Ring of Fire Read online

  Thompson believes Houllier’s illness inspired the players. A 2–1 victory was followed by just one defeat in Liverpool’s next twelve matches and that came against Barcelona in the Champions League. While Thompson shuffled along with his responsibilities, so did first-team coach Sammy Lee, who took on assistant-manager duties.

  ‘I told Sammy, “Listen, you’re the one who’ll have to give out the bollockings from now on.” I needed to keep a clear head, especially if I was making substitutions. I couldn’t be standing there on the touchline having arguments. Because that was my instinct.’

  Thompson says one of his proudest moments was being asked by chief executive Rick Parry to attend a board meeting on the flight home from Kiev.

  ‘I thought to myself, Fucking ’ell, Phil Thompson, Kirkby lad, missed his fourth-year exams – I’ve got to go to a board meeting as Liverpool’s manager. The circumstances couldn’t have been worse with Gérard’s illness but I couldn’t have been any prouder considering Souness had me sacked because of trust issues. Now here I was, back at the place I loved most, doing the most important job in the world. I stood before all of the board members, realizing a lot of people, especially amongst the press, were questioning whether I was the man to take on Gérard’s responsibilities because of my temperament. “Gentlemen,” I said, “I know some of you may have doubts about whether I am good enough to see us through this period. I know some ex-players are touting other names around.” And then I told them I knew exactly what was needed to keep the club moving in the right direction. “I’ve had a great teacher in Gérard,” I said. “Nothing else needs to change. We will be fine.”

  ‘David Moores responded by telling me that they trusted me and that I would be able to run it as I saw fit. I’d have their full backing. It makes me quite tearful thinking about this moment.’

  The records reveal that Houllier is the most successful Liverpool manager in a quarter of a century. Yet by the time he left the club by mutual agreement in 2004, many supporters recognized it was time for him to go.

  Criticism of Houllier stemmed from his decisions in the transfer market after returning from illness to lead the team again. His signings from the French league proved to be particularly disappointing, with Bruno Cheyrou, Salif Diao, El Hadji Diouf, Florent Sinama Pongolle and Anthony Le Tallec not meeting the standard consistently enough or not at all. The fact that Houllier missed out on signing Cristiano Ronaldo around the same time, when he could have been taken from Sporting Lisbon for £4 million, only for him to move to rivals Manchester United for three times that fee before emerging as one of the game’s greatest modern attacking players, might explain Houllier’s downfall to some degree.

  Thompson can describe the pursuit of Ronaldo because he was at the forefront of it. He says both he and Houllier were ‘hounded by guys who work for Paul Stretford and Jorge Mendes’, the agents that represented the player towards the end of the 2002–03 season.

  ‘A fella called Tony Henry was on the phone every other day saying that this boy is available for four million quid. “You should take a chance on him, he’s a decent player.”

  ‘I went to see Ronaldo for Portugal’s under-21s. Sporting Lisbon were trying to get a buyer for Ricardo Quaresma as well and he really impressed me too. It was a contest of who could do the most step-overs and normally I wouldn’t go for that type of thing. The difference with these two was, there was an end product.’

  Thompson made a second trip to watch Sporting play FC Porto, who’d won the UEFA Cup with a controversial victory over Celtic the week before under José Mourinho.

  ‘You could see Ronaldo had great ability and afterwards I was invited to dinner with Tony and Jorge Mendes. They were really pushing for £4 million spread over four seasons at a million a year. Then I asked about his salary and they were quoting a million quid a year net. “A million pound?” I said, surprised. “We’ve just signed Le Tallec and Pongolle and they’re on nowhere near anything like that.”

  ‘I went back and had a word with Gérard and told him that Ronaldo was a very good player. The problem was, we hadn’t received our budget yet for the following season. Gérard then went to Rick [Parry – the chief executive] to try to find out what it was.

  ‘I think we had £12 million that summer. Three million went towards the French lads [Pongolle and Le Tallec], £3.5 million on Steve Finnan and another £5 million on Harry Kewell. The idea was to go for Ronaldo but to try to negotiate the price down and then probably leave him in Lisbon for a year because he was only eighteen years old.’

