by Tony Evans
In the midst of this political chaos, Everton faced off against United but it was the most underwhelming trip to Old Trafford in the history of this Lancashire rivalry. On Wednesday, 18 September, they played their opening match in the Super Cup, the tournament sponsored by a company called ScreenSport. Only 33,859 attended the game that no one wanted. Howard Kendall’s team talk summed up the attitude to this newly invented competition. ‘What a waste of time this is,’ the Everton manager declared. ‘Out you go.’
The Blues won 4–2. As if anyone cared.
Liverpool had played Southampton the night before. Dalglish, in his programme notes, tried to lift spirits:
We have every incentive to get through to the final … it could produce another all-Merseyside meeting at Wembley, or a Merseyside–Manchester confrontation. We’re taking on crack opposition from our own league and we all want to show who’s boss. It may not be the European Cup, but it’s still there to be won.
It did not accurately reflect what the player-manager was thinking. ‘What else was I supposed to say?’ he asked.
For Steve Nicol, this was the moment the enormity of Heysel hit home. ‘I wasn’t mature enough to take it all in at the time,’ he said. The 23-year-old could not comprehend the horror of events. ‘The older fellas felt it more. I was just too young.’
Nicol had not even grasped the impact that Brussels would have on his career until the Super Cup loomed. ‘It didn’t hit me until the season started and the European competition began,’ he said. ‘We were playing in a Mickey Mouse competition they invented.’
The Super Cup featured the six teams who would have qualified for Europe. The public hated it. The Full Members’ Cup, created for the other clubs in the two top divisions, fared even worse. Only five teams from the top flight – Chelsea, Coventry City, Manchester City, Oxford United and West Brom – took part. Six clubs from division two could not be bothered to participate.
In all, 21 teams started the competition. The Southern section comprised four groups of three teams. In the North, they struggled to form groups. Group one was a mini-league of three teams; group three had just two, who played on a home and away basis; and groups two and four consisted of two sides playing one-off matches. It was ludicrous. Fans, players and managers had no interest in the new tournaments. These new cups were no solution to the game’s problems.
11
Power play
After the nadir of the Super Cup came a game that set the blood racing for fans of Everton and Liverpool. The 133rd Merseyside derby took place at Goodison Park on a wild, rainy day. These were arguably the best two teams in Europe. They were certainly the finest sides not involved in Continental competition.
The two groups of players drank and socialized together. They were mates. Until the derby loomed.
‘Off the field we got on great,’ Graeme Sharp said. ‘A lot of us lived near one another in Southport. We’d see each other when we were out and we’d send drinks across to each other. I lived next door to Ronnie Whelan, a great fella. We’d avoid each other derby week but otherwise we were all mates.’
As an Australian, Craig Johnston might have been dispassionate about a match like this. Instead, he got caught up in the tension, emotion and drama as much as any local. He dreaded derby days as much as he embraced them.
‘I’d be shitting myself,’ he said. ‘I was sick with worry. If you do something good, then great. But if you lose the ball, all the Blues are laughing at you and all the Reds are moaning. It’s the most frightening place in the world. There’s 50,000 Scousers howling abuse at you.’
In the away dressing room at Goodison, while the maelstrom began to crescendo, Johnston found a way to dampen his fear. ‘I looked around. I had Hansen to my left, Dalglish in front of me, Rush to the side. I’d been thinking about Peter Reid trying to cut me in half. Then I thought, “What the fuck am I worried about? Imagine if I was sitting in the Everton dressing room?”’
Mark Lawrenson did not enjoy the hullabaloo around these games. ‘They’re horrible,’ the centre half said. ‘The worst thing is the fear of getting beat. It didn’t matter where anyone was in the table, top or bottom, it was brutal.’
Defeat was unthinkable. Losing meant a player’s life was miserable until the next derby. ‘I had a car sponsored by Skyway Ford in Halewood and it had my name all over it,’ Lawrenson said. ‘If we lost, I hated stopping at traffic lights. You couldn’t look around because there’d be an Evertonian gloating or giving me two fingers. If someone beeped you, you learnt not to look up. When we got beat, I used to use my wife’s car. It was easier.’
