My Liverpool Home (13 page)

I’d long gone by then. My night in Bavaria lasted just nine minutes, and my frustration at limping off was compounded by the manner of my incapacitation. Bayern’s winger, Karl Del’Haye, topped me. Being put out of a game by an opponent of imposing physical stature was something I’d resent but could accept – not Del’Haye, though, not some skinny winger. He was so lightweight in frame and ability I never thought he posed a threat as I laid the ball inside. Del’Haye went straight into my foot and I strongly suspect the German’s intent was to remove me from the fray deliberately. Replacing me was Howard Gayle, who ripped the backside out of Wolfgang Dremmler. Howie was flying, utterly unstoppable and the Germans were run ragged. Watching from the dug-out, I saw the game getting very tasty with tackles going in from every angle, from every player, demonstrating the desperation to reach the final. When Howie got booked, Bob had to make a call. The Germans had really wound up Howie and if he’d lost it again, Liverpool would be down to 10 men. In the seventieth minute, Bob took Howie off and sent Jimmy Case on, so that was our subs used up. Just as I began thinking that if any injuries occurred, we’d be struggling, the Doc signalled to Bob.

‘My thigh’s gone,’ he shouted. Furious, Bob jumped off the bench. Looking at our irate manager, I knew there was no chance the Boss would hand Bayern any advantage on the threshold of Paris. The Boss turned to the security people guarding the dug-out, pointing at their pistols.

‘Give me that gun,’ Bob shouted at one of them. ‘I’m going to shoot him.’

Fortunately, the security man didn’t understand. The Doc got the message and immediately forgot his thigh problem. With seven minutes remaining of normal time, he ran down the touchline, whipped in a cross and Ray Kennedy’s wonderful volley did the rest. Bayern needed two. No chance. Rummenigge equalised but even that goal was lucky. Colin Irwin jumped to head the ball and it spun away to Rummenigge. Colin and Richard Money were brilliant that night. Our defence was much changed, only Nealy and Alan being regulars, but nobody let Liverpool down in Munich. At the final whistle, the boys all queued up to shake Breitner’s hand. They were all smiling, wondering what was the German for ‘unimaginative and unintelligent’! If Liverpool were that unintelligent, Breitner can’t have played well as Liverpool were in the final. Breitner certainly never had the imagination to escape Sammy’s clutches. Thanks for the ammunition. Sadly, I never had a chance to voice my reflections on Breitner’s pre-match critique with the man himself. I’d hobbled down the stairs for treatment on my ankle after Del’Haye’s attack.

Immobilised in plaster, it was touch and go whether I’d be fit to face Real Madrid in the final. Determined to make Paris, I fought my way through five weeks of rehab and nerves. When the plaster was removed, I guested for Bob’s staff team against the ground-staff and apprentices at Melwood. As usual, Bob was in goal with a pair of mittens on and he never caught anything, just punched. Joe was in front of him with Ronnie and they made sure nobody got through, not always in the most legitimate manner.

‘Play on,’ Bob shouted regardless. Old Tom, only 60, was a jinky winger. At least Roy was fit. He was the only member of the coaching staff who’d run. The pitch was a decent size, 60 by 40 yards, and Bob made sure I covered every blade of grass. I ran and ran, and whenever I eased up, gasping for air, Bob shouted from his position in goal, ‘Come on, Kenny. Start running.’ My tongue was hanging out like a knackered dog, rolling from side to side. Still Bob screamed, ‘Start running.’

‘Bloody start!’ I said to myself, and I thought I’d learned the trick of how to survive these games, rationing my runs forward because I knew nobody was tracking back. Bob was no fool. He knew this was a clever way of building up fitness. It was the length of the game that really killed me – it went on until Bob’s side were winning.

With the apprentices showing common sense when tackling me, I gradually eased my way back from injury in time. Before we flew out to Paris, a few of us gathered in Sammy’s wine bar to watch the England–Scotland Home International. Sammy was almost as passionate about England as he was about Liverpool, but even when us Scots invaded his wine bar, he was good as gold. Even when Big Hansen kept waving a large Scotland flag at the bar, Sammy just smiled. Even when England got stuffed, Sammy accepted all the banter with surprisingly good grace.

Heading into Paris, we swiftly discovered that Liverpool fans in their thousands had beaten us to the French capital. We heard them before we actually saw them. Their songs carried far and wide, tunes like:

Very flattering! Once we’d settled into our hotel in Versailles, on 26 May 1981, Bob delivered a particularly significant team-talk on how we’d face Madrid.

