89

by Amy Lawrence

  DAVID O’LEARY:

  I had my brother and my dad behind that goal and I remember going down at the end to see them. Both of them were saying at the time the same thing. They didn’t think that ball was going to make it over the line for Mickey’s goal.

  PAUL DAVIS:

  We just rushed on to the pitch after the game and just celebrated with the players and everybody was on there. To be fair to the Liverpool supporters they stayed behind and they were complimentary. I remember them just clapping us as we went around with the trophy.

  GEORGE GRAHAM:

  I was in a state of shock. Honestly. I could not believe it. I thought it was an unreal situation, a fairy tale.

  JOHN LUKIC:

  As a sportsman you don’t pick the moment, the moment picks you. And it was one of those nights where that certainly happened. You know it was our moment and it was meant to be. Just the euphoria of it all. It’s a monumental thing to win the league.

  ALAN SMITH:

  I remember by the bench at the final whistle the gaffer going, ‘Let’s calm down.’ Everyone was jumping on top of each other and he obviously had Hillsborough in mind and to maintain some respect.

  GEORGE GRAHAM:

  I didn’t know what to think. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Because I’d been through it in my mind. We’re going out of here with our best shot and it’s not worked and then when Mickey scored what do you do? What do you do? It was wonderful but I couldn’t have got up and started running because I was not a runner anyway, you know. I wasn’t much of a hugger either. Look at all the coaches nowadays, the way that they’re behaving and acting. I think it’s great. It’s fantastic the way that they’re so emotional. Emotion in a game, that’s what football is about surely. The fans get emotional, the players on the pitch. At times I wish I’d become more emotional.

  ALAN SMITH:

  When George came on the pitch and hugged everyone it was obviously out of the ordinary. He would never hug the players. I remember all the Liverpool stewards were saying well done, and the police, and the fantastic reception of those Liverpool fans who stayed and applauded. That meant a lot to us.

  PAUL MERSON:

  The one thing I always remember is the Kop clapping us off. That’s some going. To lose the league in the last minute on the last day and do that.

  DAVID DEIN:

  Directors’ decorum is that you don’t celebrate when you score a goal. You try to be a bit low-key. Well I must say that when Mickey scored with the last kick of the season, the directors’ decorum for me went out the window. I just catapulted myself about six foot in the air, punched the air and when I came back into my seat there was Peter Hill-Wood and he took out his cigar. He calmly turned around to me and he said, ‘Never in any doubt.’ Ha ha.

  Of course you feel so ecstatic and proud. This is the team that you love. That you worship. Where you go to pray every weekend. That’s the team that has just won the league in sensational style and it was memorable and I always say this: no matter how often football is spoken about, written about, filmed, broadcast, that moment, the Mickey Thomas goal, the last kick of the season, will always be remembered.

  BOB WILSON:

  Although I was the goalkeeping coach in 89 I watched from afar. The fact that I’d been in the side in 71 with George and Pat in such similar circumstances I felt I was really out there with them at Anfield. I was out of control at the end of the game. I think I went unconscious.

  PADDY BARCLAY (INDEPENDENT FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT IN 1989):

  For every journalist the ‘runner’ – the running match report which is written during the match – is probably the most terrifying experience. Every night match I did in the early days I would go home with a bad tension headache. The last section you send has to be in on the whistle, dictated down the phone to a sub-editor in the office for reasons of speed. When you are in big, big trouble is when you get something like events at Anfield. Everything you have written up to stoppage time shows that brave Arsenal fell short. It puts you under enormous pressure. Michael Thomas turned a routine drama into one of the greatest, most unpredictable and most shocking dramas ever seen on an English football field. My word it was difficult, though, rewriting it in the space of 30 seconds. Once I had telephoned in my initial report I remember looking up at the Kop, which was to the right of the tight little press box at Anfield. It looked like a lot people had sat down they were so shocked. They rose to their feet again and applauded Arsenal’s achievement. Something I will never forget.