Graeme Sharp came down from Scotland and was quickly made aware how much this match mattered. Initially, the Everton striker was surprised: ‘Fans would come up to you and say, “I can’t go into work if you lose.” You’d think, “Is that really true?” It was.’
Everton were confident. They had won three derbies in a row. Before the game, Howard Kendall was presented with his Manager of the Year award from the previous season. The accolade had gone to a Liverpool boss eight times in the previous 12 years. With Dalglish as first-year manager, it felt like a changing of the guard was taking place.
Dalglish sprung a shock with his team. Jan Mølby, the midfielder who Brian Glanville once described as ‘corpulent enough to be playing darts for Denmark’, was deployed as a sweeper in an attempt to neutralize Everton’s pace. No one was more surprised than the Dane.
‘Kenny was a great student of the game,’ Mølby said. ‘He loved Italian football. He was very versatile in his tactics. Half an hour before the derby, he said to me, “Go and play between Hansen and Lawrenson and keep an eye on Lineker.”’
It was a daunting task. The slowest man in the Liverpool team was assigned to watch the whippet-like Lineker.
Bobby Robson, sitting in the stands, was shocked. The England manager turned to the journalist John Keith of the Daily Express and said, ‘Liverpool playing with a sweeper? When did you ever see that?’
The action came at the other end, though. Everton kicked off with their usual ploy, punting the ball towards the opposition’s corner flag so that their midfield terriers could press the defence deep in Liverpool territory. Alan Hansen was waiting for the ball and headed it back to Bruce Grobbelaar. The goalkeeper took one touch and then passed it out to Steve Nicol. The full back controlled the ball, looked up and banged a long pass 60 yards down the pitch towards Ian Rush, who was lurking in the inside-right position on the edge of the Everton box.
Rush had his back to goal and was closely policed by Kevin Ratcliffe. The Welsh striker flicked the ball back towards Dalglish and, as the defence backpedalled, the player-manager curled a shot into the far corner of the net from 20 yards to record his first league goal of the season. The Park End, where the Liverpool supporters congregated, erupted. The visitors were leading 1–0 after 25 seconds. All around the stadium, groups of Reds celebrated. In the enclosure near the corner flag where we were standing, there was a short, sharp brawl. The friendly derby has its comradeship tested at moments like this. Liverpool were on top.
Everton looked stunned. Rush, Goodison’s nemesis, doubled the lead 15 minutes later. Gary Stevens made a hash of a defensive header and Ronnie Whelan and Rush were left clear on goal. Neville Southall charged to the edge of his box but as the goalkeeper arrived Whelan slid the ball to Rush to place into the empty net. Kendall’s side were in disarray. Just before half-time, Liverpool added to their lead. Dalglish, under pressure on the edge of the opposition box, pulled the ball back to Steve McMahon, who rammed home a shot from 20 yards.
McMahon had come through the Everton youth system but felt underappreciated and underpaid at Goodison. He left to join Aston Villa and was a very recent arrival at Anfield. Liverpool paid £350,000 for his services three weeks before the derby. When the new signing was introduced to the crowd before the Watford match, he was greeted with chants of ‘Everton reject’ from the Kop. Now he leapt high in celebration, punchi
ng the air in joy. He would never be jeered again by Liverpool fans.
At half-time, Kendall tried to staunch the wounds. ‘Howard was never a ranter but he was unhappy,’ Southall said. He was not the only one. Losing dressing rooms are rarely comfortable places but being routed in a derby led to some furious exchanges between players. Ian Marshall, a centre half making his debut, was out of his depth and was replaced by Adrian Heath, a forward, as Kendall shuffled his side. It was a different Everton in the second half.
Seven minutes after the restart, McMahon got caught in possession, allowing Paul Bracewell to shoot. The effort was blocked but Graeme Sharp jumped on the rebound and hammered home: 3–1.
