‘If he’s in the penalty box scoring goals for Coventry, he’ll do even better with the service he’ll get here,’ I said to Old Tom. ‘I know he’s never been anywhere with the magnitude of Liverpool. He’s never played at the top. He’s got decent abilities but I know it’s a punt.’ Speedo was a gamble but he scored three goals in his first two games, one at Old Trafford and two against Everton, so that vindicated my decision. Some gamble! Speedo was effective wherever he went, and when I managed Blackburn, with his goals he did more than anyone to get us promoted. He left Liverpool because of a personality clash with Graeme Souness and newspapers banged on all the time about Speedo’s short fuse. He was strong willed and spoke his mind but was never a problem in the dressing room when I was there. The guy just wanted to win and that’s what the game’s about.
For the FA Cup replay at Everton on 20 February, I brought Peter back for Speedo, so that killed the anti-Beardsley theory. The decision was easy. I felt Peter’s greater subtlety on the ball would trouble Everton more than Speedo’s directness. Five hours before kick-off, I came to a far harder decision. Whatever happened at Goodison, I made up my mind I’d be in to see the chairman, telling him I had to leave. I just had to go. The pressure was too much. Driving home in the car after games, I was nipping away at Kelly and Paul. When Kelly said something, I’d snap, ‘Shut up.’ I’d instantly regret it, thinking the kids didn’t deserve a father in a mood as bad as this. The atmosphere at home wasn’t nice and I was to blame. My tense state of mind was unfair on the kids, I was upsetting them with my behaviour. I was a mess. The previous December, I’d come out in big red blotches all over my body. I went to the office staff Christmas party covered in these huge blemishes. Al still winds me up about it now.
‘It was your Jimmy Carter rash,’ says Hansen. ‘You were allergic to him!’
Liverpool sent me for an allergy test but all that showed was a 0.0001 intolerance towards fish. To calm the rash down, the Liverpool doctor pumped me with Piriton at Anfield every other day, alternating the cheeks on my backside, so that within a fortnight I felt like a pin cushion. As Piriton made me drowsy, Old Tom drove me home and I’d fall through the door, stumble across the hall to the living room and slump into a deep sleep on the couch for a couple of hours.
I wouldn’t have said I was an alcoholic but I found a few glasses of wine took the edge off me. Having stopped playing, there wasn’t the professional necessity to stay in and stay fit. I’d been at work all day, so it was nice to go out at night, sit down and have a bit of food and a drink.
The nation’s amateur psychologists subsequently claimed it was the stress and strain of that extraordinary Cup tie at Goodison that tipped me over the precipice. It wasn’t. My nerves were shredded long before 20 February 1991, an evening inevitably seething with tension. Just heading into Goodison, I was vilified by Everton fans, but I shrugged it off. I’d have been more surprised if they’d serenaded me. Everton punters cared passionately for their club and certainly got behind the players that night. Recalling the seesaw sequence is distressing. Liverpool kept taking the lead, through Peter, twice, and Rushie, but Everton kept equalising, through Graeme Sharp and then Tony Cottee in the 89th minute. It was madness, like watching a car-crash and not knowing which emergency service to call first. When Digger curled in a fourth after 102 unbelievable minutes, I thought that might be that. Job done.
‘Let’s shut up shop, Bugsy,’ I said to Ronnie. ‘Let’s stick Jan back to sweeper.’
‘Hold on,’ said Ronnie.
‘Just leave it,’ I shrugged.
At that instant of indecision, I knew the emotional conclusion I’d reached that afternoon was justified. I should have put Jan back there but I froze. Time to go. When Cottee again exploited our defensive disarray, my failure to shift Jan back was fully punished. In the dressing room afterwards, the mood veered from frustration to fury. Some of the players were screaming about the defending. Having gone in front four times, it was criminal to let the lead slip four times. I was speechless, helpless really. At least the pain would soon end. The dressing-room storm went on around me and I was there in body but not mind. The process of leaving had begun.
The following morning at 10.30, I drove into Anfield for a routine management meeting with PBR and Noel White. Peter was shuffling some papers, mentioning the first item up for discussion when I interrupted him. I couldn’t delay.
‘I want to resign as manager.’
‘Pardon?’ Noel said.
‘I’ve had enough. I need a break. I just feel as if my head is exploding.’ They were shocked.
‘Why?’ Peter asked.
