To the supporters, it's all about perceptions. If they hear about Liverpool players on a night out hours after a woeful home performance, as often happened during Evans's reign, they're immediately going to question the desire of those they put so much trust in. When our fans are with you, there are none better. Once you lose them, you struggle to get them back.
If I become a manager, I won't just want players scouted properly before I buy them, I'll want to know what they're like as individuals too. That's where Souness, Evans and later Houllier went wrong. I'm sure they did assess every aspect of a player's background, but perhaps not always as thoroughly as they later wished. Signing a player shouldn't merely be a case of weighing up how good he is, but also if he's capable of performing consistently and blending into a club's culture. It should be like a job interview. I had a chat with Clive Woodward once, who told me he not only considered players' performances but their character profiles. He wanted to know the kind of person he was putting into his squad, whether they were disruptive, temperamental and moody or inspirational and intelligent. If Liverpool had taken this approach, they'd have saved a lot of money wasted on players who looked great when they arrived but failed miserably to cope with the pressure. They could also have signed players who were more in tune with the ideas of the club and the manager, or at the very least more willing to learn and embrace them.
No one typifies this more than Stan Collymore, the flagship signing of the Evans era. No sooner had he joined Liverpool in the summer of 1995 than he was given the traditional Melwood nickname 'Fog in the Tunnel' by coach Ronnie Moran. 'That's always the excuse when players are late for training,' Ronnie explained, and Collymore's ninety-mile road trip every morning meant his kit was often still in the dressing room when we were on the Melwood pitch.
I was staggered that Liverpool paid a club record £8.5 million for a player and never asked him to move house, let alone looked further into his personality.
Within a matter of weeks, Collymore was mouthing off about the club not playing to his strengths, which instantly caused tension within the dressing room. At Liverpool, the idea of 'no one being bigger than the club' was being threatened by expensive signings who thought they commanded higher status before they'd kicked a ball.
A few snotty words in Four-Four-Two magazine were one thing. Smashing a chair over the head of our popular reserve keeper Tony Warner took matters to a different level.
It was my first pre-season trip with the senior team, in Ireland in 1996. Warner was trying to wind me up, flicking water on my seat after I stood up in the hope I'd sit down and get a wet arse. I spotted the trick and swapped my chair for Collymore's, who threw a wobbly when he returned, demanding Warner swap seats. When the keeper refused, there was mayhem. Warner reacted to the smashed chair with a couple of punches, the rest of the squad joined in to try to break them up, and once it all calmed down only peacemaker Roy had a blow for his troubles.
Collymore refused to play in that night's friendly. Last year he criticized my decision to quit international football, saying I should have been grateful for every cap I got. Well, Stan, at least I turned up for every game I was selected for. If it wasn't friendlies he was bailing out of, it was a reserve match.
The level of unprofessionalism of certain players as I came through the ranks makes me cringe now. At the time, however, I knew no better. Liverpool had their way which, up until five years earlier, had served the club perfectly well. But it was a wonder the club managed to maintain any kind of position near the top of the table given the attitude of some players. It reached such a bad state that reserve coach Sammy would ask the same question on the morning of every reserve game: 'Listen, lads, can you promise me you'll turn up tonight? If you can't I'd rather know right now so I can organize the set-pieces with the team.' Poor Sammy could never take positive responses for granted.
When the 1997 Grand National was postponed for forty-eight hours because of an IRA bomb scare, Liverpool had a reserve game scheduled on the Monday night. At least six players called in sick to Melwood on the morning of the race, all claiming 'they had the shits'. The coaching staff knew where they were. The only running they were interested in was at Aintree. As one of those who arrived for the match – I'd never even considered missing the game – I earned myself extra respect in the eyes of Evans, and he reminded me of it years later. That showed how mistrustful he had become of the players, and how wary the coaching staff were of their negative influence on the youngsters. It was a situation that should have been nipped in the bud before it reached that stage.
Even when everyone did turn up for the second string, results were abysmal, despite the fact I was part of a reserve side which was probably the most expensively assembled in the club's history. There were certain players I looked upon with admiration, thrilled to be in the same team as them. Jan Molby, Ian Rush and John Barnes would often be alongside me if they were recovering from injury, and they were great characters as well as tremendous players. 'I'm celebrating my anniversary today,' Big Jan told me after welcoming me into the dressing room. 'It's ten years since I missed a penalty.' On another occasion I was reading an article in the Echo about Everton's centre-backs Craig Short and David Unsworth. 'Those two wouldn't get the ball off me in a phonebox,' he said. He wasn't joking that time.
Others exposed how the club had drifted. Collymore, Paul Stewart, Mark Walters, Julian Dicks and others didn't do themselves any favours on reserve duty. Stewart welcomed me into the reserve side with a 'What the fuck are you doing here?'
'What the fuck are you doing at Liverpool?' should have been my reply.
A 2–0 defeat at Bolton proved the final straw for Moran, who said to Collymore, 'You'll never get back into the first team playing like that.'
'And I could have played against you tonight,' Moran added to Walters.
