Red Machine

by Simon Hughes

  Jimmy Melia, a former Liverpool midfielder under Bill Shankly, took over.

  ‘Jimmy was an avuncular character, a jovial man – good fun to be around, and a Scouser. The players loved him even though he was not so conventional. Things went reasonably well. It was true that we got to the FA Cup final, but it’s also true that we got relegated. It was a dreamy period and it was very different. We played a relaxed style of football, and because of the way we were off the pitch you could say that we were the first pub team to play a major final at Wembley.

  ‘Because of our FA Cup run, we went losing silly games in the league, but nobody seemed to care. Everybody thought we had far too good a team to get relegated, and the FA Cup run vindicated that. We’d walk around the streets and fans would congratulate us on our performances in the Cup. In the meantime, we were spiralling towards relegation. They were romantic times set amidst not necessarily the most professional environment. We drew 2–2 with United in the final and lost the replay 4–1.Gordon Smith should have won the game for us, but he missed a sitter after I set him up. He still blames me for it.

  ‘Jimmy rested me in two of the last four games of the season ahead of the final, and it proved to be crucial. It was a bizarre decision to make. But I complied with it. Maybe I should have been more opinionated. We finished bottom of the league, but if it wasn’t for the cup final I think we’d have stayed up.’

  After relegation in 1983, Brighton couldn’t afford to keep their star players and big earners. Robinson was on a bumper contract at Brighton. Whoever wanted to sign him would have to pay handsomely.

  ‘It was £1,400 a week with an automatic 15 per cent a year inflation over ten years. Brighton was a very wealthy club. Bryan Robson had gone from West Brom to Manchester United and at the same time Peter Shilton had left Forest for Southampton. They were reportedly the biggest earners in English football, on £800 a week. But I knew at least four lads, including myself, already on more than £1,000 a week at Brighton: Peter Ward, Steve Foster and Mark Lawrenson were the others.

  ‘I had no previous notion that Liverpool were after me. I knew Seville in Spain had made enquiries, as well as Everton and Newcastle. I’d spoken to Howard Kendall over the phone and he was very endearing. But I never wanted to sign for them because I’d grown up as a Liverpool fan and Everton were the enemy – the monied elite. It’s funny now how they portray themselves as paupers, when back in the ’60s they were known as the Bank of England Club, with the lovely Harry Catterick throwing money at anything that moved.

  ‘Anyway, I went away on holiday and came back for pre-season at Brighton. I’d just bought a Golden Labrador called Paddy for my girlfriend, later to become wife, then a call came from Mike Bamber [the Brighton chairman]. I got round to his house and he said, “There has been an offer, we’ve accepted it, and you’ll never guess who it is …”’

  Robinson’s new contract would break Liverpool’s wage structure. To avoid the press breaking the story and alerting other clubs, he met officials at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

  ‘When Peter Robinson asked me how much I was on, he couldn’t believe it. He rang up the Brighton secretary to check I wasn’t pulling his leg. I told him that I’d sign for nothing. It seriously didn’t matter. “Pay me what the fuck you want – give me the pen,” I said to him.

  ‘In the end, John Smith, the chairman, insisted on giving me a rise and agreed with Peter that all the other senior players should get a rise as well. I remember saying to Peter that it was going to be an honour to play with such wonderful players. “We don’t sign players,” Peter told me. “We sign people that play good at football.”

  ‘Joe Fagan and Bob Paisley were there when I went to sign the contract and I asked them whether I could have a coffee or some fizzy water. “Here’s a beer, lad,” Joe told me. “Get that down your neck.”

  ‘Later, Joe asked me whether I had any other questions. “How do you want me to play?” Bob and Joe looked at each other, smiled, then Joe took charge. “We rather hope that you know how to play, otherwise we’re going to lose a lot of money here.”

  ‘“According to the system, I meant.”

  ‘Joe put his hand around my shoulder, sat me down and said, “Listen, lad, we play 11 players here – just to make sure we aren’t disadvantaged. In midfield, when we get the ball we try to kick it to somebody dressed the same colour as us. As a forward, Michael, kick it in the net, and if you can’t, kick it to somebody who can. Then at the back, we’re gonna break our balls to make sure the oppo don’t score.”

