Before I start, there is something I need to get out of the way. I last regularly attended home games back in 2007 when I was reduced to scavenging for tickets outside the ground on match day and it was not until my boss took pity on me and took me with him to see Reading this season that I returned.
I consider that I’ve paid my dues from the mid 80’s, up to 2007 but there are some that will consider my opinions irrelevant because I don’t go anymore. I can assure you that I lie awake in bed at night after games like the Oldham debacle the same as anyone, but make up your own mind, all I ask is a fair hearing.
Finally I owe a debt to Harry H, @PutItInTheMixer, who inspired me to write this with his own observations on Liverpool’s past tarnishing the present.
Can anyone remember falling off their chair with laughter as Michael Knighton, clad in a Manchester United training kit ran to the Stretford End to score on an open goal? I certainly can and I wonder what would have become of MUFC if the UFO spotter had bought them?
The reason that I bring Knighton up is that we were still sitting loftily on that perch that Ferguson had, laughingly at the time, threatened to knock us off. Why should we worry about the freak show at the other end of the East Lancs Road? And yet if you take a long uncomfortable look back over the last 25 years, it’s all there, it’s just that we either did not want to see it, or we were just plain stupid.
We were an empire and it was in Rome in 1977 that we truly announced it to everyone else. True we had two UEFA cups under the belt but Shankly himself said, the UEFA cup was for teams that were on the cusp of greatness and so it was in ’77 in the eternal city that greatness was stamped upon us. No self- respecting Liverpool fan needs a lesson in the next 7 years, but Rome in ’84 was what historians call our apogee, our height, the thing is with an apogee, you don’t fall at breakneck speed, in fact you don’t even recognise you are going – but we were.
The one thing that Liverpool had been superb in was managing transition. From Shankly to Paisley then on to Fagan, the passing of the crown was seamless, mainly in part due to the fabled boot room. Yes there was one man at the top but the boot room was the Roman Senate, issues discussed post match over a shot out of the multiple bottles of Bells Whiskey that Bob Paisley used to collect as manager of the month. It went so well that we were all preparing to celebrate retaining the European Cup until disaster struck in Brussels. Out of the many consequences of that night the retirement of Joe Fagan seems almost trivial but it signalled a subtle sea change. Dalglish was installed as the new Emperor with a trusted band of advisors around him. It may seem crass to describe things as business as usual as we won the double post Heysel, but we were unaware that events were turning.
At that point, Liverpool were managing a steady decline. Things were changing in the world of football that we did not plan for. I once read that when the Kop partially collapsed at the start of the 87/88 season and we had to play our first few games away from home, Peter Robinson confided to a journalist that he had had to go to the bank to get an overdraft extension, so heavily dependent were Liverpool on match day incomes. We had also lost out on guaranteed yearly revenue from European competition. It was clear then that Liverpool as a business were always run close to the bottom line.
If we thought we had come through the Heysel period relatively intact as an institution, Hillsborough was to see that we would never be the same again. Apart from the seismic shock of the disaster and lies that followed, the capacity of the Kop was reduced with the inevitability that it would be razed and rebuilt into what it is today. As someone who stood and then sat on it as it changed into to its current guise, I can’t describe how sterile it felt to me, it lost some of its intimidation factor although I respect thoughts on this will vary militantly. Hillsborough also cost us Dalglish, leading to the next stage in our decline – the botched transition from Dalglish to Souness.
The Roman Empire started to decline when the Senate was dispensed with and Emperor’s started making themselves into Gods. When Souness swept in, he dispensed with the boot room at a stroke. I can remember the press running stories about inflated egos and a refusal to listen to anyone else. Beardsley, Houghton and McMahon to name but a few were cleared out with indecent haste, Beardsley it was rumoured as pay back for a fall out with Dalglish as Souey made his mark.
Meanwhile, developments in Manchester were passing us by. Ferguson had held a long, bitter hatred of Liverpool from his days as Aberdeen manager, feeling that they had not gotten the credit that they deserved for beating Real Madrid in the European Cup Winners Cup. God knows how, but he hung in at Old Trafford because he was hungry and bitter and had a point to prove. The only point that Souness seemed intent on proving was that he was the boss. Rome was burning while Souness fiddled.
Manchester United saw the Premier League coming and they prepared for it. Not only had they began work on extending Old Trafford into what it is today in anticipation of raised match day revenues but they realised the myriad of commercial spin off opportunities and maximised on them. I can remember reading fanzines at the time to whom that was anathema, but I don’t think any red considers us being left standing by them commercially as our finest hour.
I also remember how we laughed when we trumped United in signing Glen Hysen, and laughed even louder when they paid more than twice what we had paid for the silver fox, for Gary Pallister. But it was becoming clear that Fergie could spot a player too.
Meanwhile, Souness was busy spotting a player or two of his own like Julian Dicks; Paul Stewart; Istvan Kozma and I’m sure you all have your favourite but transfer funds and wages were being scattered to the four winds. Our match day revenues were falling behind that of Man United because even after three sides of the ground had been renovated we settled at a cosy 45 000 capacity we still had no commercial nous because our chairman looked like he should have been selling towels on a stall in Lord Street. It is perhaps not surprising then if you jump forward 15 years that advised by Rick Parry, he made a fatal decision to sell to H&G – bringing with it the final parallel with fallen empires. You see, by the end, empires are usually bankrupted by the Emperor’s own avarice. It was rumoured that the reason DIC were ignored was that H&G offered better personal inducements and as painful history would go on to show, we sold to our own version of Michael Knighton – only we got two of them into the bargain.
Once, we ruled Europe, but like the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans and Austro Hungarians we became bloated on our own success and didn’t see the threat from a younger, bitter, hungrier competitor. Complacency on the field costs points, off it costs millions and with it the means to compete. So where are we now?
There are some changes taking place in football. Yesterday, the Premier League passed decrees on FFF and salary caps. This time, Liverpool is ahead of the game. I know the jury is still out on Fenway, but I sometimes get info that they have seen the future and the club is fighting fit for it. The ground may finally get a capacity it deserves and sooner or later, the old Manc Emperor himself will have to relinquish the throne. In Fergie’s succession, Manchester United will meet its first real challenge and if the Glazer’s books are as dodgy as they are rumoured to be, FFF might catch up with them as well.
If history teaches us one thing, it is that it is cyclical. The Chinese once had a great Empire, and it’s odds on that they will be calling the shots again soon. So Empires do rise again, they just need a man with a vision, who is hungry, driven, resourced and ready to lead. Are you up for it Brendan?
