‘By the way, that wasn’t me!’ It was Don McAllister and he was smiling broadly. Fair enough. Respect flowed more freely then. Sadly, grudges fester in modern football.
During an international against Belgium, I exacted a particularly vengeful price on Michel Renquin, the Standard Liege defender. For 45 minutes, Renquin kicked me, attempting to inflict as much damage as possible. Renquin was as merciless as the referee was hopeless. After the fourth bad kick, my patience was close to snapping.
‘One more and I’ll have him,’ I promised myself. The fifth assault was not long in coming. Taking possession with my back to Renquin, I shaped to go inside and then flicked it outside. As I turned, my Belgian tormentor came in hard, burrowing into my Achilles. I rolled on the ground, guaranteeing his booking. Renquin deserved it and should have been cautioned far earlier. He didn’t learn. As he pulled my shirt moments later, I swung my elbow back and caught him in the mouth. BANG. Take that. All my anger at his persistent fouling poured into that swing of the elbow. Renquin went down, squealing in pain and spurting blood. No remorse invaded my conscience. Renquin should have thought of the ugly consequences before trying to kick me out of the game.
In the dressing room at half-time, I said to the doctor, ‘My arm’s sore, Doc.’
‘Take your shirt off,’ the doctor instructed. It had long sleeves and I struggled to lift my arm to slip it off.
‘Your arm’s swollen, Kenny,’ said the Doc when I finally removed the shirt. ‘You’ve got two puncture holes just above the elbow.’ I didn’t want to admit that Renquin’s teeth must have been the cause.
‘Just strap the arm up, Doc, and get me back out.’
In the second half, I tried to inspect Renquin to see the damage I’d inflicted but he never came close. He’d learned his lesson and my ordeal was over. At the final whistle, Renquin did come across.
‘Good game,’ he said. As Renquin opened his mouth, I felt a certain satisfaction to note he had no front teeth. ‘Shake hands?’ Renquin asked.
‘Get lost,’ I told him.
Whatever my anger over his first-half violence, I was out of order. I went home to Liverpool with a few bruises but Renquin went back to Belgium without two front teeth.
However sore and aching my legs, I preferred to play against these rough types of defenders. They held no surprises. It was a physical test, never a mental one. Facing defenders of the class of Derby County’s Colin Todd was far harder. Like Liverpool’s Lawro and Big Al, Colin read the game so well, never needing to resort to hostile measures to deprive me of possession. Colin nipped in, nicking the ball. Anticipation was Colin’s weapon of choice, not aggression, and I respected him deeply.
Against opposition who routinely fouled, Liverpool simply played more passes to feet inside the area. ‘Make sure it’s in the box,’ stressed Bob, knowing a mistimed tackle would result in a penalty. Diving was not in my nature and I only went down in the box with good cause – either I was caught or I lost balance while trying to evade a challenge. Cynicism never accompanied my descent to the floor. If Norman Hunter or Mickey Droy kicked me, I didn’t want to go down. My pride would never let me show the enemy I was hurt. I always tried to play on in the manner of a winger I greatly admired, George Best, who just rode tackles or leapt up and carried on. I hope that, like George, I never gave referees many problems, although bookings for dissent came my way – a surprise because I thought the officials wouldn’t understand my Glaswegian accent. Referees engaged more with players then, conducting a bit of banter. If I was moaning, Neil Midgley said, ‘Shut up, Kenny.’ Neil, bless him, has passed away now but he was a good referee. Neil made mistakes but he’d chat.
‘You’re having a nightmare, Neil,’ I’d tell him.
‘You’re not playing too well yourself, Kenny,’ he’d shout back. Industrial language wasn’t frowned upon – Neil and the other refs understood the factory-floor nature of match-days. Referees forgave a few swear words as we pursued trophies. That was all that mattered to me, collecting silverware, and I craved a second European Cup.
7
PARIS
I
STILL
recall the look of hurt in Paul’s eyes. I still remember my son’s plaintive words when he was just five and watching an old Granada TV highlights’ show about Liverpool’s loss to Nottingham Forest in the European Cup. ‘What does it mean, Dad, “The Party’s Over”?’ Paul asked me. What do you say to a bairn? How can you explain that some Granada producer probably thought it was clever to use a Frank Sinatra track over footage of us traipsing off at Anfield on 27 September 1978, our grip on the European Cup broken? Television people saw only the professional footballer, never the relatives affected by their insensitivity. They never thought of the inconsolable children. Paul was so young but he already supported me and loved the club, so it broke his heart when Liverpool struggled. At the time, Granada’s choice of music made me angry, but even more so when I saw the distressing effect on wee Paul. Granada were disrespectful to our past achievements and naïve to think Liverpool might not hit back.
