GERRARD IN GANGLAND LOVE TRIANGLE
Exclusive by Graham Johnson And James Weatherup The Mirror

England soccer star Steven Gerrard has received terrifying death threats from a gangster over a teenage model.

The Sunday Mirror can reveal that armed police were drafted in to protect the £30,000-a-week Liverpool player after he became caught up in an astonishing love triangle with George Bromley junior, a notorious drug dealer and son of a murdered gangland boss.

The chilling warnings came after 22-year-old Gerrard - seen as a future England captain - dated pretty Lauren Ashcroft when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

After splitting from Gerrard she started seeing Bromley, who is now behind bars.

But the young thug - whose father was executed in a gangland shooting - was jealous of his girlfriend's on-going friendship with Gerrard, sparking the chilling threats

Unwittingly, the player also became friends with Lauren's dad Peter, 40, who was arrested for a serious drugs offence two months after Gerrard and Lauren split. Gerrard knew nothing of her father's criminal activities.

The cause of Gerrard's dip in form was cryptically referred to by Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier in November last year.

After hauling him off the pitch during a vital European match against Basle in Switzerland Houllier fumed: "The problem is not physical with Stevie, maybe it's a matter of his environment. I'm frustrated in him."

Now the The Sunday Mirror can reveal for the first time how Gerrard has been subjected to a series of frightening incidents including:

A brick thrown through the window of his £50,000 car.
Being chased in his car through the streets of Liverpool.
Being challenged to a bare knuckle fight by furious Bromley.
Bromley, then 19, was sent to a young offenders institute in May last year after he admitted supplying heroin and crack cocaine.

Police took the threats to Gerrard so seriously that they implemented a thorough review of his security.

The terror campaign began in January, 2001 after Gerrard fell for Lauren who was then still at school.

He was just 20 and had burst into the Liverpool first team and already was being touted as one of England's brightest stars.

Lauren, who works three days a week in a sports shop, told a friend: "We met by accident. I was with one of his close mates, Jonathan Boggan, and Steven kept staring at me. Jonathan introduced us and he gave him my mobile number.

"He kept phoning and asking me out, but I didn't know who he was. I didn't know anything about football. He was a very normal person. He's very friendly and down-to-earth."

Lauren was working part-time in the shop's sunbed salon and Gerrard would pop in for a cup of tea and a chat.

A friend of the family said: "Sometimes they'd go to the pictures or go out for nice meals or just stay in.

"She said he was very fit and nice looking. She was still at school and didn't tell her friends, but word did get out.

"She wouldn't let him pick her up from school because she felt it would be showing off. He was her first serious boyfriend though

"But she did not have a clue about football. She started keeping a scrap book of cuttings when articles and pictures of him appeared in the papers. She's only ever been to a match once before when she was about 10 with her dad so she didn't know anything about the game.

"Steven once gave her £100 to go out one night when he couldn't make it. But Lauren didn't want his money, so she gave it back to her mum so she could return it to him."

Lauren's pal said Gerrard used to stay over at her family home after a match but always in separate rooms, sleeping in his girlfriend's younger brother's bed.

He was always the perfect gentleman, she said.

Gerrard, who was born and brought up in Liverpool's Huyton district, is regarded as one of the best midfielders in Europe, but injury forced him to miss the World Cup finals in Japan.
Read Lauren's poem!

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