My Liverpool Home (4 page)

‘You two could have played together,’ Bob told me one day. Paisley genuinely believed Liverpool could have accommodated me, Kevin and John Toshack in the same attack, but the simple reality was that Kevin wanted to leave. Liverpool sold him to Hamburg for £500,000 and got me for £440,000, so they were in profit. The whole Keegan business created a lot of fuss but didn’t really bother me. I never felt I was pushing somebody out of the side. I was simply picking up the No. 7 shirt left behind by Kevin. He did brilliantly in Germany, twice becoming European Footballer of the Year, and I was delighted for him. Liverpool carried on being Liverpool, collecting trophies. Liverpool were always bigger than any one player.

One day, I read with interest Tommy Smith’s column in the
Football Echo
. ‘You can’t take a world-class player out of your side and not suffer for it,’ Tommy wrote. ‘It is essential that Liverpool win something this year to take the pressure off Dalglish – and off Liverpool for selling Keegan.’ I understood Tommy’s point, but the pressure was always on Liverpool to accumulate silverware. That was the Liverpool philosophy, the reason why we worked hard. Winning was everything. Tommy was central to the success of that creed, as Kevin had been, and I was determined to be. I just had to make the move work. Just before Liverpool were due at Parkhead for Jock’s testimonial in 1978, my father-in-law, Pat, called.

‘What are you doing about the game?’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re going to get some stick.’

‘What?’

‘Honestly, the Celtic fans have been practising.’

‘You’re winding me up.’

‘No.’

I hadn’t realised Celtic fans would be that angry. I thought they might have simmered down by now.

‘Is your dad going?’ Pat said.

‘Of course.’

‘Right. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll put him in the middle of us. I’ll sit one side and we’ll get some of the boys from the pub to sit the other side, make sure he’s all right.’

After thanking Pat, I put the phone down, seething. After all I’d done for Celtic, didn’t I have a right to decide where my career went?

Bob made me captain for the occasion, giving me the honour of leading Liverpool out at Celtic Park. As I ran out on to the pitch, there was a pipe band straight ahead that I had to skirt around. Engrossed in making sure I didn’t bump into any of the musicians, I failed to realise I was alone as the rest of the Liverpool boys stopped in the tunnel, leaving me to face the wrath of Celtic Park. Amid the thunderous reaction from the 62,000 present, I’m sure I heard a few fans clapping me. Otherwise, my ears were assailed with boos.

‘Thanks, boys,’ I shouted at the Liverpool players when they finally came out of the tunnel, laughing their heads off.

‘Hey, Kenny,’ Tommo said, ‘they love you up here. You must have done them a great turn as a player.’

Celtic supporters were entitled to be angry but they should also have remembered what I did for them. Celtic received £440,000 for a player who cost nothing and who left them with the Double – not a bad return. I never betrayed Celtic, as some claimed I had. Celtic Park’s unpleasant reception made me angry, so I took great joy in scoring twice. Surely the Celtic fans could understand my celebrations? I was only doing for Liverpool what I’d done for them. Celtic had been my home. Now it was Liverpool.

3

ANFIELD

R
ELISHING
the new start, I confided to Marina, ‘I will not be superstitious this year. I’m just going to get up on the day of the game and see what happens.’ Marina smiled. She knew how obsessed I was with ritual. Fans see the player for 90 minutes but never know how complicated match-day preparation can be, particularly for somebody as superstitious as I am. At the start of every season at Liverpool, I promised myself I’d relax, relinquish my usual customs and just go with the flow. Every August I tried, I honestly did, but I couldn’t shake the habits. Call it superstition, call it pre-match routine, but everything had to be done in the same order – otherwise, Liverpool would lose and I’d consider myself responsible.

The established procedure started the day before the game when we’d meet at Anfield and hop on the bus to Melwood for a team meeting with Bob. Arriving with my own superstitions, I soon realised Liverpool had their own long-running convention, a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I not only got Kevin’s shirt, I inherited his seat. In the dressing room, all the fixed benches were shaped in a U around the treatment table and Liverpool had an unspoken rule that nobody took anybody else’s place. Before Bob took his place at the tactics board, I’d enact the first stage of my pre-match schedule. I’d always bring packets of biscuits from Anfield, and open the milk chocolate packet. One superstition that began under Joe Fagan was that Steve McMahon had the solemn honour of opening the plain. Of all the plain openers, ‘Macca’ had the best technique, so good the players once pleaded with him to drive into Melwood when he was absent injured simply to perform his biscuit duties.

