Ring of Fire Read online

  ‘Liverpool was the Holy Grail for me. It was something to reach for. I dreamed of nothing other than being a Liverpool player from the age of eight. It meant that I was able to enjoy my football club and support them as a child. I went through the process of the standing boys’ pen. These kids now, they feel as if they belong at Liverpool from birth because they’re being signed up too early. They’re still fans but they’re fans in a less fervent way because they are having to think about their own standing within the club too soon. Maybe it erodes the love.

  ‘The clubs – all of them, not just Liverpool – have encouraged elitism,’ he continues. ‘It’s not healthy. Kids can’t have proper childhoods. One or two do because their parents know the score but many slip through the net. Those who don’t have the family support behind them, they let the status go to their heads. Rather than receiving the right guidance, they get over-coached and as a result few of them are able to figure out solutions for themselves. The instinctive footballers have disappeared. How many kids have come out of Kirkby in the last ten years? Not many.’

  The building of Liverpool’s academy had already been commissioned by the time Thompson and Houllier became assistant and manager. He thinks the site’s separation from Melwood hasn’t really worked out.

  ‘There’s a desire in the modern world to compartmentalize everything. I was fortunate that at fifteen I could see the reserve-team players, those younger professionals. I was in the B team and I wanted to be in the A team. When I was in the A team, I wanted to be in the reserves. When I was in the reserves, I wanted to be in the first team. I could visibly see my career in front of me. I knew the standards that I needed to meet because they were obvious around me.

  ‘In 1998, when the academy was built here in Kirkby, it became elitist, because all the responsibilities a young player used to have disappeared. There was no more cleaning baths, boots, balls and changing rooms. The young players had people there to do that for them and it made them precious.

  ‘When I was fifteen, I loved being there at Melwood. I was going to enjoy my time at Liverpool no matter how short or long it might be. Just being near my heroes, my idols, was the biggest thrill. I wanted to be the best boot polisher at the club, my baths were cleaner than any other apprentice, my floors were done with warmth and love, and the training kit, although it was crap, was put out as neatly as possible.

  ‘When I was twenty-four or twenty-five, I sat down with Ronnie Moran and all the others. It was one of those moments where you realize how far you’ve travelled. I asked Ronnie what he saw in me, a skinny kid from Kirkby. I was rake-thin. “We could see you could play, Thommo,” he told me. “That’s why we always picked you on the staff team for the famous five-a-sides.”

  ‘It wasn’t because they knew I could run all day – I was a cross-country runner for the county as a kid – it was because I didn’t want to be beaten at all. “We watched you every day doing those meaningless jobs and you didn’t cut corners. You did them to perfection. That tells us, as staff, you’ll go all the way on the pitch to make sure the backs of your teammates are covered.”’

  Bill Shankly – the man who transformed Liverpool from Second Division also-rans to First Division and FA Cup champions – was Thompson’s hero. But Moran was his mentor, the former player whose career at Liverpool followed the same path as Thompson’s: from B team to A team to reserves before making the most important step of them all – to the first team. Before Thompson could drive, Moran used to give him lifts to training in his Morris Minor.

  ‘I’d get the 44D bus to the Crown pub in Norris Green and Ronnie was always there on time, as promised,’ Thompson recalls. ‘Ronnie had more influence over me than anyone else at Liverpool. He was the biggest moaner I’ve ever met. He complained about everything. He would not rest. Even if we’d won 5–0 on the Saturday, he’d arrive for work on the Monday morning screaming at everybody. He treated us like school kids and if he wasn’t happy, he’d have us doing shuttle runs as a punishment, no matter what the previous result had been. Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness – he didn’t care how great you were, he’d be bawling at you, the moaning bastard. It’s only when you stop and analyse it that you realize Ronnie was the driving force behind a lot of the success. He made sure there was no rest for us. He made sure everybody remained grounded. Ronnie got praise for his work but not as much as he should have done.’