‘It’s the pressure. It’s incredible. I’ve been feeling this for some time now. You knew last summer the reservations I had. I’ve soldiered on but no more. My health is suffering. I want to go now. Today.’
There was a stunned silence. Peter and Noel needed time to collect themselves, so I went downstairs to the office. Old Tom was there, scrutinising
The Times
crossword, and I explained what had happened.
‘Are you sure you’re making the right decision, Kenny?’
‘There’s no going back, Tom. You see what I’m like now. You share the office. You drive me home. You see the injections. You know something isn’t right.’
‘You just need a long rest, Kenny. Get away from football, spend some time on the golf course and come back refreshed next season.’
‘I have to go, Tom.’
PBR came in for another attempt.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to take a sabbatical?’ he asked.
‘Of course I don’t. I’m out. I’m shot. I’ve got to go. I have a position of responsibility at this football club and I can’t make decisions. I don’t deserve to be here. And you don’t deserve me to be here.’
Liverpool’s solicitor, Tony Ensor, walked into the room. PBR and Noel had sent him to have a word.
‘Kenny, I’m talking to you as a friend. Peter’s right. Why not have a sabbatical? Take some time off and then come back.’
‘Tony, how can I go on holiday and know I’m coming back? It wouldn’t be a holiday. I can’t walk out on a club, leave Ronnie and Roy to take the team for Saturday, not knowing whether I would be fit enough to return. How can that be beneficial for me or Liverpool Football Club? That leaves everybody in limbo. It’s the middle of the season, we are top of the League, still in the Cup, with a replay with Everton, so how could I have a sabbatical? It wouldn’t look right for the players. My mind’s made up. I need a clean break. It’s over.’
Tony sighed and looked at me.
‘OK, Kenny. Now I have to talk to you as the club solicitor. If you go, first you have to read this and sign it.’ He pushed what looked like a contract across the table, to cover Liverpool for compensation if I pitched up elsewhere.
‘Tony, I’m not even going to read it. I’ll sign it because I don’t care what the conditions are. I’ve just got to go. Look, if I’d had an agenda, I’d have had representation in here.’
After Tony left with the signed paper, I phoned Ronnie. He deserved to know quickly.
‘Bugsy, I’m resigning.’
‘Are you winding me up?
‘No. I’ve got to get a break, get away and get rested.’ Ronnie wasn’t happy but he respected my decision.
At 4 p.m., Liverpool held an emergency board meeting at which they reluctantly accepted my resignation with the stipulation I attend a Press conference in the morning and then I could go. Later on, I read a very sorrowful comment from PBR who said that ‘watching Kenny Dalglish walk out of Anfield was the saddest moment of my life’. Well, I wasn’t best pleased either. Nor were Kelly and Paul when I got home. Sensibly, Marina had kept them back from school.
‘I’ve resigned,’ I told them. They burst into tears and so did I. The kids were distraught that I’d turned my back on the club I loved, and they loved. Paul had turned 14 three days before and I felt so bad. Happy Birthday, wee man, you can’t go back to Anfield. Telling the players was almost as hard. In the morning, I reached the ground at 10 and headed straight to the dressing room where the players were getting ready for training.
‘I’m finished here. I’m just going upstairs to announce it. Thanks very much.’ With that, I turned and walked away. What more could I say? All I could think of was getting out of Anfield as quickly as possible. Al knew what was happening. I always kept Al abreast of my situation. He told me later how after I left he went into the dressing room and said, ‘I’m the new manager – and there are going to be big changes.’ The players looked at him, perhaps a few wondering if they’d be bombed out. ‘Only kidding,’ said Al.
Upstairs, I was forced to go through the nightmare of a Press conference. A few journalists had got wind of my resignation but most in the room thought it was some announcement that John Barnes was on his way to Italy. The papers had been full of speculation about Digger. They were shocked when Noel White opened up and I’ll never forget his words.
‘With great regret I have to say that Kenny Dalglish has requested to the board of Liverpool to resign as manager,’ Noel said. ‘I would like to assure our supporters we did everything in our power to change his mind, and persuade him to continue to do the job which he has done with such conspicuous success during the last five years or so. However, he has made it clear that he was determined to give up active participation in professional football and he has also assured us that we could do nothing to alter his decision to resign.’