  It was in August when Thompson, sitting in the canteen at Melwood, saw the breaking story on Sky Sports News. Manchester United had recruited their target for £12.2 million.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it, mainly because of the fee,’ he says. ‘It was a huge price to pay. It had rocketed over a short period of time. He was being touted around everywhere for £4 million.

  ‘When I look back, I think the problem was the circumstance. We’d committed a third of our transfer budget on two young foreign players already. The team needed an injection of experience. I know we know how good Ronaldo is now but how would it have gone down if we had spent so much on three untried foreign teenagers?’

  Houllier’s departure from Anfield was a long one. Liverpool finished second in the league in 2002, seven points behind champions Arsenal, fifth in 2003 when Manchester United were the champions nineteen points ahead, and then fourth in 2004 – only this time there was a thirty-point gap. Performances led to criticism from former players like Ian St John.

  ‘I went into his office one day and Gérard had written down the names of twenty-two ex-players who were working in the media. He said, “These are the ones we have to put up with – they’re all against me . . .” I told him they weren’t. I’d been in the media and obviously I’d been critical of the regime towards the end of Roy’s spell in charge. I was just doing my job – it wasn’t personal. But Gérard took it personally. Some of them went overboard because everyone is different, but Gérard put them in the same pot. Comments that were constructive were seen as destructive.’

  Alan Kennedy, who scored goals that secured two European Cup wins for Liverpool in 1981 and 1984, was banned from Anfield briefly after first annoying Houllier by a jokey remark made on the Soccer AM magazine show on Sky Sports. Houllier then refused to give interviews to Century Radio – where Kennedy worked on their nightly phone-in show – before and after the matches because of the row. Thompson says there is more to the story, linking the feud to a tackle by Blackburn Rovers’ Lucas Neill, the tenacious Australian full-back, that broke Jamie Carragher’s leg.

  ‘Al knew people at Liverpool, including Sammy Lee, myself and others. In the aftermath of the tackle on Carra, Al found out about what was said inside the Liverpool dressing room and told Graeme Souness, who was Blackburn’s manager. It was an error of judgement and he was full of apologies afterwards to Gérard. I told Gérard that Al was one of the nicest guys out of all my former colleagues but was sometimes not the brightest. He was the butt of many a joke and probably didn’t think about what he was doing, if I’m being totally honest. He was sincere in his apologies. But Gérard wouldn’t let it go.’

  Despite the distractions and frustrations of the last few years, Thompson believes he and Houllier left a better club than the one they joined. ‘It was certainly a more disciplined one, because the lunatics were running the asylum back then,’ he insists.

  Thompson says he is tied to Liverpool and will never work for another club. He does not have an agent representing him and although he’s had offers – including one to join his old friend in Birmingham when Houllier became Aston Villa’s manager in 2010 – the opportunity did not motivate him.

  ‘It didn’t seem me. It didn’t seem right, because Villa are not my club,’ he reasons. ‘Some people have said to me when the times were bad at Liverpool under Rafa Benítez, Roy Hodgson and Brendan Rodgers, “Phil, you should go back there and sort the egos
out.” But I think my time has been. I’ve done my bit.’

  He recounts one last story, when Liverpool were beaten 1–0 by Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in May 1999, six months into his and Houllier’s reign.

  ‘Wednesday were a really poor side and we were crap, so I had one of my famous rants,’ he recalls, grinning. ‘Brad Friedel had played in goal and he fronted me up. It got quite aggressive.’ Thompson bares his teeth to imitate Friedel’s anger. “‘You, Thommo, you,” he says, “You’re having a go at us all the time – you think we don’t care but we do!”

  ‘“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Brad,” I goes back. “You’re bang on – I know you care. I know every player wants to win and wants to go out and do well. But it’s how far you will go to achieve that, how far you will push yourself to make sure it happens – and how much it hurts you when you get beaten.”

  ‘And then I went to him, “But I’ll tell you something, Brad: a lot of you don’t care enough. There’s a fucking difference, Brad. There’s a big fucking difference.”’

