FOR all the talk of Steven Gerrard rounding off his Roy of the Rovers-style club career by lifting the FA Cup, it should be remembered that destiny calls as loudly for the team standing in Liverpool’s way this weekend.

You would have to have been living under a rock not to know by now that Reds captain Gerrard’s 35th birthday falls on the day of the final.

And, if his side do get past Blackburn Rovers at Anfield on Sunday and then do win their semi-final, the Wembley showpiece would also mark his final appearance for the club.

The script, then, appears to have been written.

Gerrard’s former Liverpool team-mate, Jamie Carragher, would seem to think so if his reaction to the quarter-final draw was anything to go by.

“Did Steven Gerrard do the draw?” asked Carragher on Twitter where his delight was shared by Reds fans the world over.

As grating as it was to read, it was also understandable. If you were a Premier League club one win away from the semis why wouldn’t you be pleased to have been paired with Championship opposition at home?

But Rovers have history when it comes to ripping up the script. Most famously 20 years ago when they became the first and most probably last provincial club to win the Premier League.

The scene of the club’s greatest modern day triumph was, of course, at Anfield. There would be no finer way, then, to mark the memory of that glorious afternoon with yet another top-flight scalp.

Liverpool are a step up from Stoke City and Swansea City yet there is no question Gary Bowyer’s side have raised their game in the FA Cup this season.

And if they need any further inspiration – and they’ll get enough of that from the stands – they need only cast their minds back 15 years when Rovers, like they are now, a second-tier club, won the last FA Cup meeting between the teams.

That match marked Gerrard’s first for Liverpool in the FA Cup at Anfield. Let’s hope what will be his last ends the same way.