Ring of Fire

by Simon Hughes

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Following the success of Red Machine and Men in White Suits, books which depicted Liverpool FC’s domination of the 1980s and its fall in the 1990s, Simon Hughes’ Ring of Fire, focusing on the 2000s, is the third in a bestselling series based on revealing interviews.

  For Liverpool, this was an era that began with modernization and trophies under manager Gérard Houllier, and it was underpinned by improbable Champions League glory under Rafael Benítez. But that is only half the story. The decade ended with the club on the verge of financial collapse after the shambolic reign of American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

  In Ring of Fire, Hughes’ interviewees take you through the gates of Melwood’s training ground and into that inner sanctum – the Liverpool dressing room. Each one delivers fascinating insights into the minds of the coaches, boardroom members and players. Amongst them, Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher and Fernando Torres talk frankly about the exhilarating highs and excruciating lows, from winning cups in Cardiff and Istanbul to the political infighting that undermined a succession of managerial reigns.

  Ring of Fire tells the real stories behind the headlines, those never told before by the key players who lived through it all.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword by Steven Gerrard

  Introduction

  CHAPTER 1 Phil Thompson, Mr Liverpool

  CHAPTER 2 Danny Murphy, Versatility

  CHAPTER 3 Michael Owen, Boy Wonder

  CHAPTER 4 Gérard Houllier, The Manager

  CHAPTER 5 Neil Mellor, Kirkby Graduate

  CHAPTER 6 Dietmar Hamann, Kaiser

  CHAPTER 7 Xabi Alonso, Maestro

  CHAPTER 8 Albert Riera, Winger

  CHAPTER 9 Jamie Carragher, Endurance

  CHAPTER 10 Rick Parry, The Chief Executive

  CHAPTER 11 Fernando Torres, The Kid

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Simon Hughes

  Copyright

  For Rosalind (again)

  FOREWORD

  There was a practice match at Melwood. Two sides of eleven, made up of kids like me and a few older pros not away on international duty, were scheduled to play against each other so that the new manager, Gérard Houllier, could form some opinions about the players he had to work with.

  I was desperate to be involved. Change was in the air at Liverpool. The partnership between Roy Evans and Gérard had failed and, with Roy resigning, Gérard was in sole charge.

  It felt like an opportunity. I’d only featured in a few games for the reserves but in each one I’d felt comfortable.

  The problem was I’d broken my wrist and it was in a plaster cast. Phil Thompson was Gérard’s assistant and he stopped me. ‘Look, you can’t play – it’s the rules.’

  I was very frustrated. Fortunately, one of the other players, Richie Partridge, caught Gérard’s eye that morning. Richie was an Irish winger and he was flying at the time. Lots of people spoke about him as a potential first-team player.

  Gérard decided to watch Richie in an under-19 fixture at the academy in Kirkby. It was one of my comeback games after the wrist injury. I didn’t know Gérard was going to be there but then I saw him on the side of the pitch before the match kicked off. My dad had always told me from my first day at Liverpool that football was about matching opportunities with performance. I knew this was my chance. Thankfully, I took it and a few weeks later I made my debut for the first team.

  The following twelve months proved to be a transitional period at Liverpool. When 1999 turned into the year 2000, I was nineteen years old. I did not foresee success being just around the corner under Gérard but only because I was too young to really understand what it took to create a successful football team at senior level. At that age, you only think about yourself, not what is in store for the club.

  I felt a long way from being a regular in the side. Gérard had sat me down and explained that I needed to strengthen my body and change my lifestyle to suit the modern game. I knew straight away that Gérard had visions for the club and wanted to restore a winning mentality. Even though I was young and trying to establish myself, I could see something special was happening and that the manager was a winner who would do anything he thought was necessary to improve the situation of the club.

  A few years earlier, I had been an apprentice at Liverpool and I was aware of the Spice Boy image. There was a drinking culture and things throughout the club were perceived as not being quite as professional as they should have been.

  Gérard quickly set about clearing out the players he thought weren’t prepared to do what he was asking for on and off the pitch.

  For us young lads, he made it obvious early on in his reign that if we were not prepared to ride with the changes he was implementing – and come into work with a winners’ mentality – then we would not find ourselves involved in his project moving forward.

  He promoted young lads into the team who he thought had the required hunger and talent, and then used more experienced professionals he believed would set the standards for everyone else.

  I would watch Patrik Berger, Vladimir Šmicer, Sami Hyypiä, Jamie Redknapp and Robbie Fowler – the way they acted in games, in the dressing room and on the bus. I asked a lot of questions and tried to learn from their experience. You see professional players who do the right things and you see professionals who don’t. You learn from both.

  I was fortunate in that I was in and around the scene at a time when attitudes were shifting because of Gérard’s will. The mood not only presented a chance for me to impress but it also made me realize which was the right path to follow. Had I emerged a few years earlier, I could have gotten involved with the wrong crowd and been exposed to things that were to the detriment of my career rather than my benefit: going out more, eating bad foods, listening to the wrong people.