I’d conceal three packets of biscuits down my tracksuit top, although hiding them was unnecessary because Bob or Joe would never dream of pulling us up for eating biscuits. Such astute readers of footballers’ minds knew what the biscuits meant to our ritual. Holding a cup of tea in my left hand, I’d slip my right into my tracksuit and extract the biscuits one by one. The rotation of the biscuits was carefully orchestrated. If I’d eaten two milk chocolates followed by a plain the week before and Liverpool had won, it was obviously the same order again: milk, milk, plain. If we lost, the sequence would obviously change. Rotation was a staple of Liverpool life long before Rafa Benitez.

As the hours ticked down to kick-off, the routine intensified. If the game was a Saturday one at Anfield, I’d have the same dinner on the Friday night: tomato soup, steak pie with boiled potatoes and peas followed by apple pie and custard, a menu that never deviated.

‘Never change a winning menu!’ I told Marina. Alan Hansen would come over and eat with us. If Marina was away, I’d cook dinner and Al would still visit. I always felt this was brave of Al, and a sign of our strong friendship, because I’m a liability in the kitchen. Fortunately, we had a tin-opener for the soup and peas and an oven for the pie, so we got by. Just. For a drink, I’d pour myself a glass of American cream soda. Al and I often debated whether the stuff sold in Merseyside was different from the version we grew up with in Scotland.

‘It can’t be the same,’ I insisted. ‘For a start, it’s green instead of white, and it doesn’t taste the same.’ One day, I mentioned my concerns over American cream soda to John Keith, one of football’s most respected writers, and he wrote about this great puzzle in the
Daily Express
. Shortly afterwards, I received a call from Barr’s, the manufacturers, inviting me to visit their factory situated between Liverpool and Manchester.

‘How do you get
green
cream soda?’, I asked the people at Barr’s. ‘I’ve never seen it in my life before.’ Having dressed me in overalls, the Barr’s people took me around the plant and explained that the English prefer their cream soda green.

‘But it doesn’t taste as good,’ I replied. ‘The white cream soda is far better.’ I knew I was right, and Big Al backed me up, but Barr’s replied that it was the way the English liked it. Bizarre. After extensive research, I concluded it was to do with the water. Al and I noticed Irn Bru tasted different down here as well. On my visits north, I always made sure I returned with the Scottish originals, but otherwise I put up with the English cream soda and Irn Bru.

Dinner over, we’d drive to the Cherry Tree Hotel in Kirkby where we’d be picked up by the coach, which took the team to our pre-match base, the Lord Daresbury Hotel near Warrington. Al and I took it in turns driving to the Cherry Tree from Southport. One day, Al was rolling along the M57 with me and defender Richard Money when a terrible racket erupted.

‘Al,’ I said. ‘Can’t you hear that?’

‘What?’ replied Al.

‘You’ve got a puncture. Pull over.’ So Al parked up on the hard shoulder and the three of us got out to take a look.

‘Have you got a spare wheel?’ I asked Al.

‘Don’t know,’ he replied. It was fair to say that Big Hansen was not known as the practical type.

‘Where’s the jack?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know.’

‘Come on, Al, you need to open the boot.’

‘How do you open the boot?’

‘You’re hopeless. Leave it to me.’ Having managed the straightforward task of opening the boot, I removed the spare and jack and began changing the wheel.

‘By the way, you’d better flag somebody down because we’re going to be late,’ I said, crouching down by the wheel. A car soon stopped, Richard hopped in and dashed to Kirkby where he explained the situation.

‘Big Al’s got a puncture,’ said Richard. ‘He and Kenny won’t be long.’ Graeme Souness was never sluggish in spotting a sporting challenge, so he immediately said, ‘Let’s have a bet on whose hands are dirtiest when they get in.’ When Al and I finally arrived, Graeme made us present our hands for inspection and, sure enough, as everybody predicted, Al’s were spotless.

Settled into the Daresbury, I’d climb into bed and watch whatever was on the television at nine, whether
Bouquet of Barbed Wire
or
Budgie
. I’d lie back and run through the match in my mind, thinking about whom I was facing, goalkeeper and defenders, and how I’d react to any situation. Would I chip the keeper if one-on-one? Would I lay the ball off? More rituals. At 10 sharp, I’d fall asleep for 11 hours.