‘We are going to frustrate Madrid,’ said the Boss. ‘We’re going to deny them possession. Keep the ball, keep the tempo slow.’ In the morning, Bob took us on a stroll through the park in Versailles and spoke more about mighty Madrid, about their six trophies, and our chance for an upset. I’m no student of history, and certainly not French history, but I appreciated the image of aristocrats falling to a revolution.

For all the talk of Real’s illustrious history, I didn’t really care who our opponents were. The newspapers banged on about Real Madrid. Christ, everyone knew their tradition and I certainly didn’t need reminding. As a wee boy growing up in Glasgow and passionately interested in those who played football like gods, I could hardly escape Madrid. They beat Eintracht Frankfurt, 7–3, in 1960 at Hampden Park and that team remains indelible in my memory: Dominguez, Marquitos, Santamaria, Pachin, Vidal, Zarraga, Canario, Del Sol, Di Stefano, Puskas and Gento. But Liverpool were not playing Di Stefano, Puskas and Gento. The shirt was familiar but was the heart inside the same? Liverpool had a great incentive to overcome a famous name – victory was our only ticket back in to the European Cup. The League had been a disaster. We’d finished fifth, so this was it. Paris or bust.

Bob read out the team: Clem, Nealy, Alan Kennedy, Tommo, Ray, Big Hansen, me, Sammy, the Doc, Terry Mac and Charlie. One more instruction fell from Bob’s lips –

‘Sammy. Take Stielike.’

Sammy was collecting some distinguished German scalps. As with Breitner, Sammy forced Stielike deep. He didn’t like it, getting booked, and lacking any influence on the game. Madrid attempted similar tactics, attaching Jose Camacho to Souey, and I knew what Graeme was going through. When Scotland hosted Spain at Hampden, Camacho marked me, but fortunately he was cautioned after 20 minutes so he was restricted. Graeme needed all his guile to escape Camacho. The game was tight, cagey, short on chances, even decent moves. Real’s best outlet on the wing, Laurie Cunningham, was quiet, and any hope of fluency was tempered by the unpredictable pitch at Parc des Princes, a rugby pitch with rock-hard lines. One Real shot hit the six-yard line, reared up and caught Clem in the face. Not for the last time in my Liverpool career, Uefa chose an unsuitable stadium.

Our annoyance with the poor surface was forgotten nine minutes from the end. Liverpool advanced down the left-hand side as Madrid harried, forcing the ball out. From the third throw-in near the corner, Alan Kennedy burst into the Real box and into Liverpool legend. A popular figure, Alan enjoyed many nicknames. He was ‘Belly’ after Bel Mooney, the writer on the
Daily Mirror
, who mentioned him once. He was ‘Billy’, as in Billy Bungalow, because he had nothing upstairs. He was ‘Barney’ to the punters after Barney Rubble from
The Flintstones
. He certainly made a name for himself in Paris. Barney took Ray Kennedy’s throw on his chest. An imposing goalie, Agustin Rodriguez seemed to set himself right and I expected Alan to square the ball to the Doc, who was screaming for it in the centre. Barney’s response was so unexpected it could have been included in the old ‘What Happened Next?’ section on
A Question of Sport
. Barney drilled the ball towards the near-post, beating Agustin. I don’t know who was more surprised, Real’s goalkeeper or Liverpool’s players.

‘What were you doing up there in the first place?’ I asked Barney afterwards. He wasn’t sure.

‘Did you think of crossing to the Doc?’ I asked.

‘I thought of it,’ Barney replied. I’m glad he didn’t.

The newspapers weren’t particularly charitable to Agustin, repeating the usual criticism that no keeper should be beaten at the near-post, but I thought blaming Agustin was harsh. Barney never picked his spot. He flashed his shot and it went in.

‘Did you mean it?’ Terry Mac asked. Barney smiled.

‘Yes,’ he replied. Barney’s shooting prowess was a matter of some conjecture inside the Liverpool dressing room. Bob always had faith in him as a full-back.

‘If Alan Kennedy doesn’t play for England, I will jump off the Pier Head,’ Bob said just before signing him. We were in Vienna at the time and Alan was invited to join a five-a-side game in training. He was awful.

‘Don’t you want to come to Liverpool?’ I asked Alan back at the hotel.

‘What?’ spluttered Alan.