The diminutive Heath was nicknamed ‘Inchy’, after the cartoon detective show Inch High, Private Eye, but the striker’s intelligence and movement gave Everton another dimension.
‘Inchy was important to them,’ Lawrenson said. ‘He made things happen. He could always find angles.’
Sharp always felt better with Heath on the pitch. ‘He was the best partner I had at Goodison,’ the striker said. ‘He was intelligent and the partnership came naturally. We had an almost telepathic understanding.’
Heath found room in the box to shoot with seven minutes left and his cross-cum-shot was turned into the net by Lineker, who scored his eighth goal of the season. At 3–2, Everton were on top and pouring forward towards the Gwladys Street End in search of an equalizer. Liverpool were dangerous on the break, though, and twice Dalglish shot wide when one-on-one with Southall. At the final whistle, the players of both sides collapsed exhausted.
Kendall was generous afterwards and had a playful dig at Dalglish. ‘My great disappointment is that their manager refused my hospitality and didn’t accept the offer of a traditional drink before the kick-off. Can’t think why.’
The Liverpool boss joined the mood of levity when asked about his missed sitters. ‘Disgraceful,’ he said. ‘The manager is not happy.’
Everyone else was. The plaudits came pouring in. Veteran reporter John Keith wrote it was ‘the greatest collision between Everton and Liverpool I have seen in almost 30 years’. England manager Robson concurred: ‘I have been in football for 35 years and I don’t recall seeing a better game in my life.’
Stuart Jones in The Times gushed: ‘It was extraordinary by any standards. If there is a finer game anywhere across the Continent, let alone the first division, this season, it will be a rich privilege and a rare pleasure to see.’
They saw it in Egypt, where the game was broadcast live, and in numerous countries across the world. In Britain, only those inside the stadium were able to witness the spectacle. Those of us who were there were breathless.
Weeks later, a VHS cassette arrived in the post at our house, a copy of an Australian highlights package featuring the derby recorded by friends Down Under. It did not play properly on our recorder and the action was almost obscured by greenish ghosts on the screen. Still, people were desperate to see it. It was lent around the city and numerous copies made. Even those who had been in the ground wanted to relive the experience. Football needed television back and it needed it soon.
Liverpool’s derby joy was slightly tainted by results elsewhere. Manchester United racked up their tenth consecutive league victory by beating Southampton. Behind the scenes, though, rivalries were being put aside in pursuit of revenue. The so-called ‘Big Five’ – Liverpool, Everton, United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur – were beginning to realize that their earning power was much greater than that of other clubs. Their attendances were higher than the rest and their potential for growth was bigger. They had not been impressed with the creation of the Full Members’ Cup, which had been railroaded through by Chelsea’s Ken Bates and Ron Noades of Crystal Palace. Arsenal, the only one of the Big Five eligible to play in the Full Members’ competition, declined to get involved. ‘They didn’t give a reason,’ Noades said. ‘I think they thought it was beneath them.’ It was.
At the League Management Committee’s autumn meeting, the Big Five made their power play. They demanded a smaller first division and threatened a breakaway league. ‘The big clubs are very, very impatient for many reasons,’ Liverpool’s John Smith said at the time. ‘We are suffering financial hardship because there is no television agreement, we are not in Europe, gates are declining and altogether the state of our national game is in disarray. It is up to legislators, like ourselves, to do what we can to bring common sense back to it.’ The road to the Premier League was beginning.
It did nothing for the mood of the frustrated five when talks with the TV companies broke down again in November. At that point, only the FA Cup and Milk Cup finals were scheduled to be shown, as they were part of a separate agreement.
The FA and Football League bigwigs seemed to be operating in a different world to the television executives and putative reformers of the game. When Bert Millichip, the FA chairman, deigned to talk about potential sponsorship of the FA Cup, he chose the lunch before the annual Oxford and Cambridge University fixture. The people’s game indeed.