  ‘“There’s no more to it than that?” I asked.

  ‘“You’ll find, Michael, that we leave players to figure it out for themselves. But we’ll help along the way. This isn’t a major science … you’ll work it out.”

  ‘It was the greatest example of man-management I’d ever come across.’

  Robinson moved to Merseyside on a three-year deal but he failed to score in his first nine games. In covering one early match, a former leading BBC Radio commentator described him on air as a ‘dyspeptic water buffalo grazing with a herd of gazelle – clumsy, awkward, a yard behind the play and a thousand yards from Dalglish’s analytical, surgical football’.

  ‘I had a terrible start,’ he says. ‘Christ, another fucking nightmare … seriously couldn’t hit a barn door, and I could tell the crowd and media hadn’t really taken to me. I remember waking up the morning before we played Odense in the first round of the European Cup and the papers were saying I was going to be dropped. Craig Johnston was coming in and the goal seemed like the eye of a needle to me. But I wasn’t a pretty player and I knew it.

  ‘I used to be the first person into training. Like everybody knows, we changed at Anfield and got the bus up to Melwood. When I arrived, Ronnie Moran comes up and goes, “Boss wants to see you.” So I walked the longest walk down the corridor to his office. I goes in and Joe asks Sheila [the former secretary to the manager] if she can get an official teamsheet.

  ‘He proceeds to tell me that that morning his wife Maisy had given him two sugars in his tea instead of three, without handing him a copy of the Racing Post. He could sense something was up. “Are you not going to play Michael?” she asks. “He has such a nice face … give him a break.”

  ‘Joe told me that he hadn’t said a word to his missus and hadn’t even considered dropping me. “I want to put the record straight, lad. Look at this teamsheet: you’re the first one on the list.”

  ‘He explained that he thought I’d given Kenny a new lease of life and he was really pleased with me. “Bloody Maisy,” he finished. “Lovely woman, but she don’t know much about footy, does she, lad? Can I give her a call and tell her you’re all right?”

  ‘The whole story may have been a load of bollocks, but it made me feel the greatest man on earth. I scored two goals that night then went away to West Ham soon after and scored a hat-trick. It was genius from Joe.’

  The gentle approach with Fagan was a departure from Paisley’s regime, where he preferred to distance himself. Robinson, clearly in his element telling this story, believes that directions from those in the dugout made everything seem easy for the players.

  ‘The attitude throughout the club was that if we didn’t do well, anybody could beat us. If we did do well, nobody could beat us. It was a humble attitude. I remember once before a game against Brentford in the League Cup, Graeme Souness had the dressing-room buzzing like we were playing against Manchester United. There was no complacency – ever.

  ‘I used to have this recurring nightmare of Ronnie Moran’s voice: “Give it, get it, go … give it, get it, go.” It was a drone. He was the mouthpiece for the coaching staff, the taskmaster. We’d played Tottenham one day, and on the way back Joe Fagan asked me to go and sit next to him on the bus. “Y’all right, Michael … happy? We’re delighted with you, lad … God bless ye.”

  ‘“Thank you, boss,” I replied.

  ‘“Got any questions … any goss?”

  �
�I immediately thought I was doing something wrong. I joked that some nights I went to bed hearing the words, “Give it, get it, go …”

  ‘“There’s always a reason behind things, Michael,” Joe responded. “Do you like shooting – shooting guns? Well, imagine we went shooting hare or rabbits – I bet you I’d kill it straight away if it was standing still. Do you reckon you could?”

  ‘“Suppose so.”

  ‘“Well, if it starts to run about all over the place, nobody can kill it. The ball’s the fucking same. If it stays still in one fucking place for a short period of time, the other team will capture it and keep it. If the ball or the fucking hare starts moving quickly, the ball or the hare doesn’t get fucked, does it?”

  ‘Again, I thought this was genius.’

  Robinson speaks almost lustfully about Graeme Souness.

