hard and playing hard, back before the Nineties and through all the glory era. When I got there, all the pasta and science stuff hadn't quite caught on in England - things that were perfectly acceptable then wouldn't be tolerated now. We had some characters, too, some lively boys who could teach a wide-eyed little kid a thing or two. So I had an introduction to the old way of doing things, just as the whole mentality began to change in football.'
McManaman recalls a typical prank during Euro 96 in England. 'Bob Wilson and Jack Charlton were broadcasting one night at 10.30pm from Burnham Beeches,' he says. 'All of the players could see it was going out live, so Gazza and Robbie sneaked out and danced around behind them in their dressing gowns. We were inside, in hysterics, watching it half on telly and half out of the window. It was harmless fun, but needless to say it was judged on.'
Fowler thinks his uncouth image arises from such harmless, early pranks. There is certainly a gulf between the spirit in which some controversial incidents came about and how they were received. The Le Saux confrontation, for example, Fowler explains away simply as a case of his retaliating verbally against a defender's repeated, discreet use of a flying elbow. He remembered how violently Le Saux had reacted when David Batty, his team-mate at Blackburn, had baselessly called him a 'poof', and so chose to pursue the same line. Le Saux responded thus: 'But I'm married!' To which Fowler replied: 'So was Elton John, mate.' Cue: another elbow from Le Saux; followed by Fowler's shorts-down gesture.
On another, more benign, occasion Fowler pulled up his shirt after scoring against Brann Bergen, in a European game in March 1997, to reveal a mock Calvin Klein T-shirt in support of striking Liverpool dockers. McManaman was wearing one, too, and they had agreed between them to swap shirts with the opposition at the end of the game to register their support for the dockers, but subtly. Uefa fined Fowler £900. Two days earlier Fowler had received a personal fax from Sepp Blatter in which Fifa's president praised the way he had tried to encourage the referee to reverse a decision awarding him a penalty in a game against Arsenal at Highbury, when, he told the referee in vain, he had not been fouled by opposing goalkeeper David Seaman.
Fowler says that he has been tested for drugs use every year since he came into the game and has nothing to hide. 'Let me say now, once and for all, that the stories are not true. Not now, not then, not ever. It is an insult to me, and an insult to me mum and dad.' What he reveals in his book, in an understated way and out of respect for an aunt, is that both his cousin Vincent, with whom he used to play football, and Vincent's sister Tracy are both dead because of drugs. 'I'll never forget him [Vincent] and even now, every day, it breaks my heart and that of everyone in our family to think what happened. His mum, me Auntie Pat, obviously finds it so hard even now when I talk about it, and I don't want to make it any worse for her. But she also lost her daughter Tracy, who got involved with a bloke who was on drugs, and he killed her. If people could see what a devastating effect it has all had on her [Auntie Pat], how she has to live with it every day of her life, then I don't think they would be making jokes about drugs, and about me taking them.'
Fowler's father, Bobby, is sure that the rumours about his son were started by Everton fans. When 'smackhead' was daubed, in 10-foot letters, over his mother's house, Robbie felt his family had endured enough. Which leads us to the notorious goal celebration in front of away fans when he scored in a derby at Anfield - 'not the smartest move', he concedes. 'I realise I shouldn't have been so obvious in taunting the Everton fans, but I couldn't believe how much stick I got over the next few weeks. The message I was sending out there, which was completely clear in my mind, was that if I was supposed to be a smackhead, how the fuck could I score goals against Everton and rub their faces in the dirt? How could I be a top sportsman and do everything I have if I was taking all that shit? It was a way of telling them that if they carried on with all that abuse, then I was going to stuff it up them even more. It was an attempt to get them to think about what they were doing, and even make them stop. And it was supposed to be funny.'
McManaman says that the drug taunts are as insidious as racism. 'Everton fans have always been terrible to Robbie because he's scored important goals against them. Maybe they think, because he's a Scouser, one of their own, they can get away with it, but the vitriol really stepped over the line. No player minds being called shit or fat, or taking a tremendous amount of stick, but to make up a culture of falsehoods, as they did with Robbie and drugs, was shocking. It really got out of hand. In that situation, it is a big ask of a player to remember to put your role-model status first before defending yourself when your family are subjected to horrible things as well. It is too easy for fans to say, "I pay over £20 for my ticket, I pay your wages, therefore I can do and say appalling things whenever I want". There is a line that should not be crossed.'
'When you come from Toxteth,' Fowler has said, 'you don't start moaning about "the price of fame", but what about my family? My wife Kerrie is the nicest person on earth and together we have brought our three girls up properly, to respect people and have decent values. How does Kerrie feel when she hears the rumours that, let's face it, reflect equally on her? What will my three children feel when they get to understand what "smackhead" means and that their dad has been called it all his professional life? 'Look, I'm no fucking saint, I've pulled plenty of stunts in my time, and I've not always behaved in the right way. But just because I'm from Toxteth doesn't mean I have to be a druggie. In my mind, that's what it boils down to. You're from a certain place that has problems with drugs in certain small areas, so you have to behave in a certain way. Never mind that the majority of families in Toxteth are decent, hard-working people, who have the same sort of values as everyone else. And never mind that your mum and dad, the people who pride themselves on bringing you up right, get a kick in the teeth every time some smart-arse has a cheap dig at your expense.'