NEIL Danns could easily have gone off the rails. Brought up in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in Britain, the Toxteth-born teenager could have slumped into a life of crime.

Temptation lay in waiting at every street corner, eager to entice its next victim.

But the fact he didn't succumb and follow the path which had been trodden by so many before him was largely due to the love of his parents -- and his own insatiable love for football.

From the moment you first meet the latest addition to Graeme Souness's squad, it's immediately obvious that Danns is totally dedicated to carving a career out for himself at the highest possible level.

The Sony Playstation in the corner of his plush new apartment on the outskirts of Preston is accompanied by only one game -- ISI Pro, the hottest football release on the market.

Thumb through the collection of reading material on the table in his brand new kitchen and all you will find is a stack of back issues of Match magazine.

But the dead giveaway that this guy lives and breathes for football is the steely determination in his voice when he talks of his desire to emulate the achievements of his heroes like Liverpool's Steven Gerrard.

For Danns knows more than most about the importance of seizing an opportunity with both hands because so many of the friends he has left behind will never be fortunate enough to follow their dreams.

He was one of the lucky ones and he owes the chance he has now been given to his mum and dad, Karen and Neil senior, who did their utmost to make sure he never strayed from the straight and narrow while he was growing up.

"There was a lot going on in the area where I used to live," said Danns junior.

"There was a quite a big drug problems and quite a few shootings, too, although I never actually witnessed anything like that myself.

"So I owe a lot to my mum and dad because they kept me away from a lot of the stuff that was going on around me.

"I had to be in at certain times and I wasn't allowed to go in certain areas, whereas some of the other kids were wandering about getting up to all sorts.

"So I was kept under strict guidelines and that helped me to respect my parents a lot at that time.

"I probably didn't appreciate it then but, when I look back on it now, I'm thankful for what they did for me.

"It's still good growing up in an area like that because it makes you streetwise.

"You've got to learn how to look after yourself so it was hard in that respect but it helped me as well."

Danns -- who still returns to his roots on a weekly basis to catch up with some of his old friends -- has always been one of life's survivors, almost from the moment he was old enough to kick his first football.

After discovering he had a talent for the sport, his career was almost over before it had begun when a freak push-bike accident nearly resulted in a severed Achilles.

"I caught my foot in the chain which cut the back of my heel and I was only a few centimetres away from not being able to walk again because it just missed my Achilles," said Danns.

"If that had snapped then I probably wouldn't have been able to play any sport again."

Thankfully, he made a full recovery after six weeks on crutches and from that point on he has been Hell-bent on making the most of his second chance.

Everton were the first club to show an interest but, still feeling the effects of the accident, he struggled to make the right impression.

Then five months later, Liverpool -- the team he had supported from childhood -- invited him for a series of trails where he caught the eye of Steve Heighway who promptly signed him up on schoolboy forms.

Initially, everything went swimmingly, and he then got on at the Lilleshall School of Excellence, where he roomed with the likes of West Ham's Jermaine Defoe and Chelsea's Leon Knight.

But by the time he had graduated two years later his relationship with Liverpool had become increasingly strained and it was then that he decided on a switch to Rovers.

"I wasn't too happy at Liverpool by the end -- they just didn't seem to show enough interest in me," said Danns, whose dad used to be a European skateboard champion.

"When I was at Lilleshall they also had two other players there and they seemed to have more belief in them than they did in me.

"They'd come to watch them on a regular basis but once they left, I didn't see the people from Liverpool knocking about quite as much and I started to become disheartened."

In the three years since he quit the Reds, he has encountered no such problems at Rovers where youth coaches Bobby Downes, Rob Kelly and Ian Miller have done everything in their power to encourage his development.

The Academy at Brockhall -- a far cry from his Toxteth roots -- has also brought the best out in a player who has made rapid progress on and off the field in the last 18 months.

"I think it did me good to get out of Liverpool because there were no distractions at Brockhall," said Danns.

"There was nothing else to do other than concentrate on your football so if I ever got bored I'd go in the gym and practice."

That work ethic has been one of the key factors in propelling him from the Under 19s to the fringes of the first team in the last four months.

Graeme Souness rewarded his attitude in training with a first team debut in Rovers' UEFA Cup first round first leg tie with CSKA Sofia last Thursday.

Then three days later, he got his first taste of Premiership action as a late sub for David Dunn.

Consequently, the last week or so has felt like a dream but Danns is under no illusions as to the hard work which lies ahead.

With the likes of Dunn, Damien Duff and David Thompson currently ahead of him in the pecking order, it's going to take a super-human effort to break-up that cartel.

But Danns has never been scared of hard work after spending most of his early life battling against the odds.

"My friends have been going on at me for the last two years saying when are you going to get a chance?

"I think they were starting to become a bit doubtful.

"So when I played on Thursday night it was like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

"Now, if anyone asks me when I go back to Liverpool, I can say I've had a game in the first team and they might look on me with a bit more confidence.

"At the end of the day, I don't just want to be a player, I want to be a top player but that won't happen without a lot of hard work.

"I don't need any motivation, though. All you've got to do is look at the players in the first team and see how they live to see what the rewards are."