  JIM ROSENTHAL:

  After the game, look at George, he’s Mr Cool. As he was throughout the night. I felt deeply for Kenny because he had that horrible glazed look that coaches get when they just don’t know what’s happened. I interviewed Tony Adams on the pitch. It was chaotic out there. As an aside I’d had a little bet with Tony Adams in pre-season. This was a different era when the media and players were friends because you could mix with them. There was no social media. There was no one taking pictures. On the back of a disastrous European Championships in 1988 I’d spoken to Tony and we’d talked about the title and he said, ‘We’ll win it’ and I said, ‘No chance, Tony’ and he said, ‘Go on then, what do you say? £100?’ I went OK. And at the end of the game the first thing Tony said to me was ‘100 quid!’ I did pay him and I was happy to pay him as well.

  GEORGE GRAHAM:

  Later I caught up with my son and daughter who came to the game. There was some nice pictures with my daughter walking up the steps with the famous ‘This Is Anfield’ sign behind. It was a lovely little thing that Bill Shankly came up with wasn’t it? This Is Anfield so everybody would be frightened. Oh my God. Let’s shake.

  JIM ROSENTHAL:

  Back in the tunnel the referee David Hutchinson at the end of the game came up to me and his face was as white as a sheet. He said, ‘Jim, Jim, did he touch it?’ And I went, ‘Of course he touched it, David’ and the colour came back into his cheeks. He gave me a little hug and said, ‘Oh thank you so much for that.’

  DAVE HUTCHINSON:

  It’s one of the things if you have made a mistake, you’ve got to be big enough to live with it. But I was certain it was a goal. Geoff was certain it was a goal. The first hint of any pressure was as we came off the pitch at the end and Kenny Dalglish just shook hands and said thank you very much, are you absolutely certain that that was a goal? At that time I can remember saying well, as of yet, I have not had chance to look at it on the box but yes, I’m as certain as I can be. And then bless his heart, Jim Rosenthal suddenly put his head in between and said you’re OK, Dave, on the goal. Smithy touched it. Phew! And all credit to Dalglish. Twenty minutes after the game there’s a knock on the door. Dalglish is there with a bottle of champagne and he said, we were hoping to drink this but you may as well have it. I don’t think he was being sarcastic. He was being very genuine and it was appreciated.

  There was a huge sigh of relief. Not audible but you know I can feel myself just starting to relax. I’m told by my colleagues that I was always ice cool in the dressing room before a game and I did that deliberately. It was my job to keep my colleagues calm and I needed that for that particular match. But after the game, I think we all relaxed a bit. Only problem was I’d still got to drive 200 miles back down to Oxfordshire after the game. This game was on the Friday but on the Sunday I was fourth official at Wembley for the final of the Sherpa Van Trophy. Torquay and Bolton. A different kettle of fish.

  LEE DIXON:

  I was just completely taken over by the emotion. I vaguely remember them wheeling this wallpaper pasting table out that the trophy got plonked on and then we were all standing around willy nilly, not organised at all. Some bloke from Barclays came on. There were two trophies. One was a trophy that nobody seemed to know what it was (it was from Barclays) but then the proper trophy was there. It’s a beautiful, beautiful trophy as well. Absolutely stunning. I remember looking at it going, wow. The lights of Anfield shone and it all started to flood
into the system. I remember holding it up and from then onwards I’ve no clue what was going on. You just go mad but it was quite surreal in the dressing room because it wasn’t expected.

  ALAN SMITH:

  There’s always a few extra people in there on occasions like this and then the TV cameras came in and I gave an interview with Mickey and people are chucking stuff at you, the champagne’s flying. Then you get in the bath – a small bath like a lot of the places had back then – and you just can’t believe it. I think what we all agreed, we thought, it’s not going to get better than this. It can’t get better than this. How can it?

  TONY ADAMS:

  We smashed in the false ceiling in the Anfield dressing room. Sorry. Apologies.

  PERRY GROVES:

  I was sitting with Bouldy and Merse in the dressing room. We’ve got a couple of beers and I said, ‘Do you remember what Mystic Meg said there before the game? The gaffer predicted we go in 0–0 at half-time then if we get a goal the tension will swing and then we’ll nick it?’ That’s folklore.