  I meet Thompson one morning in November at the bar of the David Lloyd health and fitness centre in Kirkby. He lives a fifteen-minute drive north into Lancashire but he returns to the facility in his home town pretty much every week day because he knows most of the people here, a community spirit exists and he enjoys connecting with his past.

  ‘Where we are now is the site of the old Kirkby Town FC,’ he informs me. ‘I played here for Kirkby School Boys when I was a lad.’

  The David Lloyd centre is next door to Liverpool Football Club’s aforementioned youth academy. ‘You can see wonderful pitches there now but back in the day it’s where I used to run my Sunday league team from when I was playing for Liverpool. The area has played a big part in my life. It’s religious ground for me, this.’

  Thompson was twenty-one years old and in his prime when he took charge of the Falcon Sunday league side for the first time. By then, he was already well established in Liverpool’s first team, having helped win a league title and a UEFA Cup double. He was also the owner of an FA Cup-winners’ medal.

  ‘I was obsessed by football, bloody obsessed,’ he grins, rubbing his hands together. ‘I couldn’t get enough of it. That’s why I took charge of the Falcon. The best-known Sunday league team in Kirkby was the Fantail and people often got us confused with them. We were probably a step down in terms of football ability but we were a proper team with a proper spirit from a proper pub.’

  Thompson managed the Falcon for twelve seasons. On Monday mornings, he’d arrive at Anfield and while he was getting changed, Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans, the first-team coach and reserve-team manager, would ask the same question separately.

  ‘“How did you get on yesterday?” they’d say – not even mentioning the Liverpool game on the Saturday. Wherever we played – even if it was Southampton – I’d be on Arbour Lane on a Sunday morning by 11 a.m. with the kits, the balls and the sponges in the boot of my car. It was blowing a gale every week. The lads would breathe alcoholic fumes all over you. You’d be driving around Kirkby trying to get some of them out of bed to come and play. But they were fantastic times. As much as I loved playing for Liverpool, some of my greatest football moments were with the Falcon.’

  Surely all the other teams in the league must have wanted to beat a side managed by a Liverpool player?

  ‘Of course they did,’ he laughs. ‘There was expectancy on us every week. It got harder for us after an administration error meant we had to leave the Kirkby and District League, where we were comfortable, and join the Kirkby New Town League. Because our application was late, there was only one place left in all of the divisions and it was in the top one. Oh my goodness, it was tough. We got kicked all over the place. These teams, they were good anyway but they upped the anti a notch or two because I managed the Falcon. In the dressing room after one game, I told the lads if they wanted to pack it in, they should discuss it in the pub and I’d understand. They were getting booted everywhere and I appreciated they had to go off to work on a Monday morning as labourers. Many of them were self-employed. I didn’t want to be responsible for an injury; they needed to work to support their families. My older brother Owen, who also played, later came to me and said that the lads wanted to continue. They didn’t want to duck out and let the bigger fellas win. It was typical of the attitude you get from lads in Kirkby.’

  The Falcon went on to win everything there was to win in the New Town League. Thompson created what he calls a ‘no-excuse culture’ by putting pressure on himself to attend all games. His commitment was as great as anyone else’s.

  Liverpool had not yet
won a European Cup in the spring of 1977 but having beaten FC Zurich in Switzerland during the semi-final first leg that year, he was ruled out of the return through injury and decided to attend a final the Falcon were playing in at Prescot Cables instead. He remembers driving down the M57 and seeing the floodlights of Anfield shining in the distance and then the celebrations afterwards back at the pub after finding out that Zurich had been brushed aside. The Falcon had also won.

  ‘We trained every Thursday night where the old Kirkby Stadium used to be, on shale all-weather pitches. It was twelve- or thirteen-a-side; you’d get lads who weren’t good enough but came along for the craic anyway. It was cut-throat stuff. But I’d train too – even though I had a game for Liverpool on the Saturday. Nobody at the club knew.’

  It was only when Thompson was given the job as Liverpool’s reserve-team manager after retiring that he resigned as manager of the Falcon. Sunday morning was a busy part of the working week for Liverpool’s backroom staff, as they used the time to clean kits, treat injuries and discuss what had happened the day before. That Thompson was able to lead a double life for so long – his entire playing career – reflects his mania for football.