The ruling body had turned down a £9 million sponsorship deal for their premier competition. The FA knew their price. ‘A £10 million deal over five years would be hard to resist,’ Millichip said. ‘Although I’m totally against it, as I believe the FA Cup is sacrosanct and dominated by the old amateur spirit, I don’t think the time for sponsorship can be far away.’
There was huge scepticism about the public’s appetite for live football on TV. Brian Glanville doubted that the audience’s attention span would hold, especially after the diet of highlights the viewers had been served by two decades of shows like Match of the Day on the BBC and The Big Match (and its regional variations) on ITV. Glanville asked: ‘How long will the public respond to live football on the screen?’ He thought he knew the answer:
The whole essence of televised football seemed to me the brilliance of the filming and editing, whereby even the dullest game could be made palatable. There is nothing they can do with a dull live game, which in any case lacks both the atmosphere and the panoramic view of the real thing. Once the novelty wears off, will the public really want ‘live’ football?
The events of the previous few years had left many with similar reservations.
The craving to see Manchester United was as strong as ever. As win after win was chalked up, the possibility of a first title for Old Trafford since 1967 was hyped up more and more by the newspapers. ‘It’s All Yours, Ron,’ said one of the more memorable headlines.
Atkinson was not so sure. ‘We knew it wasn’t over. Liverpool had a good start,’ he said. The United manager had learnt his lesson not to underestimate Anfield the hard way. ‘Our best chance to win the league was 1983–84,’ Atkinson said. ‘Liverpool kept slipping up and instead of taking advantage we’d do the same. We reached the semi-finals of the Cup-Winners’ Cup against Juventus and on the day of the game Robbo got injured and the season unravelled.
‘We finished fourth. How do you finish fourth in a two-horse race?’ The question still haunts Atkinson.
Competition was even more intense now. Even though United had the lead, Liverpool knew that titles were won in May, not November.
‘We weren’t bothered,’ Steve Nicol said, reflecting the mood at Anfield. ‘We were not interested in anyone else. We were more concerned with sorting ourselves out.’
Even after the derby victory, Liverpool still saw Everton as their biggest rivals for trophies. ‘They were a real team,’ Nicol said. ‘A great team. We knew who was going to stay the course. Everton wanted to play.’
That was the difference for Nicol. Kendall’s team were committed to winning. The Scotland defender was not so sure about what drove United onwards.
‘There were some other teams that pandered to the idea of being professional,’ Nicol said. ‘It was like they had a ten-year-old’s view of what football was like and just imagined the benefits without the hard work.
‘United were like that.
They forgot they had to win to get the sort of status they expected to be given.’
It is harsh criticism but some United players were exempt. Bryan Robson was the best English player of his generation and already skipper of the national team. When ‘Captain Marvel’ was in the side, United were a significantly more dangerous proposition. The midfielder was prone to injury, though. He broke his leg three times in his early years at West Brom. His relentless playing style did not help, either. ‘He was fearless,’ Atkinson said. ‘Too fearless for his own good sometimes.’
There was class in the United squad but little depth. Paul McGrath was a superbly stylish centre back and his partner Kevin Moran – who had broken Kenny Dalglish’s cheekbone at Anfield the previous year – was ruggedly effective. Both picked up too many injuries.
Jesper Olsen and Gordon Strachan were talented but lightweight in midfield. In attack, United were a little short of firepower and pace. Mark Hughes and Norman Whiteside gave the team ferocity and youth but they were still developing. After his front-line players, Atkinson’s squad looked thin.
There was a culture of heavy drinking at Old Trafford. Robson, as usual, led the way. McGrath was not far behind. The captain could sink umpteen pints and still train as hard as anyone. Some of the others in the team were less able to cope with drinking and training sessions.
United were not the only team where heavy drinking was encouraged as part of a team-bonding exercise. Until Dalglish changed things at Liverpool, the backroom staff would fly into a fury if they caught the players having a round of golf. Numerous rounds in the pub were, however, acceptable. It was believed walking the course tired out the legs and swinging a club caused back injuries. Long, boozy afternoons after training drew no rebukes and the Boot Room staff liked to listen to tales of the players’ drunken debauchery.