  DAVID O’LEARY:

  I was tearful. Tony Adams told me to shut up, you big tart. He said, ‘Man up.’ I just couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t wait to go in and see Pat Rice in the dressing room afterwards. I’d heard it all from him about how they had gone over to Tottenham and won the league. I remember him even saying beforehand ‘It’s about time you got a medal. It’s about time you went and done the business.’ I couldn’t wait to get in there and shut him up because I had to listen to him for years saying that type of thing to me.

  JOHN LUKIC:

  The celebrations in the dressing room bring you even closer together. There is almost an invasion of people who want to be part of it. But one thing that stands out on the night is a couple of Liverpool players came in. One was Bruce Grobbelaar and the other one was Peter Beardsley, which was a very magnanimous thing to do. That’s not an easy thing by any stretch of the imagination. To have it snatched out of your hands in the final kick of a football match and to have that about you to actually be able to rise above that and congratulate the other team. That takes a lot of doing.

  MICHAEL THOMAS:

  That was Bruce. I got to know him afterwards. To come in to bring the champagne in and to congratulate us was class from him. He said, we’re not going to drink it, give it to them. I’m so pleased that I celebrated with my team-mates and my best friend and my teacher, Brian Johncock, who looked after me as a footballer from a young age and now he was there celebrating with me in the dressing room, which was fantastic. He used to follow me everywhere like a father figure. Wherever I went to play football he used to take me. He managed me and David Rocastle at county level.

  NIALL QUINN:

  Ronnie Moran came in, giving us a crate of champagne and saying, ‘You guys deserve it.’ It was really nice and he was humble in defeat, representative of a great club. Interestingly, what he didn’t realise, the bottles had ‘Liverpool Champions 1989’ on. We should have kept them. We started spraying them all around the room, which was silly.

  ALAN SMITH:

  The medal comes in this little box and you open it up and it’s made in Birmingham – they used to make all the medals back then, which I’m particularly proud of because I’m a Brummie. It’s just a little coin really and then it’s got a little hook on the top which you can put a lanyard or chain around but nobody does. All the lads were picking them out the box and looking at the back. League Championship winners 1988–89. Phew. That’s what it’s all about. It’s a lovely little thing.

  GARY LEWIN:

  I went back out pitchside to phone my wife with a brick of a mobile phone that the club had and I remember crying on the touchline. She was crying down the other end. I remember Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans coming in, Bobby Robson popped his head in. We took forever to get changed, the lads were going mad in the dressing room.

  DAVID PLEAT:

  After the game George Graham was as cool as a cucumber when I saw him upstairs outside the boardroom. Although I was Tottenham orientated, I always had great respect for people I got to know at Arsenal. George I knew for years. We had played against each other as schoolboys at Wembley. I knew the family very well. I remember clearly saying hello to his daughter, Nicole. I imagine it was quite a shock when it is winner-takes-all like that. When it is the very last game and so much depends on it, to be able to relax the players to cope with the tension was impressive. The tension must have been unbearable.

  LEE DIXON:

  I didn’t go back to London with the lads. It was probably the biggest regret in my football career. My uncle was over from Australia and I hadn’t seen him since I was six months old. He came to the game and my mum had organised a party for him in Manchester the next day as he was going back to Australia. I’d promised the family I’d be there. I remember the lads getting on the coach arranging this party and I was standing in the players’ entrance watching them drive off into the distance thinking I should be on that bus.

  Halfway through Liverpool, because I’d had all this champagne and I hadn’t eaten anything, I was a bit woozy. I said to my brother, I’m starving, I need to eat. We saw a chip shop. So he pulls in and I jump out the car and go running into this chip shop without even thinking about it. I’ve got my Arsenal blazer on, my tie on a bit to one side. ‘Three lots of fish and chips, mate,’ and I just had a sense of people in the chippy staring. Oh that’s it, I’m going to die because we’ve just beat Liverpool. I’m in Liverpool. I’m in an Arsenal suit and tie asking for fish and chips. I looked up and this bloke’s looking at me. He said, you can have extra, la’ because we’re all Evertonians in here. Everyone in the chip shop started jumping up and down going ‘Wahey!’

