Quiet Genius

by Ian Herbert

  Hey interviewed Paisley twice and invited him out to lunch the second time. Paisley turned him down in favour of tea and a plate of biscuits.

  He announced to the players that Joe Fagan would succeed him, and Souness was pleased. In an echo of Paisley’s own succession from Shankly, the captain believed, ‘There would be no wasted time by trying to prove ourselves to a new management.’

  The pace of change remained relentless to the very end, with two of the bastions of the team Paisley had first built – David Johnson and Terry McDermott – heading out of Liverpool that summer, as Ian Rush and Craig Johnston eclipsed them. The pair fetched £100,000 each. Paisley again sold his ageing players early enough to collect a very good price. Johnson could have stayed longer. Paisley offered him an improved two-year contract in the summer of 1982 but he was not ready to be a squad player, yet. ‘I don’t want to waste another two years and be in and out,’ he told Paisley. ‘If I come back and I’m your fittest player and scoring goals, am I going to be your first choice?’

  ‘No,’ Paisley replied. ‘But there it is – that’s what I’m offering you. Sign it if you want. If you don’t, you can go.’

  So Johnson went to Everton, where his career had started, and at 30 had another two years of top-flight football to play. He did not take with him the same affection for Paisley that he held for Bobby Robson at Ipswich. That final exchange was ‘the first time in my life he was honest with me,’ Johnson reflects. The only other conversation with him that he can remember occurred at breakfast during an exhibition trip to Israel, when he and Souness joined him at the table. The location had stimulated Paisley’s memories of his Western Desert Campaign days in the war and he talked about that. But Johnson was happy to sacrifice Robson’s personableness for the four championships, two League Cups and three European Cups, 204 games and 78 goals that a mere six years at Paisley’s Liverpool had brought. ‘If you see somebody in slippers and a cardigan with a jovial face like Paisley, you think, “Oh, he must be a lovely fella,” don’t you?’ says Johnson. ‘None of it. I just didn’t find him that kind of manager. But who am I to criticise Bob Paisley? What a genius. So he didn’t give you a cuddle. But if he did, we might not have won what we won. So fair play to Bob Paisley. He did it his way and he was successful.’

  McDermott could not say he remembered a single conversation with Paisley either, as he also returned to the club where he began – Newcastle. It had been a curious relationship between the two, with McDermott finding rich comic value in the manager as he oiled the wheels of Liverpool’s social machine, and Paisley accepting it as he saw the player overcome his lack of self-confidence and become one of the great technicians of the side.

  Also on the way out was Kevin Sheedy, who had lost the battle for a midfield berth with Ronnie Whelan. He was a Frank McGarvey in many ways, except that he had stuck it out for five years and played just five times. For Sheedy, it all ended with a signal from Moran one day that Paisley wanted to see him. The news he received from him was unsparingly bleak. Blackpool, on the lowest rung of the Football League, were interested. When the Daily Mail’s Colin Wood, acting as Howard Kendall’s emissary, called him to say that Everton were interested too, Sheedy jumped at the chance. He would become a regular player in a side which was hugely successful for Kendall.

  David Fairclough clung on a little longer, though the 1980s had not been kind to him, either, with just 21 starts in three years. Those conversations in Bob Rawcliffe’s garage should probably have made him aware that he was fighting a losing battle to make it as a regular starter. But it was a call Paisley received from his old racing friend Frankie Carr, from his base in Hong Kong, which set in train the events of a bizarre summer which confirmed the manager’s view of him beyond all doubt.

  Carr was also working as an agent for a sports agency and he wanted to know if Paisley had any players to send to him in Hong Kong for the summer. Fairclough would be ideal, Paisley said.