  ‘I think it all started with my mum rather than my dad,’ he says. ‘My mum was a big Liverpudlian and she went to Anfield all the time. She used to go in the main stand during the 1950s, right by the tunnel. One of my earliest memories was going with her along with my auntie and brother Owen to the Inter Milan European Cup match in 1965. I was eleven years old and how she got tickets for it, I’ll never know. It was the biggest game in Liverpool’s history and beforehand Gerry Byrne and Gordon Milne walked around the pitch holding the FA Cup, which had been won a few days before. We were sitting on the front row of the Kemlyn Road and I could reach out and almost touch it. God, I get goosepimples just thinking about that night.

  ‘Mum was really passionate, so when I started playing she couldn’t have been any more proud. My dad was an Evertonian and he worked at sea; a lot of men in Kirkby did. Whenever he came home from America, he’d bring us gifts from New York and try to make me and my brothers turn towards Everton. It was never going to happen. I was still standing on the Kop when I was seventeen and playing in the reserves. I was Liverpool mad.’

  Thompson’s terrace education began in the infamous boys’ pen.

  ‘There was a lad from school, Tommy Heaton, and we used to go together. It was a shilling to get in. The environment was a tough one. There was a drainpipe in the corner and I used to try to scale it to get in the Kop, because that’s where you aspired to be. Being in the Kop was a sign of maturity.’

  Although he grew up in Kirkby, Thompson was born in Kensington, the inner-city area of Liverpool known affectionately by locals as ‘Kenny’, which has given the world a series of famous musicians, including John and Mick Head from Shack, as well as Ian McNabb. Thompson was one of seven brothers and sisters who lived in a Victorian terraced house on Ling Street under the watchful eye of his mum, May, whose sister, June, was never far away, helping her control the young boys.

  ‘Kenny’s only a mile away from Anfield. On match days, you knew a game of football was happening because everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction. My mum applied to the council for a bigger house. Kirkby was an overspill town being built because of the baby boom, so we were shoved out there on Stonehey Road.’

  The three-bedroom new-build was opposite the old Brookfield High School and backed on to St Joseph’s juniors. Thompson was surrounded by football pitches and such access eventually helped nurture skills that invited an opportunity to trial at Melwood, Liverpool’s training ground, aged fourteen. Thompson missed his end-of-year school exams to make sure he was there. John Gidman, who later played for Everton and both Manchester clubs, was also in attendance, along with Kenny Pritchard, whose goals at junior levels had marked him out as the one to watch over the six weeks they spent together.

  ‘The other lads signed apprentice forms before me,’ Thompson says, underlining the fact that his career was not mapped out from a young age. ‘Liverpool kept me waiting. It was coming towards the end of the trial and we had a game against Bury at Melwood. I was too scared to ask the people at Liverpool what was going on. I wanted it so much, so I asked my mum to come along and speak to Tom Bush, who was the youth development officer. We won and I played really well but as we walked home, past where the Bill Shankly Playing Fields are now, I was struggling to find the courage to ask her what Tom had said. “Did you speak to him then?” I asked. She delayed her response. “What’s the matter – it’s bad news, isn’t it?” Then she told me Liverpool wanted me to sign, though Tom had told her not to tell me because he wanted to deliver the news the following day. I was so emotional. I feel it now. I gave her the biggest hug ever.’

  Of the fifteen players who signed apprentice forms that summer, Thompson was the only one to emerge as a professional. And this was despite the fact that midway through his two-year apprenticeship Tom Bush died and Tony Waiters was appointed as his replacement for a brief period.

  ‘I left Brookfield School without any qualifications. I threw all my eggs into one basket. So I had to make it happen,’ he reasons. ‘Maybe Tom dying unsettled a few of the others. I know Giddy [John Gidman] and Tony didn’t see eye to eye. Sometimes that happens in football and your career is sent spinning on a different path. I liked Tony, though.’