  The weight of expectation at Liverpool is enormous. Whether you are a player or a manager, the shadows of the past loom over you. When Gérard was appointed, Liverpool had not won the league for eight seasons and yet the demand for that to happen remained – and that’s the way it should be at Liverpool.

  Gérard revolutionized the club in terms of the way it operated and hauled it into the twenty-first century quicker than anyone could have imagined. The 2000–01 season will be remembered by all of those involved, player or supporter. Jamie Carragher speaks about it as his favourite season in a long career but he was a little bit older than me and probably appreciated more what it all really meant.

  In the treble season, I felt young and naive. I felt like I was still learning and that I was nowhere near being the finished article. I was still coming to terms with being a first-team player.

  The campaign ended with three trophies in a few months and qualification for the Champions League for the first time since it ceased being the European Cup. If you think about how difficult that would be to achieve for any team now, you realize just what a brilliant story it was. I don’t think the feat will be matched for a long time.

  The following season we finished second in the league – the strongest performance since 1990. And yet this period of success fell between a few fallow years and the immediate glory achieved under Rafael Benítez in 2005 with that amazing night at the Ataturk Stadium, winning the most important trophy in European competition for the first time in twenty-one years.

  Gérard’s contribution probably doesn’t receive the credit it deserves because it gets diluted by what happened in Istanbul. On a personal level, I know what Gérard did for me. If you’re a proper football person and analyse what Gérard achieved, it was incredible.

  Ta
ke the trophies away and what did he do for the football club? It was in a far better position when he left than when he joined. He rebuilt the team and installed a mentality that Rafa was able to develop. Rafa would not have immediately achieved what he did at Liverpool had Gérard not created a much more professional set-up first. That’s not a criticism of Rafa, it’s just something that’s impossible to ignore.

  It became more difficult for us to win trophies as the decade progressed. Liverpool were still competing on the highest stage but Chelsea had emerged from the pack and Manchester City were gradually becoming a force too. On top of that, Manchester United and Arsenal were there. The competition at the top arguably became more ferocious than ever.

  Not many people seem to recognize it but I think Gérard and Rafa were very similar managers in terms of the teams they created, which were compact, very aggressive with the ball, no spaces between the lines and had a solid defence. There were also match-winners within the line-up. Both were so thorough in their preparation, and that, when married with good, determined players, always gives you a chance.

  The difference was their personalities. Both personalities got the best out of me. Gérard was a strong man-manager. He acted as a father figure. He looks out for your family and checks on what you are doing away from the game, putting in a lot of time and effort to work on personal relationships. When you go out to play for him and you don’t perform, you feel like you are letting a family member down.

  Rafa went the other way. He tries to inspire by provoking reactions. He leaves you searching for praise and that drives you on. There is a distance and a coldness with him. In every training session and game, I needed to prove myself to try to earn love from him. Looking back now, he was good for me. He helped me reach my peak as a footballer.

  By the end of the 2000s, Liverpool was barely recognizable in comparison to the club that began the decade. Hundreds of players had come and gone, with new managers came new staff and, meanwhile, the owners had changed as well.

  When I first broke into the team, David Moores was in charge, a local man who cared deeply about the success of Liverpool as a football club. By the end of the decade, we were in American hands. Whereas before, Liverpool felt like it was a family-run institution, as 2009 became 2010 it had turned into more of a business. Liverpool was not alone. Most clubs have experienced similar stories.

  Gérard had made a big decision to make me captain as a twenty-three year old and it was the position I held until I left when I was thirty-four.

  The captaincy of Liverpool is a duty you have to enjoy and embrace, otherwise it will drag you down. It was sink-or-swim time when I was appointed, because I was still developing as a player and probably not quite ready for it as a person.

  I was lucky that I had a leader behind me in Jamie Carragher, who was my eyes, my ears and also my voice. Even though I had the armband on, Carra’s influence was enormous. My relationship with him became very strong.

  At any big club, the captaincy is a huge responsibility. At Liverpool, I recognized quickly it wasn’t just about leading the team out once a week. It’s a 24/7 job every single day. As a person, you have to develop and if at any point you feel like the responsibility is too big, too heavy or too pressured, you’re not made for it.

  The decade was not without its problems. There were some difficult times, especially towards the end. As captain you have to find a way to rise above them and power on.

  Steven Gerrard

  INTRODUCTION

  On the third afternoon of January, Liverpool travelled to London to play Tottenham Hotspur in their first game of the new millennium. Chris Armstrong’s goal meant a 1–0 defeat for Gérard Houllier’s team.

  A week later, Blackburn Rovers from the Championship – the second tier of English football – visited Anfield and, again, Liverpool were defeated, tumbling out of the FA Cup after Nathan Blake’s lone strike with six minutes to go.

  Fewer than thirty-three thousand spectators turned up to watch on that blustery day, more than ten thousand short of the stadium’s full capacity. Liverpool were fifth in the league and Houllier’s sweeping changes had not yet inspired trust.