  ‘No thanks,’ replied Fairclough, when Paisley put that to him, though he did say that the United States might interest him. (Fairclough had struggled with injury throughout the 1981–82 season and felt that a summer playing would get him back to fitness.) Paisley contacted the football agent Dennis Roach, who found Fairclough a place at Toronto in the North American Soccer League, where he spent a good summer. It was when the time came for Fairclough to pursue a place in Paisley’s team once more that there was a shock in store. When he called Paisley back at Anfield to tell him things had gone well, he found the manager more interested in telling him that the German side Hanover had ‘been on’ and wanted to speak to him. When Fairclough insisted that he wanted to come home, Paisley seemed to be prevaricating.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see what suits them,’ said Paisley, clearly uncomfortable, not making it entirely clear who ‘they’ were. Paisley was seemingly looking to extract some transfer market value for Fairclough, who was still only 25.

  Fairclough later suspected that Liverpool had sold him to Toronto for £150,000 and promptly had to buy him back when it was clear he did not want to go. No word was ever exchanged on this subject with Paisley when Fairclough arrived back at Melwood. The player simply laced up his boots and started training.

  He left the following July, becoming the last player Paisley sold, after nine years in which he had fretted more than any about how to convince the Rat of his ability. On the eve of the last day of the season he awoke to a report in the Daily Mail, based on Paisley information, to say that Liverpool were prepared to let him go. When he spoke to Paisley, he was told that the club would offer him a new contract with wages reduced from £600 to £425. After another summer in Toronto, Fairclough wound up in Switzerland with FC Luzern at an age when he had always imagined he would be hitting his Liverpool prime. He was dispensable, though. Paisley had his sights set on a new 22-year-old striker by then – David Hodgson, a third player from the Middlesbrough production line, on whom Liverpool spent most money (£450,000) in the summer of 1982. The conveyor belt never stopped turning.

  But it was the earlier acquisition from the Teesside club, South African-born Australian Craig Johnston, whom Paisley struggled with most as his tenure drew to a close. Of all those in the Boot Room, Paisley had been the keenest to sign him. Much like he had asked the club’s Phil Boersma to petition Souness to join, Paisley asked Souness to bring his influence to bear on Johnston, another former teammate on Teesside. Johnston says Souness told him, ‘Our lot are in for you and I told them you’re OK and can play. But they’re buying you to replace my mate Terry McDermott, so I can’t do you too many favours.’

  Brian Clough wanted Johnston for Forest, too, but Paisley was so keen that he called Johnston’s house in Middlesbrough. Johnston’s girlfriend said that he was too busy to talk. She hadn’t realised it was the Bob Paisley on the end of the line. Johnston arrived at Anfield to be offered a Liverpool contract. He informed Clough, whom he says offered to double the value of it. Johnston settled for Liverpool, after all, with 5 per cent of the transfer fee for him.

  But things began to unravel. While Souness had settled in almost immediately in the winter of 1978, it emerged once the Johnston deal had been done that the Australian midfielder was carrying a serious knee injury and, furthermore, he did not seem to conform to the Liverpool way. There were echoes of the Souness lifestyle about him. He lived in the city centre Holiday Inn and ran around in a Porsche. He wanted to buy a number plate that advertised his Australian roots – ROO 1 – and was struggling to persuade the owner to part with it. So he bought the car too. ‘The owner wanted 2,000 quid, but what’s money when you’ve just been signed as Liverpool’s latest star?’ he later reflected.

  Souness more than compensated for his high life on the field of play; Johnston did not. Instead, it was the Liverpool drinking culture he adapted most quickly to. He learned the finer points of what was known the ‘full dog day’ of drinking, which usually started across at the West Derby Arms. But the Boot Room wonder
ed why he, a player not short on self-confidence, seemed less fixated on the need to get his knee right. Johnston would arrive with his own muesli and nut combination in place of the usual Liverpool breakfast and was seen wearing tracksuit bottoms at Melwood until it was pointed out to him that players were only permitted to train in shorts. The wise old heads wondered whether he really was one of their own.

  Paisley called Johnston into his office. He told him that he felt the deal had not worked out. Manchester United were about to sign Bryan Robson from West Bromwich Albion, who would be looking to reinvest some of the transfer fee. He was prepared to let Johnston go.