  CHAPTER TWO

  DANNY MURPHY,

  Versatility

  ‘IT WAS BETTER than any other natural high,’ Danny Murphy reveals, his expression remaining serious.

  ‘Even sex?’

  ‘Oh yeah, even sex – an out-of-body experience. Indescribable.’

  Murphy is attempting to convey the sensation of scoring a match-winning goal for Liverpool against Manchester United at Old Trafford, a feat he achieved three times.

  ‘The first one was a free kick past Fabien Barthez,’ he remembers, citing how silence fell across the stadium as he approached the ball to strike it. ‘They were the champions and we needed to prove ourselves under Gérard Houllier, prove that we could compete with them.

  ‘I’d given possession away a few minutes earlier and I was really angry with myself,’ Murphy continues. ‘I needed to make amends. I took quite a straight run-up, to try to deceive the keeper. Barthez stood still. It curled right in the bottom corner. I could see the faces of the United supporters in the Stretford End. Closing my eyes, I can see a fella with a black hood with his mouth open going, “Oh no!” After that? There was white noise. A blur of colour. Look at my arms right now – you can see the hairs standing on end.

  ‘A lot of people have tried to put into words the euphoria of scoring a winning goal. None of them do it justice. You lose yourself. There’s a huge adrenalin rush of emotion that takes you to a place you didn’t know existed. Afterwards comes the contentment. When you’re sitting on the bus in the car park, seeing all the United fans walking home with glum faces, hearing all the Liverpool supporters in the distance, still locked inside the ground. Only then does it sink in – what it means to you personally.

  ‘I used to drink in the Oaklands Pub on New Road in Chester. Normally, my brother and a couple of mates would be there after the game. We’d have a pint, a chat and unwind. This time when I walked in, there was uproar. The place was packed. It went off. It was mental. It was brilliant. Loads of singing. Only then did I really realize the impact a goal and a win had on everyone else. It defines weekends. It can define seasons.’

  Liverpool completed a cup treble that year. A second clinching moment against Liverpool’s greatest rivals came the following campaign, though circumstances this time were different.

  ‘Some Liverpool supporters cheered in the game before against Southampton when I was substituted,’ Murphy explains, frowning, reflecting his difficulty with the memory by blowing out his cheeks. ‘It was only a few of them. But hearing that negativity – god, it was probably the lowest point of my career.

  ‘Phil Thompson was filling in as manager for Gérard Houllier, who was recovering from his heart problems. Thommo called me into his office and tried to reassure me. “I know you must feel a bit shit. I trust you. I’ll play you all day long. Don’t worry about it – I know the Liverpool supporters better than anyone.”

  ‘But I did worry about it. Never believe a player who says they don’t hear the heckling. It was like a dagger through the heart. I felt like crying. When you care about the club you play for, you crave acceptance.

  ‘So the following Wednesday night at Old Trafford, Steven Gerrard gets the ball. What a pass. What. A. Pass. It gets overlooked just how good that pass was – maybe it was the pass of the decade.’

  Murphy saw Barthez again. This time the French World Cup winner had strayed a few yards from his line.

  ‘So I chipped him. It was a difficult one to execute, because Stevie’s pass was as forceful as ever and it had some curl on it. With the chip, I had to change the trajectory and slow the pace of the ball down, otherwise it wouldn’t have gone over the goalkeeper.

  ‘How did I feel when it went in? Initially, there was joy. Then there was a bit of relief. Then the feeling of fuck you came along, if I’m being honest. A fuck you to the doubters.

  ‘At the end of the game, I ran from the Stretford End towards our supporters with Stevie and Thommo. I don’t know where Carra was. Five thousand of them were singing my name. The turnaround in just a few days. Here, see my arms again . . . uncontrollable.’

  The instinct to get into position to score was down to Murphy’s own ability, yet he believes the platform to perform confidently and not buckle under the immense pressure was given to him by Thompson, the temporary manager.