  ‘He was my best mate – a wonderful man. Friendship apart, he was the greatest footballer I’ve ever played with. Graeme was also a misunderstood soul. There was a varnish around him – an aura. But once you chipped off that varnish, I found him a very personal, cuddly chap who was actually quite vulnerable about being a human being with emotions. To this day, he still tries very hard not to be this lovely cuddly person, when really he is.

  ‘We were bosom buddies. He saw me as a reasonably well-spoken kid, and I think that he viewed that as different and interesting, whereas I was completely in awe of him as a person and a footballer. We became extremely close friends, and he looked after me when the times were hard at Liverpool. I love Graeme dearly. He has to be the greatest leader I’ve ever come across in my life. When he left to go to Sampdoria, it was like losing five players all at once.

  ‘Graeme was fundamentally a slow footballer, like Kenneth [Dalglish]. But as Bob Paisley once coined the phrase, “They both played the first five yards in their head.” Dalglish was already there before you’d started thinking about it, and Souness was the same. While also being an immaculate passer of the ball, he was a great tackler and tactically so astute. Souness was greater than Hansen, Kenneth, Ian Rush and Liam Brady.

  ‘Everybody knows that Graeme was rather partial to a glass of champagne, but he wasn’t a drinker. He was a dresser. I’d irritate him by calling him a posh Jock – but he liked my use of language. He also liked my thought process. In some ways, I think I entertained him.’

  Not all the players related to Robinson like Souness, however.

  ‘A lot of stick came my way, but it was never vindictive. The only genuinely hurtful thing that somebody said to me was when Graeme left for Italy. Ronnie Whelan saunters up and goes, “Well, now your buddy’s gone … let’s see how you do.” That really hurt me. Although I get on with Ronnie and respect him – he’s a friend of mine now – what he said that day was nasty. It may seem a bit pathetic in some ways. But it bothered me.

  ‘One of the things players thought strange about me was the fact that I bought newspapers – the broadsheets. They struggled to get me, and Graeme was probably the only one that truly understood what I was about. But on the whole, they were a very humble and non-pretentious group of lads. Nobody was too big to get ripped.

  ‘Joe Fagan and Ronnie [Moran] wouldn’t allow any dickheads in the squad. Whenever one of us was going away on international duty, we’d shout across to Ronnie, “Who are we playing in a fortnight when we get back?”

  ‘“Fortnight? Who gives a fuck? We might all be on the dole by then.”’

  In the 1983–84 season, Ian Rush plundered 47 goals, his best tally in any campaign. Dalglish, meanwhile, scored 12 times – the lowest total in a season since joining Liverpool. Robinson, like Souness, also netted twelve – yet the forward was dropped from the squad for the final ten league games and only appeared on the bench at the European Cup final in Rome because five substitutes were permitted. Robinson admits that he struggled during 18 months at the club and never truly felt comfortable wearing a Liverpool shirt – despite being a supporter.

  ‘It felt like I always scored against Liverpool whoever I was playing for – City, Brighton, QPR. When I walked outside the left-hand dressing-room and down the stairs and past the imposing “This is Anfield” sign before hearing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, you’d wait for the Liverpool team to run out. They seemed like giants, and as opposition it felt like being a lamb led to the slaughter. That seemed to be the role of the opposition player.

  ‘When I had the experience of being in the right-hand dressing-room, it was very different. I remember looking at the red shirt, and the jersey weighed so heavy. I’d walk out and touch the sign, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” was now for you. I remember in some games half-wishing that I was that lamb again being led to the slaughter, because there was no responsibility in that. Instead, I had to be at the level of Liverpool Football Club. And I wasn’t too sure that I could be. Anfield was far more imposing to me as a Liverpool player than as a visiting player. That played on my mind and I thought about it far too much.’

  One player who didn’t think was Ian Rush.

  ‘On the pitch, Ian could smell fear in the opposition,’ Robinson says, dilating his nostrils. ‘He was a beast, an animal – purely instinctive. He may have had some problems with reading the text of certain newspapers. He wasn’t blessed with an intellect, yet he was a genius of football. Ian was somebody that made me look a great player in the air. Whenever Bruce knocked it long from a goal-kick, I’d look to lay it off, and Rushy would always be one step ahead by reading my corporeal language. He could taste football and was incredibly intelligent on the field. He was unconscious and had no fear of failure – something that perhaps more intellectual folk suffer from. Ian was unaware but an unbelievable footballer and undoubtedly the most lethal striker that has ever played for Liverpool. I had little in common with him, but he was a kind soul.’