Walters responded, 'Why don't you get your fucking kit on then?'
As we sat in the showers, I heard Collymore laughing. 'I can't get the image of Ronnie trying to run around in his shorts out of my head,' he said, sneeringly. In my book, Collymore wasn't fit to share a dressing room with an Anfield legend such as Ronnie Moran, but here he was mocking him.
It's fair to say Ronnie was a traditionalist, which is why there was such a culture clash between him and the high-profile, increasingly wealthy players. Ronnie's view of the game was based exclusively on the Shankly values. He called the first-team squad 'the big heads', which was sadly becoming increasingly less a piss-take and more a statement of truth. So long as you performed well on the pitch, he'd turn a blind eye to any faults you had off it. Respect was earned through hard work and application of talent. He was 'old school'.
When you were one of Ronnie's favourites, the sun shone out of your backside twelve months of the year. Ronnie could get a tan if he stood behind players like Rushie and Barnes, as I often found during my early training sessions. Barnes was majestic in training as well as in games, so it was no wonder he was admired so much by staff and team-mates. If Rushie made a bad pass to me and I lost it, Ronnie would shout at me to do better. Should I ever put Barnes through and he miscontrolled, Ronnie would blame the weight of my pass. But if either of them ever missed a sitter, we'd all hear the familiar line from the coach: 'Happens in football that, son.'
I didn't resent this. It was his form of creating a class system within the squad. If you'd been there, done it and collected medals over many years, it was right you were treated differently from the young upstarts who'd achieved nothing. I'd like to think if I was still working with Ronnie I'd be one of his golden boys now and others would be starting the process of earning his respect.
There was wisdom in his style. If Ronnie had a go at you, you usually deserved it, and you listened. It wasn't for show, it was for your own good. You were getting advice from someone who'd been part of the most successful coaching staff in English football history. He knew what he was talking about.
My favourite day of the week was Mond
ay, when the senior players had the day off and the youth and reserve players took on the staff. It was a free-for-all. There were no positions, no offsides and no referees. You just played, passed and moved. There was competition, but the coaches would talk to you throughout the game, offering tips and giving you a real insight into how they wanted the game played. I'd always make sure I was near Ronnie on the pitch because he taught me more than anyone during those practice matches. They were stopped once Houllier took over, so the youngsters who've come through since have missed out on what was a major part of my training to become a professional. While later I agreed with many of the adjustments Houllier made to training, I now wonder if we ended up going too far in the opposite direction.
'The game never changes,' Ronnie used to tell me during my early reserve appearances. In some respects he was wrong. Football is much quicker now, players are more athletic, and you can't get away with behaving like a fan off the pitch, hitting the town after every game, and still expect to look like a sportsman in his prime on it. On the other hand, the basics are fundamentally unaltered. It's still eleven men versus eleven men. The goals are the same size, and managers still choose from the same limited tactical formations, most preferring 4–4–2. The game evolves at a steady pace, but I've seen nothing during my years as a professional that has surprised me.
There's still as much to learn from Moran's simplistic view as there is from the analytical scientific approach of modern coaches, which also fascinates me. Shankly said 'football is a simple game complicated by idiots', but the best managers will absorb elements of both modern and traditional methods. You can't just abandon what's worked in the past, but you ignore the changing times at your peril.
The bottom line is this: if you assemble a squad of players with talent and the right attitude and character, you'll win more football matches than you lose, no matter how inventive your training sessions, what system you play or what team-talks you give. But anything that can give you the extra 10 per cent, whether that's through diet, your general fitness or the correct word in your ear, also has merit.
Players like me responded to Ronnie, but new arrivals never held him in the same esteem. I was more aware of the history of the club, of his role in taking Liverpool to European heights. I grew up in Liverpool. I knew who Ronnie Moran was, and what he'd achieved in the game. I loved hearing his words of advice, still do when he visits our training ground every week. There was nothing in football he hadn't seen.
If I was a sub, I'd sometimes be watching his reactions on the bench as much as the game. On the opening day of the 1996–97 season we were away to Middlesbrough when Fabrizio Ravanelli scored a hat-trick. The Boro fans celebrated, and several of them ran towards our bench. As the third goal went in, Ronnie had been squirting the contents of a Lucozade bottle into his mouth. A screaming woman in a Boro shirt raced arms aloft towards where we were sitting, as though she'd just witnessed a cup final winner. Cool as you like, Ronnie aimed the bottle towards her and squirted her in the face. I had to stop myself laughing in case anyone thought I was happy we'd conceded a goal.
That incident showed me it didn't matter if Liverpool were winning or losing, Ronnie remained unflustered and kept his wits about him. People thought he was a ranter and raver. He was often the calmest man on the bench, taking everything in.
Too many of the younger generation of signings saw Ronnie as a symbol of the past who they could take the piss out of behind his back. Even younger coaches like Sammy Lee couldn't control the situation.