  Thinking about this period in his life, Thompson still gets excited now.

  ‘It was a fascinating time to be an apprentice,’ he explains, racing through his thoughts. ‘Can you imagine going into a dressing room and Roger Hunt is sitting there? He was a knight of the realm to Liverpool supporters like me. I’d stand there open-mouthed, looking at him like an idiot. I’ve met Pelé and Eusébio; I’ve played against Diego Maradona. But Roger was the greatest to me. I had photographs of him behind my bed and posters all over the walls. When I think that I won more than Roger did at Liverpool and eventually achieved what Bill Shankly did in managing the club, even if it was only for three months, I have to stop and take a moment. It’s weird.’

  Thompson trained on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Melwood, sometimes under the supervision of Reuben Bennett. A former goalkeeper, Bennett once completed a game for Dundee with a broken leg. He later joined Liverpool’s coaching team under Phil Taylor. Obsessed by fitness, Shankly put him in charge of physical conditioning. In Liverpool’s Boot Room, he was known as Sherlock because he often patrolled the grounds of Melwood in a deerstalker hat.

  ‘Reuben was a hard, rash Scotsman from Aberdeen. He was mysterious – Shanks’s right-hand man. I know Bob Paisley was Shanks’s assistant but Reuben was the one Shanks confided in. His bark was bigger than Ronnie Moran’s. He didn’t live far from Melwood, so he would turn up for training and stand on the side of the pitch in his long raincoat. You felt in awe when you saw him; you were honoured.

  ‘Later, when I joined the first team, Reuben was over sixty but played as the goal-hanger in the five-a-side games. No matter what the weather was like, he’d wear a pair of trainers rather than boots. Even if he scored the first of seventeen goals, he’d celebrate it as if it was the FA Cup final. He’d wind up the young lads and you were desperate to beat him because his passion was so clear.’

  Thompson remembers meeting Shankly for the first time, bumping into him in the corridor outside his office at Anfield. He describes the moment as ‘an audience with the Pope’. His outstanding memory of those early years is of the way Shankly used to ignore players who were injured, ostensibly because they were of no use to him but the deeper reason being that he thought of injuries as diseases that would contaminate his squad if acknowledged.

  ‘It was purely psychological,’ Thompson thinks. ‘Nobody wanted to get injured, because the loneliness was humiliating. I can see him popping his head into the treatment room and letting on to Bob [Paisley] and Joe [Fagan] but ignoring the fella lying down on the table. It could have been Roger Hunt or Ron
Yeats but he wouldn’t have wished them good morning if they weren’t available to play for him.’

  Thompson describes Anfield as a ‘workplace’.

  ‘We’d be in every day doing long hours. I can still smell the bleach now, the way we’d clean the floors using a scrubbing brush, then a mop and a bucket. Ronnie and Joe would come along and inspect your work and you couldn’t go home if the baths weren’t sparkling. It was a labour of love. Anfield held a sense of belonging. I’m convinced it had an impact on results too because, come a match day, we felt comfortable.’

  Shankly had transformed Melwood from a run-down weed-infested playing field into sacred earth by introducing the five-a-side games that defined his ‘pass-and-move’ philosophy. Shankly raised the club from the lower reaches of the old Second Division to become champions of the First in less than five years, before Bob Paisley’s team went on to dominate Europe. Outsiders struggled to figure out Liverpool’s secret, believing mystical forces were at work behind the walls of the training ground. Thompson thinks the success was based on simple repetition and working by a set of unwritten rules enforced by tough men like Ronnie Moran.

  ‘As a kid, you were told not to hold on to the ball for too long, particularly in midfield or at centre-half; you had to get it, you had to give it. Ronnie would drill us. It was only when you got around the opposition’s 18-yard box that you were allowed to express yourself.

  ‘If I close my eyes and think about training at Melwood as a teenager, my thighs begin to hurt because Ronnie had us down on our haunches, jockeying an opponent back and forth. I don’t think anyone knows what jockeying is now. It’s such a basic skill and learning how to do it properly improves your understanding of timing.