  ‘Thommo changed immensely when he took over the reins from Gérard,’ Murphy says. ‘Six months before, maybe he wouldn’t have been capable of being so subtle, knowing how to deliver a boost, knowing exactly what was needed. On the touchline, he was a raging bull. He’d have argued with his granny, probably. Some of the foreign players weren’t used to it. They thought he was mad. But I didn’t mind a kick up the arse. I’d grown up around that type of aggression at Crewe. I reacted well to it. I benefited from it.

  ‘Suddenly, Gérard became ill and a Zen-like quality took over Thommo. He wasn’t shouting and screeching in training any more. Sammy Lee became the enforcer. Thommo became the observer. Bob Paisley had to change when he got the job from Bill Shankly in unexpected circumstances, didn’t he? Thommo had witnessed this when he was a player.

  ‘Thommo was in charge for a lot of the 2001–02 season when we came second: the highest in the league Liverpool had finished in more than a decade. People saw him as the aggressive number two. But I think he would have been a bloody good manager if he’d tried elsewhere. He had more managerial qualities than I think he realized. We had our moments where we rowed – he rowed with everyone. Sometimes, though, I think he was just playing a role: the sergeant major.’

  Murphy dispatched a third winning goal away at United in April 2004.

  ‘Michael [Owen] was the team’s penalty taker. He was the best penalty taker I’ve ever seen in training. He never missed. He’d drive the keepers crazy. One after another. Then the games came along and he’d shit his pants! Before United, he’d been on a bad run, missing quite a few. So he picked up the ball and went to me, “Go on then . . .”

  ‘I meant to put it lower. Instead, I leaned back a bit and it flew in the top corner. It looked cool as. I couldn’t believe I’d done it again. You shouldn’t be blasé about scoring the winner at Old Trafford. It was the third time!’

  It is coincidental that I meet Murphy less than a mile away from Old Trafford, the site of his greatest moments in a Liverpool shirt. It is a typical day of weather in Salford when he walks through the revolving doors of a hotel next to the BBC studios having driven through the morning from his Surrey home, with the rain beginning to batter his car windows both vertically and horizontally as soon as he got near Greater Manchester.

  Murphy is small and stocky, wears jeans, trainers and a heavy black jumper. He is two hours away from the start of his working day as a pundit on Match of the Day. Having lived in London since leaving Liverpool a decade ago, his accent has strayed curiously south. He grew up in Chester but can vividly remember watching his first game at Anfield.

  ‘
It was against Man United in 1985 and Frank Stapleton got the winner,’ he recalls ruefully. ‘It was a present for my eighth birthday. Liverpool were way off the pace behind Everton in the league that season. None of that bothered me, though. It was £1.80 to get in and kids had to go through different turnstiles to adults. It was absolutely rammed outside with people queuing to get in.

  ‘You know when people speak about how a football club grabs you? Well, Liverpool really got me that day. Everything about it: the Kop, the green pitch, the noise. I’d never experienced anything like it before. It got me.

  ‘My dad came from a big Irish family in Cork. They’d settled in Chester. Although my mum and dad were separated, he was a huge Liverpool fan and that filtered down to me and my brothers. I was the youngest and smallest of them. I always had something to prove.’

  Murphy joined Crewe Alexandra when he was twelve years old.

  ‘I’d already been to Wrexham’s academy for eighteen months, I’d been up to Liverpool to train a couple of times, I’d been down to Aston Villa in the school holidays, I’d gone to Sheffield Wednesday too. I never felt particularly comfortable at any of them, although they’d all asked me to sign schoolboy forms.

  ‘I was in demand and started to realize I was a decent player. I was selected to play in the district side a year above my own age group – that’s when it really started to hot up, with scouts knocking on my door. One of them was a fella called Alex Gibson and he was really persistent, asking me to go to Man United, god forbid. Suddenly, Alex moved jobs and went to Crewe.

  ‘The first training session there was on the old AstroTurf pitches under the floodlights beside Gresty Road, Crewe’s ground. Dario Gradi, Crewe’s first-team manager, took the session. I’d never met a first-team manager before at any of the other places. The session was different to anything I’d experienced. Dario was years ahead. The standard was also a lot higher. I looked at the other players and thought, Wow, these are good. Everybody made me feel welcome. I wanted to be at Crewe.’