I respect Sammy even more now than I did then, because reserve manager is the toughest position at a club. You don't pick the team or tactics, but you have to work to the manager's instructions. If a player is coming back from injury, you're ordered to play him for the last thirty minutes. You can't drop players or throw the youngsters in without permission. Your influence on the side is minimal, but if results go badly, you get the blame. It's the ultimate no-win position.
I could see how agitated Sammy was as the reserve side went from one shambles to the next. He dedicated himself to the job but got nothing back from the majority of players. As a last resort Sammy started to play himself, even though he was now in his late thirties and clearly nowhere near the player he once was. That didn't work either: we lost 6–0 at Nottingham Forest. As the goals tumbled in, Sammy came off the bench. The first thing he did was lose the ball, and Forest immediately scored. 'At least he can't have a go at us now' was the attitude of the rest of the players.
Liverpool were almost relegated from the reserve league in Evans's last season as we hit an all-time low. We survived by beating Everton in the final game. The Liverpool Echo asked for a team photo to mark the occasion. Sammy thought the request was taking the piss. 'You're fucking joking, aren't you?' he asked the photographer.
When I hear players from the time suggesting claims of indiscipline were exaggerated, I can only put this down to their being unable to compare what it was like then to how it is now. I sensed the frustration of more influential figures like Barnes, who was increasingly aware of the difference between our outdated methods and the continentals, and could see how far behind we were drifting. In the summer of 1996 we were invited to a soccer-six tournament in Amsterdam and neither we nor our opponents could believe the contrast in styles. Our warm-up consisted of little more than shooting balls at a wall; the Ajax and AC Milan sides we were competing against went through an intense series of exercises. The match with Ajax went to a penalty shoot-out so I asked Barnes if he was taking one. It was as if what he'd seen before the game had hit home. 'No chance,' he said to me, shaking his head in disillusionment. 'We're a fuckin' disgrace.'
At seventeen, even I felt bold enough to confront the senior coaching staff. Evans's assistant manager, Doug Livermore, was treated like one of the lads rather than as an authoritarian sidekick. In one five-a-side training game he disallowed a goal by my team so I reacted in the same way I'd heard so many others and said, 'Fuck off, Doug, it was well in.' He went ballistic. I was given a well-deserved pasting for daring to question one of my bosses.
I thought nothing more of it, treating the incident as Doug's way of pointing out there's a line you can't cross. The next day I was walking on to the training ground when Doug, Ronnie and Roy pulled me to one side.
'You passed an important test yesterday,' Doug said to me. 'You got on with the game as if nothing had happened. You've shown us you've got character.'
People can see, and hear. I'm a talker on the pitch now, and I was the same as a youngster. The ticking-off from Doug hadn't changed my approach for the rest of the training session. I was still mouthing off if I thought it was necessary. Others might have withdrawn into their shell, or hidden. Roy and Doug obviously had years of experience of such incidents and knew what to look for in players' reactions.
Despite their problems, they must have taken satisfaction from the way their youngsters were developing. There was still hope for the emerging local players who were more willing to embrace the club's traditions. They must have hoped that as long as their methods sank into a player like me, there was a promising future.
Some of the older professionals were beyond help. Whenever I arrived at Melwood on the morning after an important match there would be a queue of signings stretching along the corridor to the manager's office, all demanding an answer to the same question: 'Why am I not in the team?' Roy Evans should have sat them all down and played a few reserve videos, although as his reign progressed first-team games offered just as good an explanation.
His squad became known as 'The Spice Boys'. The notorious 'white suits' FA Cup Final of 1996 cemented the sadly justified image of mid-nineties Liverpool as more image than substance. Roy's team is remembered for this more than its performances. Many of the players had a following of teenage girls as much as die-hard Kopites. Modelling contracts and shower commercials did little to enhance their reputation.
Of all teams, Liverpool were playing Manchester United
that day at Wembley, which provided another example of how we'd allowed our rivals to invade traditional Anfield territory. We'd picked up the bad habits Alex Ferguson had successfully rooted out of Old Trafford. In the 1980s, it was Liverpool led by a working-class Scot who won the League most years while the brash, arrogant upstarts from Manchester consistently failed to live up to their pre-season promises under Ron Atkinson. Now it was United acting like the old Liverpool while our lads were behaving like those flash United players we used to hate.
The youngsters, like Jamie Redknapp, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and David James, took most of the criticism for those infamous ice-cream Armani suits. They were right to feel offended. The responsibility for the humiliation lay with the older players and staff, who went along with the absurd idea. Put it this way. If one of the young lads in our squad had asked me or Steven Gerrard before the 2006 FA Cup Final to wear a white suit, what do you think our reaction would have been? You're impressionable at a young age. The advice you get from the staff and older players is critical. If someone had been strong enough to say 'You can fuck right off' when the idea of wearing those suits was mentioned, as would happen now, those young lads would have thanked them for it after the game. For the experienced professionals to say it had nothing to do with them won't wash. It's they who should have been showing as much authority as the manager in those circumstances, preventing the more naive players from making a calamitous error of judgement.
Carra: My Autobiography Page 10