  Kenny Dalglish, or ‘Kenneth’ as Robinson uniquely and regularly calls him, was somebody with whom he shared a rapport.

  ‘Kenneth has a heart the size of a lion. He was the first person when I arrived to invite me to his house. He was adorable. Of course, he was an absolute genius. King Kenny – I can’t argue with that. I found him a lovely man and he still is today. So many years later when I went to Liverpool to film for Informe Robinson on a piece with Fernando Torres, I asked him to come along. He was due to go to Glasgow that same night, but he still insisted on having dinner with us before he left. He always has been generous with his time, and I love him to bits.’

  Robinson also respected Alan Hansen.

  ‘As a footballer, there was no finer defender of his time. When you talk about Franz Beckenbauer or Bobby Moore, Hansen was in that category. He read the game unbelievably and his distribution was superb. In the blood and thunder of English football, he was the progressive centre-back that was the next stage of Beckenbauer. People often ask me to compare Mark Lawrenson and Jocky. I always say the same. Mark used to fly into slide tackles, everyone would applaud and he’d be a hero. But Hansen would have seen it long before. Lawrenson was never on his feet; Hansen never needed to be on his bum. Lawrenson was brilliant, but Hansen was a genius.’

  Hansen was also the joker in the squad.

  ‘Sarcasm was Hansen. There was more of a clown element amongst the squad – a collective banter. Brucie was somebody we’d all make fun of, and he’d always take it wonderfully, along with Stevie Nic. There are some legendary tales about Steve – one where a couple of the lads asked him to check the boot of the car while they were driving through Scotland before driving off and leaving him in the snow. There was another I was told much later when he was made captain for a match at Old Trafford. He charged out the tunnel but all the lads waited. He’d made it to the halfway line by the time he realised he was on the pitch on his own surrounded by 40,000 Mancs.’

  Nicol, like Robinson, was a staunch Labour voter. Although the players rarely discussed politics at a time when it seemed like Liverpool’s economy was being strangled, castrated and bathed in acid all at the sa
me time by Thatcher, Robinson was aware of other players’ views on issues of governance.

  ‘Paul Jewell, who was trying to forge a place in the first team, once said that he was the only Labour voter at Melwood. Well, I don’t think he ever asked anybody about what they believe in. But I can understand why he might have thought that. We were all very well-paid soccer players and he wasn’t. Sometimes you can add two and two and make seven. I respect Paul as a soccer manager and I read his comments, but I don’t think he should necessarily share those opinions without asking people. He certainly never spoke to me about my views.

  ‘I was a teenager when Edward Heath came to power, and I didn’t like him. The Liberal Party looked like a stab in the dark and nobody really knew what they stood for. When I think back, I was a great believer in the third way, something that didn’t really exist in our democracy. You had to be Conservative – the establishment – or Labour – the unions. There had to be space for something else.

  ‘I remember my dad asking me at a dinner party what I believed in. I explained that I believed in a socialist democracy – a society that embraced capitalism with a socialist awareness. Politics was very much at the forefront when I was young because of the problems in the United Kingdom. For a lad of 14 like me, it was difficult because the government only tried to inspire insecurities amongst its people.

  ‘I’m Labour now, but even that is not a clear definition of my beliefs. Mr Blair was one of the people I most detested on planet Earth, for one simple reason: I couldn’t expect any more from Mr Bush, I couldn’t expect any more from Mr Aznar [the former Prime Minister of Spain], but Mr Blair deceived me. When you have a few pounds in your arse pocket, you think you don’t need anybody. A nation is only as strong as its weakest link, but Brits are too busy loving themselves. There was amnesia and Blair targeted that. I waited years for Blair to come and tell me, “Santa’s actually your dad.” I’ll never forgive the bastard. But I bet you Paul Jewell didn’t know I felt like that.’