I’d never dispute that Cloughie’s side were deserved winners, but that European Cup draw was a joke. When the call came through, informing Bob of Liverpool’s next opponents in Europe, the Boss was in his room at Melwood as usual. It wasn’t grand enough to be called an office or tiny enough to be considered a cupboard. It was just a small room with an old table and a metal filing cabinet with a phone on top. Bob’s control centre had two windows. He could watch the kids on the pitch that was sarcastically called Wembley from one, and the first team training from the other. Bob stood at the windows, inspecting his troops and warming himself in front of a radiator because his tracksuit bottoms had holes in the knees. Bob would shuffle to the phone and then emerge from his room for one of Melwood’s great traditions. I knew if the Boss came across to the training pitch taking big steps, then it was a draw he relished. Small steps meant difficulties.
‘Big steps,’ began Bugsy before quickly changing his tune. ‘Oh, no, wait a minute, small steps.’ The defence of our trophy would begin against Forest, European champions versus English champions. England were the dominant nation, and the feeling within the Liverpool dressing room was that Uefa, the governing body, wanted to break that power.
‘There’s a one in thirty-one chance of us getting Forest – and we just have done,’ I said. Everybody in the Liverpool dressing room respected Forest, who’d done brilliantly in winning the League. Cloughie had them very organised, very efficient, and we knew Forest were a really strong force collectively. Individually, John Robertson did the magic on the left, servicing Tony Woodcock and Garry Birtles. Ian Bowyer and John McGovern patrolled the middle, nicking the ball and getting it forward. If Forest had a genuine recognised star, it was Peter Shilton, a fantastic goalkeeper. Just like us at Liverpool, I knew Forest were unhappy with the draw. This was their first time in the competition and they risked going out of Europe without even getting out of England. The draw stank.
For all our frustration, Liverpool should still have gone through. We had the experience, the players and the confidence because of our long unbeaten record in Europe. Cloughie tried to butter us up with praise, saying that ‘Liverpool are a great team’ and attempting to foster a sense of complacency. Bob just laughed. The Boss knew what Cloughie was up to, the old mind games routine. We’d heard it all before.
‘You know you are a great team,’ Bob told us. ‘Now just go out and prove it.’ Cloughie could have used every trick in the psychology manual and it wouldn’t have worked. Liverpool messed up against Forest because we made a silly error in the first leg at the City Ground, becoming obsessed with equalising after Birtles scored. We should have seen the game out, knowing that 1–0 in the away leg was fine in Europe, but because we were playing English opponents, we adopted a Football League mind-set and pushed on, a foolish reaction. Forest hit us on the break, Colin Barrett making it 2–0. As European champions, we should have been more mature, less gung-ho, but an unexpected bout of naivety cost us. At Anfield a fortnight later, Forest held out and we were out.
In victory, Forest were very dignified, which was no real surprise to me. I knew Cloughie would never allow his players to gloat. They shook hands with us and headed off into the second round. Forest were certainly more respectful than I felt Granada were. People respected Liverpool because of the gracious way we conducted ourselves during times of success. Gerald Sinstadt was Granada’s reporter and he certainly copped some stick for ‘The Party’s Over’.
‘Go and prove the party’s not over, lads,’ Bob said. We did, winning the League that season, so Sinstadt was a good judge, wasn’t he? The Kop was quick to make its point, singing: ‘Gerald Sinstadt, Gerald Sinstadt, how’s your party doing now?’ The moment we heard it, all the players joined in. Afterwards, poor old Sinstadt must have felt a wee bit sheepish coming in to interview the new champions.
A couple of years on, I was walking with Paul through reception at Anfield when we bumped into Sinstadt.
‘Gerald, Paul’s got something to say to you,’ I said. Sinstadt looked at Paul. ‘How’s the party going, Gerald?’ Paul asked. We didn’t forget.
