EVERTON FC captain Phil Neville told schoolchildren how he was bullied as a teenager to support anti-bullying week.

The defender answered questions from children of Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School in Everton at the NSPCC’s Hargreaves Centre on Great Homer Street.

He said: “When I was about 14 and I played for England at Wembley, about a week later at school – because I’d been on television – a lot of kids weren’t nice to me. It was hurtful at the time. Sometimes people want to bring you down and stop you being happy, but the best thing to do is to try and ignore them.”

Neville said the bravest and most courageous thing in the world was if children tell someone they’re being bullied. “It’s best to try and ignore things and realise that we all have our own abilities and strengths.”

Neville said that he had seen some of his bullies many years later and they all wanted to speak to him, but he said many of them had done badly at school and were claiming benefits.

He also went on to say that how he handled bullying had enabled him to brush off negative press.

Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School is one of many across the city participating in a five-week “relationships and respect” educational programme.

Deputy head teacher Julie Brown said: “It’s great for the children to see sports people like Phil Neville – who they respect greatly – talking about bullying. In school, we teach the children there is always someone that they can go to.”

The Hargreaves Centre, along with other centres across the North West, took more than 16,500 calls from worried children in the past year.

Within a month of it opening in March this year, counsellors received 614 calls from children, many local.

The Safe Place Appeal aims to raise £17m to cover 10 years’ running costs.

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