  Did Paisley really mean this? Was he willing to give up a £650,000 record signing without having fielded him once? It was unlikely. Paisley had no idea what West Brom’s plans were and he would have been unlikely to hand Johnston to a competitor on a plate. Souness suspects as much. ‘I think they were lighting a fire,’ he says. ‘They wanted him to knuckle down. They would have had no problem selling him if they had to. They could attract any player they wanted.’

  Johnston opted to knuckle down. He began to work and his fortunes seemed to change on a bitter December night when Arsenal visited Anfield for a fourth-round League Cup replay. His first goal for the club, five minutes into extra-time, helped secure a quarter-final place.

  His work rate soon ceased to be a problem, but it was a focused work rate that Paisley wanted. While Liverpool’s supporters were enthused by the midfielder’s effort, Paisley, Moran and Fagan all felt that he did not stick to the plan. Johnston, by his own admission, lacked finesse and could sometimes just run around the field ‘like a lunatic’.

  Never did this seem more the case than in a home game against Sunderland in March 1982, when Johnston was, to Paisley’s mind, causing chaos with the intensity of his running. The team had returned from a tough midweek assignment in Sofia, where they had lost 2–0, and they tended to operate in a low-tempo mode on the Saturday after such assignments. Trainee Paul Jewell was in the Anfield stand that day and could see the problems Johnston was causing. ‘We all knew the way they managed those games after long European trips, when they might have a touch of jet lag,’ he says. ‘They’d just see the game out. You could see Craig had too much energy.’ Paisley substituted Johnston in the 69th minute, triggering a howl of derision from a section of the Anfield crowd, who loved his commitment. The newspapers reported that supporters shook their fists at Paisley, while cheering Johnston as he made his way down the tunnel.

  Paisley was implacable, declaring he would not be swayed by supporters who did not see what he saw. His rationale was that the Liverpool players were all calibrated and operated at the same tempo. ‘That would be too intelligent for a few yobbos in the crowd to understand,’ he told the newspapers, needled by the negative reaction.

  After Johnston’s withdrawal, Liverpool maintained the early lead Rush had given them and won 1–0, to stay top of the First Division. Johnston used newspaper interviews to defend Paisley’s decision to remove him. But he clearly saw this as a favour to the manager. ‘It was all fair and diplomatic but it was the last time I would defend a manager who denied me a first-team place,’ he declared years later.

  Paisley subsequently qualified his words to smooth things over with supporters. He said that by ‘yobbos’ he had meant only three or four people. ‘They turned on me and I know where they sit and who they are, if they are there next time. I don’t want to label everyone with it.’ But the supporters were audible. There were many more than three or four.

  It was a rare collision between Paisley and the fans, but the episode did hint that Paisley’s authority was not what it had been. Such dissent didn’t keep him awake at nights. The routines stayed the same as ever and he found ways of fitting the family in, if he could. On away trips to the Midlands, Bob would meet up with Christine and her new husband Ian McMahon on the night before games. He was relaxed about discussing games and players. McMahon – a football enthusiast – would get the inside track on who was injured. It helped the relationship that Paisley’s son-in-law was also keen on racing. Paisley’s fierce loyalty to his players was no less evident on those occasions. One conversation with McMahon developed into a gentle questioning of Phil Neal’s form. ‘Well, he’s won three European Cups,’ Paisley said.

  These remained difficult economic times for the supporters of Liverpool. The British invasion of the Falklands in the spring of 1982 could not paper over the economic realities on Merseyside. Over the course of three seasons there had been a 25 per cent reduction in attendances and it meant that times weren’t exactly easy inside Anfield either. This was a full decade before the Premiership launched and the drop in gate receipts meant efforts were redoubled in the area of overseas friendlies, often with farcical results.

  On one trip to Marbella, Liverpool were scheduled to play Real Betis and Malaga on consecutive days, with no day’s break in the middle as they had been promised. There were also fewer beds at Liverpool’s hotel than players. When David Hodgson missed a penalty in the shoot-out which would have extended the squad’s stay, he was mobbed by his teammates.