  Jamie Carragher was continually being compared to Merseyside-born legends from Liverpool’s past and many doubted he was capable of becoming one himself. Steven Gerrard was a shy teenager who came alive on the pitch, charging about, trying to put his stamp on everything, but, though hopes were higher for him, concerns over his physical capacity remained. Houllier had not yet found the best way to manage Gerrard’s developing physique, which was being challenged by the tough new fitness demands of the Premier League.

  Ten years later, as they made their way to Birmingham in the snow for the last game of the decade against Aston Villa, Liverpool were seventh in the league and Houllier’s replacement, Rafael Benítez, was halfway through his final season as manager, one that would end in disappointment and uncertainty – just as the decade had begun.

  By then, Carragher had cemented his position as the foundation of the defence and he would finish his career second on the club’s all-time appearance list. Gerrard, meanwhile, was regarded as one of the club’s greatest players. He was the player who seemed to be able to do everything after all and the person who carried the burden of the supporters’ hopes and dreams over so many seasons.

  Carragher and Gerrard were in the eleven that beat Villa 1–0 when Liverpool’s goal was scored late into that December night by Fernando Torres – someone who, like Gerrard, would capture hearts. Unlike Gerrard, however, Torres would also break them with his subsequent career decisions.

  The 2000s had been an era where Liverpool became serious about winning again. Having lifted only two major trophies in the 1990s, there was one for each year in the subsequent decade if you include two Charity Shields and as many European Super Cups. With Houllier in charge, there was a cup treble in 2001, and then the Champions League title against all the odds in 2005 when Benítez had taken over, before another FA Cup a year later.

  The football from Houllier’s teams was powerful, quick and disciplined. And discipline was one of the main reasons he had been appointed at Anfield. In the 1990s, society had begun to view footballers more negatively due to the excesses their newly inflated wages afforded them. Liverpool’s Spice Boys had been a high-profile symptom of this change and there was a feeling that the dressing-room culture at the club had to be addressed. Houllier was seen as someone with the ability to restore order.

  Houllier saw the way football was going and in the 2000s the expectations on the footballers of Melwood were as clearly defined as the expectations on footballers across the rest of Britain. Wide sections of society and the majority of the media demanded they be normal while simultaneously placing them on pedestals as role models due to their influential reach, not to mention their newfound wealth.

  Football raced into a new era of heightened professionalism, where nearly all players attempted to do the right things, say the right things and appear to be the most right-minded people. The obsession with them as well as the inability to separate the sportsman from the celebrity created a very unhappy environment, and in writing this book I was conscious of that and wanted to select individuals who would speak honestly about their experiences rather than giving some sanitized, prepared-for-the-media version.

  The 2000s was the decade where, at Liverpool especially, it became a dangerous policy to deal only in outcomes, as if they were the definitive answers. Through technological advance, the world became smaller than it has ever been but just because it was the most-talked-about period in the club’s history, this did not necessarily make it the most understood.

  The football from Benítez’s teams was similar to Houllier’s but more sophisticated. He trusted creative players, those who could ‘play in-between the lines’, though always with tactical awareness. Under him, Liverpool went as close as they had to winning the title in any of the previous nineteen seasons, but in 2009 frustrating home dr
aws against lesser opposition proved to be critical.

  And yet there is a belief that it is impossible to discuss modern Liverpool without mentioning the name Rafael Benítez. Few divide opinion like him: the person who earned the loyalty of Liverpool supporters by providing as magical a night as any in the club’s history in Istanbul, while also, apparently, being misunderstood – as Liverpool people often feel they are.

  Benítez was the first person of influence to publicly expose the troubled times under the co-ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett after they had taken control from David Moores, and yet throughout the corresponding years – like all obsessives – he was accused of losing touch with reality.

  From 2008 to 2010, there was civil war at Liverpool. Conclusions about the causes of the problems in that period may have seemed black and white according to which person you listened to. Objectively the evidence revealed the failed relationship between Hicks and Gillett was the root and yet at boardroom and management level the problems were nuanced. I hoped this book might shed new light on the situation.

  I was told by readers of Red Machine and Men in White Suits that the strengths of those books were the meetings with the more curious types: individuals that perhaps made less of a contribution at Liverpool compared to others but retained more information because their experiences were briefer. For Ring of Fire, however, I decided for a step up in profile with the interviewees, aware that it might contribute towards a more serious book.

  The 2000s were also the period in which I entered professional journalism, and this enabled me to appreciate that the better players usually had more exciting things to say, revealing that – although it might seem otherwise, and though certainly not always the case – in many instances the game’s most influential characters are the footballers with the most engaging and forceful personalities.

  And yet I determined there should be a few notable absentees. Steven Gerrard released his second autobiography in 2015, covering many of the issues I might have spoken to him about. Maybe it was a big call to leave out Liverpool’s greatest modern player but in the end I decided it would be better for him to do the foreword, looking over the book like the protective guardian he became for so many at Liverpool for so long.