Fortunately for us, the party got going again quickly back then. That League success swept us back into the European Cup, thank God, as we’d really missed the competition. Liverpool belong in the European Cup. Sadly, we didn’t last long in the 79–80 season after being thrown in against Dinamo Tbilisi in the first round. Over the years, I feel a myth has grown unchecked that Dinamo had so little fear of Liverpool they cockily warmed up in front of the Kop. Newspapers were riddled with idle chatter that Liverpool supporters apparently marvelled at the Georgians’ skills before the first leg on 19 September.
‘If they were doing it to show they weren’t afraid, that just proves to me they were afraid,’ I said to Graeme. We won, but only 2–1, and a fortnight later set out on a journey into the unknown.
Liverpool’s plane was an Aeroflot jet, which the Soviets insisted we hired, conveniently making them a bundle of roubles. For a bunch of communists, I felt they showed distinct capitalist tendencies. Our journey became increasingly complicated as the Iron Curtain still hung across the Continent, and any destination in the Soviet Union involved a stop in Moscow – another Soviet demand. So we dutifully filed out of the plane, heading through immigration as Red Army soldiers scrutinised us as if we were some band of dissidents. The stopover seemed pretty pointless, paranoid even, but we shrugged and got on with it. The Soviet solders and immigration officials didn’t look the types who’d welcome any friendly banter. We then reboarded the plane to Tbilisi, landing in one of the grimmest parts of Europe, even by Communist standards.
Liverpool’s hotel was pretty basic but we were assured it was Tbilisi’s finest. Fortunately, Bob always made sure we came well-prepared, bringing our own chefs, Harry White and Alan Glynn, who worked in the hotel trade in Dublin. Harry and Alan ensured we had tea and toast for breakfast and that the hotel cook was onside, a vital move. I was always suspicious about what foreign cooks might slip into the food but Harry and Alan man-marked the cook closely, watching him in the hotel, keeping him sweet with a bottle of whisky or two. European football required intelligent tactics off the field as well as on.
‘Anything we don’t use, you can keep,’ Harry and Alan told the cook, who was incredibly grateful, because provisions were modest in Georgia. Tbilisi was pretty primitive.
‘Be careful in the lift,’ I told the players after one perilous descent towards reception. ‘There’s water streaming down the side. Don’t go near the electrics.’
‘It’s a hole,’ seemed to be the overwhelming verdict of the players – a noisy hole as well. Under a Soviet regime that didn’t seem big on laughs, the natives of Georgia were forbidden from staging demonstrations – until Liverpool arrived. My precious sleep was disturbed at 2 a.m. by chants of ‘Dinamo, Dinamo’. Peering out of the window, I saw hundreds of people marching up and down outside our hotel. The noisy protest was so obviously organised it must have been sanctioned by the Soviet authorities. The Georgians would never have dared gather in numbers like that without permission from Moscow.
During my trips behind the Iron Curtain, I gained the strong impression these Soviets used the European Cup as a vehicle to generate great publicity for all the Soviet countries. Whenever a western club visited, the Communists wanted a show of strength, and that meant giving their sides every chance of winning. Liverpool were not just up against a team in Tbilisi. We were up against an ideology. The whole experience was eye-opening and anyone travelling behind the Iron Curtain with thoughts about communism being the future would have changed their mind sharpish. Power to the people? Many didn’t even have electrical power. Accommodation was decrepit, food short and the whole place seemed blanketed in a cloud of smog and depression. Who’d want to live like that? I never blamed the Georgian people, who were just trapped in a brutal system. In the morning, some of the locals even queued around the hotel just to see what westerners looked like.
The Georgians’ sad, controlled existence meant they really let rip on match-day. Dinamo Tbilisi fans were incredibly passionate, leaping out of the stands, running to the edge of the pitch as their team gave them plenty to cheer. Dinamo stormed to a 3–0 win, playing some wonderful football in the second half, which we simply couldn’t live with, and again Liverpool crashed out of Europe at the first hurdle. Even the refreshment in the dressing room looked trouble.
‘Don’t touch the tea,’ said Bob, ‘you don’t know what they’ve put in it.’
Sitting on the bench for both legs against Dinamo was Frank McGarvey, the Scottish striker whose spell at Liverpool has often been a matter of debate. Arriving in May 1979 from St Mirren with a good reputation, and a valuation of £270,000, McGarvey should have fitted in but he never settled. We Scots did everything to look after one of our own. Al, Charlie and I took Frank out for a drink, helped him look for houses and offered every welcoming gesture.