  Hodgson had struggled to make an impact. He’d scored nine goals in 37 appearances in his first season and was another in the anxious mould. He’d heard nothing from the management, and the lack of praise was hard to deal with. Once signed, he was left to his own devices.

  It was Saunders who approached him after ten games, probably despatched by Paisley. ‘Listen, you’re the best player of your type here,’ Saunders told him. ‘Relax and enjoy yourself.’ Within two years Hodgson had decided Anfield was not for him and left for Sunderland.

  Paisley still looked for new strategies and systems. He was intrigued by the notion of operating with three central defenders – a version of the Italian catenaccio sweeper system – with Hansen and Lawrenson covering specific zones in the penalty area and Thompson operating behind them as the ‘spare man’ or sweeper. Paisley may have been influenced by Jock Stein, who was also interested in the idea and would also employ it for a European Championship qualifying tie in the December of that season.

  It was not to be. Lawrenson felt Souness’s dislike of the system put a stop to the idea. ‘It upset the dynamic in midfield, where he ran the whole game. He hated it,’ Lawrenson says. But a thigh injury to Hansen, which kept him out of the first seven league games of the 1982–83 season, also affected the system and even when the three were all operating together it didn’t work, chiefly because Hansen struggled to adapt. Under the old flat back four system, he instinctively knew when to move forward into midfield – as the ball-playing defender he had become – and when to hold back and let others advance. The new system left him uncertain of when to stay and when to go.

  The new team maintained its domestic predominance despite Paisley’s impending departure. Liverpool were joint top when the Goodison Park derby approached in November, and Rush’s confidence continued to soar. Rush and Paisley passed each other at Melwood a few days before the game. Paisley casually mentioned that no player had scored a hat-trick in the Merseyside derby for nearly 50 years. Rush scored four.

  The intuition between Rush and Dalglish was helping. Rush scored another hat-trick in his next league game, against Coventry City, taking Liverpool to the top spot, which they never surrendered that season. By the time they met Everton again in mid-March, Liverpool were 14 points clear of Watford at the top.

  The problems with Craig Johnston gradually abated. He felt he deserved more football than he was getting, having appeared in fewer than half the side’s First Division games in 1981–82 and asked Paisley to put him on the transfer list. Paisley did so. There was no attempt to talk him around. The manager’s indifference – probably calculated – motivated him, though, just as it had Rush. He appeared in 33 of the club’s 42 fixtures the following season, as Liverpool finished 11 points clear of Watford, with 82 points.

  Liverpool’s supremacy was such that they clinched the title in Apr
il, on a day when they actually lost. While they were going down 2–0 at Tottenham, Manchester United could only draw away to Norwich, which ensured that Paisley’s players could not be caught. It was their sixth championship in his nine seasons at the helm, won amid more of the late-season high jinks which had characterised their breeze 12 months earlier.

  Souness recalls a Middlesbrough-type incident around that time before an away match. The players popped out for a lunchtime glass of wine and were still drinking at 5 p.m. ‘There were one or two who would have struggled to pass the breathalyser test when we trotted out that night.’

  The complacency was reflected in results. Liverpool did not win any of their last seven games. Paisley may have been in the twilight of his managerial career but he was not thrilled by this. He called his players into a meeting at one team hotel to demand greater intensity, and looked like he meant business when he pulled the curtains closed with a sharp tug on the cord. This brought the entire structure crashing down onto his head. The players could not contain themselves. ‘I think even he saw the funny side,’ says Souness.

  Dalglish had contributed most in that last season, a factor recognised when he was named the Footballers’ and Football Writers’ Player of the Year. The cover of Shoot! magazine on 7 May 1983 featured Johnston, with the subsidiary headlines – ‘Man City in turmoil’ and ‘Clough at the crossroads’ – providing a reminder of how the challengers had fallen away.

  There would be no fourth European Cup triumph for Paisley, however. Liverpool’s campaign was ended by the Polish side Widzew Łódź at the third-round stage. The journey into Poland included the drama of Liverpool’s Aer Lingus jet overshooting the short runway and requiring a second descent. That contributed to the old suspicions about continental travel that Paisley took into retirement.