'He's a legend for club, city, country'
Ian Ayre described Reds captain Steven Gerrard as a legend of club, city and country after accepting an honour on behalf of the 33-year-old at the Liverpool Post Leaders Awards on Thursday night.
The Liverpool midfielder, who has captained the club for a decade and lifted the Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup along the way, was named Sports Leader of the Year for 2013.
With Gerrard currently away on international duty with England, Reds managing director Ayre attended to receive the award - and subsequently paid a glowing tribute to the No.8.
"He is extremely honoured to receive an award. Anything that he receives, any recognition - particularly from this city - is tremendous for Steven," he said.
"We know him in this city as the guy who leads by example on the football pitch; that header in Istanbul turned the game around that we eventually went on to win. He was at the forefront of that.
"Those were games that, on the pitch, we felt like he grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck and almost won it on his own. The 2006 FA Cup final is probably the best example of that.
"But the Steven that we get to see at the football club has another dimension. Off the pitch, he does so much with his own foundation. But equally, he just always seems to deliver, always seems to show leadership and leads by example.
"We recently returned in the summer from our latest trip to Asia, where we worked our players hard over a two- to three-week period - double training sessions every day, commercial activities, appearances and meeting lots of people.
"At the end of the last day in Bangkok, before our game, he had probably been moving around for about eight or nine hours in the heat. We came back to the hotel and, as is typical of Liverpool on tour, there were 600-700 fans in the lobby.
"Steven went up to his room, rang one of my staff and asked if we could put a table and chair in the lobby for him. He sat there until every single fan had a photograph or a signature.
"That's Steven; he's a legend for this city, a legend for this football club and a legend for this country. He told me to tell everybody he's extremely honoured to accept this award."