‘That performance this morning was as if you didn’t want to come here.’

‘No. No.’

‘You were hopeless.’

Alan needed time to settle because he’d come from Newcastle United, who played a more direct game, hoisting balls to Super Mac and John Tudor. One of his first games was against QPR at Anfield and in the dressing room afterwards, Bob announced, ‘They’ve shot the wrong Kennedy.’ Barney took it well. He was a real character. One year, Lada gave three cars to Liverpool and when Alan mentioned it, there was a rush for the dressing-room door. A few stayed. The Doc took one Lada, Barney definitely got another and whoever got the third kept the news quieter than the car’s exhaust. Barney struggled in his Lada. He couldn’t do a three-point turn, more a 24-point turn. When he parked, Barney took the gear-stick out.

‘It’s so nobody will steal the car,’ he explained.

‘Barney, if you left the engine running with the door open, nobody would steal it,’ I told him.

One year, he marched into the dressing room and declared, ‘I’m going into the Christmas hamper business. Who wants one?’

‘I’ll order one,’ I said to help Barney out.

‘Thanks, Kenny. They’re good. Perfect for the wife and mother-in-law. Wines, chocolates.’ We all piled in, all the boys ordering some of Barney’s hampers. Shortly before Christmas, Barney informed us, ‘Listen, sorry, lads. I’ve got your hampers but I’ve had to make some changes. I never got the chocolates. So I got underwear.’

‘Pants?’ I said. ‘I’m giving my mother-in-law pants?’

‘Sorry, Kenny. They didn’t have chocolates. But she’ll get a mug as well.’ By that time, the boys were falling about laughing.

‘It’s not just any mug,’ Barney insisted. ‘It’s a Dunoon mug.’

The boys almost never recovered from that revelation. They were rolling around the floor by then. Poor Barney. His whole hamper business was carnage, but if we hadn’t forgiven him by Paris, we certainly did when he scored.

Few teams celebrated as well as Liverpool. We moved out of Versailles and into the wives’ hotel in the centre of Paris. Some of the boys got invited to the Moulin Rouge but I stayed in because Marina felt sick. We didn’t know at the time but she was pregnant with Lynsey. It often happened that nine months after a European Cup final, the Liverpool dressing room reported an upsurge in babies, although Marina was already pregnant by Paris. So she sat up in bed, chatting with Richard Money and his wife.

‘What have you got in your pocket?’ I asked Richard.

‘A medal,’ he replied.

‘No, you’ve not. You’ve got a
winner’s
medal.’ I kept saying it. Richard kept answering as if it was the first time he’d heard the question. Mind you, we were both lashed. We talked about the game, talked a little about Madrid, but I never thought: ‘We’ve just beaten the club of Di Stefano, Puskas and Gento.’ It never mattered to me whether the scoreline was 1–0 or 4–0 as long as we’d won. I just wanted the victory, the trophy, the glory.

Winning the European Cup gave us the right to face the champions of South America, the Brazilians of Flamengo, in Tokyo later in 1981 to decide the club champions of the world. The journey was madness. We flew to Anchorage and I swear the time when we arrived was earlier than when we left Heathrow. We went from Anchorage to Japan and it seemed as if we skipped two days. My body clock was all over the place. I kept waking up at 3 a.m. in Tokyo. To kill some time before the game, the usual idiots – Hansen, Terry Mac and me – went to a three-tier driving range next to the hotel, where the Japanese fixed us up with clubs and handed us an empty bucket each.

‘Where are the balls?’ inquired Alan, very slowly.

‘There,’ replied one of the golf boys, pointing to a drain-pipe.

I pressed a button and golf balls cascaded out of the pipe, running all over the driving range. We soon realised the trick was to put the bucket underneath before pressing the button! The place was amazing. I hit a ball into this vast piece of sloping grass and watched as it rolled back down yet another pipe, funnelling back to the clubhouse. With so many golf balls, it sounded like hailstones crashing down.

The golf was more enjoyable than the match against Flamengo. The pitch was burnt to a cinder and we weren’t much livelier. Liverpool wanted to win but it felt an obligation, not high on our list of priorities. Latin Americans, in this case Flamengo, and players such as Zico took it seriously, and they celebrated wildly when they won 3–0. If Liverpool had won, we wouldn’t have been gloating about being champions of the world. Anyway, the Liverpool dressing room was the world champion home of banter, as a precociously talented young striker was about to discover.