Having woken at nine on the dot, I’d read the papers in bed, do the concise crossword and then conduct one of the important steps in my ritual – the pre-match shave. Superstition again dictated the format. If Liverpool had won the previous week, I’d move the blade in exactly the same direction as before. If we’d lost, I’d change direction. It sounds trivial, and I should really have been locked up, but it was a ritual and so deserved respect. Getting dressed, I’d never wear clothes that I’d worn when we lost. Shirts, underpants, ties and socks all got binned if they hadn’t brought the right result. No mercy, out they went. I’ll admit I had to address my lucky suit addiction. If I wore a new suit, and Liverpool won, I thought I’d better buy another to keep up the momentum. That was getting serious, and expensive, so I compromised on keeping the same suit during a winning run. After breakfast of tea and toast, it was time to get the coach to Anfield.

By now, with kick-off approaching, the superstitious nature of the whole squad would begin to show. When the bus turned into Utting Avenue, the long straight up towards Anfield, we’d try to work out from how many cars were parked along the road what the total crowd would be – ‘38,000,’ I’d predict, ‘35,000,’ Souey would shout, ‘36,000,’ said Big Al. The Tannoy announcer would give out the crowd figure, and there’d be some crowing in the dressing room from the ones who’d been closest. Ronnie Moran, nicknamed ‘Bugsy’ after Bugsy Malone, often got it right. Money never changed hands, so Bugsy never profited. Such silly little games were important, not just to pass the time during a period inevitably strained with nerves for many players, but also because the banter bonded us even closer.

The Daresbury routine lasted until 1983 when Joe took charge and we were allowed to spend Friday nights at home. My routine expanded then. I’d be in my bed at eight sharp, clutching a bottle of Irn Bru and a big bar of Dairy Milk chocolate – always the same combination, always the same respect for tradition. Marina broke off the same two squares from the bar and if she ever took more than two, or a different two, there was a riot. Marina’s naturally of a mischievous disposition but she would never, ever tamper with my chocolate. I’d always eaten chocolate because it gave me extra energy and it became habit. Marina would be out on the landing on patrol, making sure the kids kept quiet. Usually, little disturbed my sleep and if I was struggling, I’d just swallow a tablet supplied by the Liverpool doctor.

Even the route from my home in Southport to Anfield was decided by superstition. If Liverpool got beaten, it was out with the map and change the route. If I saw a wedding while driving in, I knew that spelled good luck, so I was always hoping to spot a wedding car before every game. Funerals meant bad luck, and so it went on. Magpies caused endless problems. If I saw one magpie, I’d scan the garden, hunting for a second one because of the old saying, ‘one for sorrow, two for joy’.

Entering the Liverpool dressing room, I continued my preparations while taking care not to interrupt anybody else’s routine. At home, I decided what clothes to wear, depending on results. At Anfield, I went about taking them off in the right order. First move – jacket off; second – unknot tie; third – remove shirt. And then I worked south. The kit was simple – jock-strap and then shirt. The shorts had to wait.

When I brandished a pair of nail-clippers, Liverpool tried to stop one of my routines. ‘Don’t be cutting your nails,’ Paisley said. ‘You’ll cut them too short and give yourself a sore toe.’ Nail-clipping had been a beloved tradition of mine at Celtic but Bob didn’t like it. My nails probably didn’t require attention but I needed to give it to them because of my superstition, so I carried on clipping.

My routine then became complicated, descending into real detail, starting with strapping up my ankles and picking up my socks – the correct way was right first then left. Even in an era of tough tacklers, I hated shin-pads and never wore them because they cramped up my shin. Climbing on the treatment table, I had a massage and then it was on with the shorts. Boots came next, adidas before I switched to Puma. When I first got free boots off adidas, I thought it was Christmas. Then Puma came along offering financial attractions and I started wearing Puma Kings and Puma Royals. I felt I’d arrived when they stitched my name into the boots – Dalglish Silver and Dalglish Gold. I really appreciated my good fortune. Kids were wearing boots with my name on them when I couldn’t afford proper boots at their age. My boots were my fortune and I tended them lovingly. Even on elevation to the ranks of professional, I inspected everything the ground-staff did with my boots, particularly when they put them in the drying room. They’d be like crisps in the morning. I had two pairs, one for training and one for matches, and I was obsessed with these boots, running them under a tap to soften the leather and remove any flecks of mud, often imaginary, and checking that the studs were tightened just right. When I look at the boots worn by Stevie and Fernando, even some of the kids in the Academy, I feel a twinge of envy, which might also be a touch of arthritis in my toes. Players now don’t need to break boots in. They can wear them fresh from the box, but the trend for blades, rather than round studs, worries me because when the player turns, he encounters resistance that can damage cruciates.