  GEORGE GRAHAM:

  Isn’t it lovely to have moments in your life where you think, oh, nothing can beat that. Nothing. Sometimes you sit back at my age now and you think, hey, I’ve had a great career. I’ve been a goodish footballer who’s won most of the trophies in English football and then I went into coaching and management and even surpassed that. You know I’ve won more as a manager than I did as a player. What a lucky person I’ve been. It was the best.

  On the way back home all the boys went celebrating and all that. Early next morning my son and I drove up to Glasgow to play golf with my brother and my nephew. We had a fourball. So I could keep away from the media. I knew it would drive me mad. After the golf game this guy comes up and says ‘You look just like the guy on television last night, the game between Arsenal and Liverpool. You look just like the guy on the touchline.’ I said, a lot of people say that. Ha ha ha. I just got on with my cup of tea with my family.

  ELEVEN

  Fandom

  PART I: OVER LAND AND SEA

  CLIFF BROOKS:

  I was on holiday in Corfu with two mates, one Spurs and the other a West Ham fan. I hunted high and low for a bar, pub, house, anywhere that would be showing the game, but these were pre-Sky days and I had little joy. Knowing what we needed to do, I’d kinda resigned myself to us not winning, so decided I’d give it a miss and we all went out on the beer. Alan the West Ham fan, seeing me later that evening, said ‘Fuck this, let’s find Brooksy a phone box. His nervousness is getting on my tits.’ So a phone box was found in a bar and I rang my local boozer, the Railway and Bicycle in Sevenoaks, owned by Ray Brady, brother of Liam and father to my best mate, Jamie. I knew the game would be on in there.

  So the phone call was made and Ray answers. ‘What’s the score?’ I ask. ‘One-nil to The Arsenal,’ he replies. ‘Bollocks. That’s that, then. It’s nearly over, ain’t it?’ I think that was my response, knowing I’ve got a bleeding Spurs fan to go back to. Only for Ray to come back with ‘But the kick-off was delayed. It’s not over yet.’ The line goes quiet.

  Ray suddenly says, ‘Cliff, you still there?’ ‘Yes.’ I then hear nothing but pandemonium. In the background Jamie grabs the phone, I don’t recall anything he said apart from ‘Thomas has done it, Mickey Thomas l
ast fucking minute.’ I don’t remember hanging up or what happened in the next few seconds. But I do remember running down the street towards my two mates shouting something like ‘We’ve only fucking done it!’ Only to suddenly realise I’m being chased by two Greek fellas cos I’ve not paid for the phone call.

  NEIL JACKS:

  At the time I was serving in the British Army as a vehicle mechanic, in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, and had been posted to Germany in the early April. My first weekend in camp was for the FA Cup semi-finals on 15 April, and keeping tabs on the scores back home, I listened in on BFBS radio as the Hillsborough tragedy unfolded.

  As those of us who were there know, the 80s didn’t offer the luxury of instant communication and wall-to-wall football on TV, as enjoyed today. No mobile phones or internet obviously, but my situation, in this respect, was even more desperate. My posting was to a tiny Military Police detachment of 20-odd personnel, on what was the border between West Germany and East Germany, adjacent to the small but perfectly formed town of Helmstedt. You will have heard of Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing between East and West Berlin. Well, we were Checkpoint Alpha, the gateway to the 200km ‘corridor’ road link to West Berlin through the Soviet-occupied East Germany (DDR). Checkpoint Bravo got you into West Berlin from the corridor, through the DDR. Basically, if you didn’t fly, this, and a train, were your only way of getting in and out of Berlin, and all allied (British, French, US) traffic had to pass through us. We were responsible for the safe transit of all allied travellers to and from Berlin, and for keeping the corridor ‘swept’ and open. It was a truly fascinating place to be with many interesting personalities passing through, and a few months later, of course, in the November, quite out of the blue, the Wall fell, and the world momentously and irrevocably changed.