I sat there, listening to all this, not understanding why I had to be there. Liverpool were just prolonging my agony. Noel could have announced it and I could have been away somewhere, heading to a beach with Marina and the kids. Everybody in football knew I’d rather be in front of a firing squad than the Press. My ordeal deepened as I spoke.
‘This is the first time since I came to the club that I take the interest of Kenny Dalglish over Liverpool Football Club. This is not a decision that I just woke to. The worst thing I could have done was not to make a decision at all and just carry on until the end of the season, knowing I was not happy. The main problem is the pressure I put on myself because of my strong desire to succeed. The stress that comes right before and after games has got the better of me.’
Honesty underpinned my every word, and I even openly admitted that I felt ‘my head would explode’, but the Press still hunted alternative motives, and I found that truly hurtful. If I’d continued pushing, pushing and pushing myself, I wouldn’t have recovered. Walking away was the right decision for everybody, the responsible decision. Some joker ventured the idea that I couldn’t live up to Liverpool’s huge expectations. How ridiculous was that? I’d helped raise those expectations as a player and a manager. Think of the trophies that had come into Anfield during my 14 years.
My microphone torture over, I raced to Hillside Golf Club, so often my refuge, for a round with Ron Yeats. A photographer tried to snap a picture but fell over, got spotted and thrown off. Everybody seemed to be talking about my resignation, every radio station seemed to be discussing every crackpot theory over why I’d left. Eventually, unable to contain my anger, I rang Radio City.
‘I sat there at that Press conference and told the truth. I’ve been manager for five years and always told the truth, so why would I make up a story now? I’ve left because of the pressure. There’s no conspiracy.’ I was touched to read an appraisal of my time as Liverpool manager by Matt Darcy of the
Daily Star
. ‘The most honest manager I have worked with,’ wrote Matt. That meant a lot. I might have been awkward at times but I never lied.
Inevitably, the fancy columnists weighed in, trampling over my reputation. Michael Parkinson berated me in the
Sunday Telegraph
, claiming I knew nothing about pressure. ‘Pressure is something that nurses know about, or people who grind out a living in a factory, or men who dig a coal mine underground,’ Parkinson wrote. ‘Pressure is being poor or unemployed or homeless or hopeless. What it’s not is being paid £200,000 a year to manage one of the world’s greatest football clubs.’ Parky talked crap. The money was irrelevant and the profession was irrelevant. What mattered was the nature of the person. Some people are more prone to pressure, some people had jobs where they could take time off, but I couldn’t. Managing Liverpool was relentless. Did Parky work every day of the week? I don’t know. What did Parky want anyway? For me to carry on grinding myself down? For my kids to have a stressed-out father? I just thanked God that I got out in time to rescue my health.
Corroboration for my decision came on the Saturday morning when a doctor friend came over to our house in Southport. When he heard my whole story about the blotches and dithering over decisions, his response was simple: ‘You’ve done the right thing.’ A week later, on 4 March, Marina organised a surprise party for my fortieth birthday. All the boys from Liverpool turned up with Ronnie and Roy and we had a good old drink. I’m not sure they felt that life began at 40, and a few of them joked I was finished at 40, but it was great to see them again, a reminder that life went on.
The kids’ tears soon dried. ‘Can we go to Disney?’ Paul asked. So we did and it felt good to focus on the kids for once. They are so special and I’d neglected them because of my obsession with Liverpool. Old Tom stayed in touch with Marina while we were in Orlando.
‘Just leave him, Tom,’ said Marina. ‘Just ask him in a couple of weeks and he’ll come back.’
She was right. If Liverpool had asked me to carry on as manager the moment I returned from Florida, I’d have jumped at the chance because I felt my head had cleared, and my batteries were recharged. Sadly, Liverpool never asked. During our stay in Orlando, I received a phone-call to tell me Graeme Souness had got the job, and I felt a twinge of regret. Liverpool were my club, my job, my home. Now somebody else was in. The blow was softened only because the torch had been picked up by Graeme, my old room-mate. Having impressed as a manager at Rangers, revamping Scottish football with David Murray, Graeme was the logical choice. Liverpool stuck with the tradition of promoting one of their own, in Graeme’s case a former captain and distinguished player. On returning from Orlando, I made sure I stayed out of the road. Anfield was now Graeme’s place, not mine any more. The stories of Shanks getting under Bob’s feet were very much in my mind. I knew I’d be made welcome at Anfield, but I didn’t want to cast a shadow.