Drinking, Fighting Among Themselves And Getting Falling-Over Drunk: How The Liverpool Team Prepared To Become Champions of Europe in 1984
A warm-weather trip to Tel Aviv turned into anarchy 40 years ago this week. How Joe Fagan rebuilt the squad's spirit shows how much the game has changed
Jurgen Klopp’s long farewell has dominated the discourse for Liverpool fans this year. The German’s departure will live long in the memory. Unfortunately, the blanket coverage of Klopp’s departure means that other memories have been neglected.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Joe Fagan’s season of triumph. Liverpool won three trophies under the 63-year old: the League Cup, the title and the European Cup. It was a team in transition and their story is less about what they won than how they went about their business.
At this juncture four decades ago, the squad was in Tel Aviv preparing for the European Cup final against Roma. They had overcome Dinamo Bucharest in the semi and that tie is primarily remembered for Graeme Souness’s punch that broke the jaw of the Romanian side’s captain and the spirit of the victim’s team.
In Tel Aviv, plenty more punches were thrown. But this was what the military refer to as ‘blue-on-blue’ violence. That colour is anathema at Anfield. So let’s call it red-on-red brawling.
The idea was for Liverpool to do some warm weather training before the final, which was set to take place in Rome at Roma’s home ground. The Italian side were sequestered in a training camp in the Dolomite mountains. Their Swedish coach, Nils Liedholm, wanted to make sure there was no sex or alcohol to disrupt Roma’s preparations for the final.
In Tel Aviv, Liverpool were on the prowl for women and drink. “We hit the bottle as soon as we got to Israel,” said Craig Johnston. “I’d like to say we were model professionals. It was about as professional a trip as there could ever be with a bunch of testosterone-filled men with big thirsts and the freedom to have fun.”
Boozy sessions were considered crucial to team bonding. “We prided ourselves on outplaying and outdrinking every other team,” Graeme Souness, the captain, said.
A couple of Italian journalists had been sent to Tel Aviv to document Liverpool’s preparation for the big game. What they saw was a succession of big nights.
Things got rowdier and rowdier. “We went out for a few beers in one of the squares,” Johnston said. “We started a drinking game and things got out of hand.”
There are a variety of different stories about what kicked off the kickoff. After all, there’d be very little point in drinking if everyone remembered things the same way. The most common tale is that David Hodgson couldn’t be bothered to get up and go to the toilet. The striker took a leak under the table, spraying his team-mates. Words were exchanged first, then punches.
Back at the hotel, the senior members of Liverpool’s travelling party were blissfully unaware of what was going on. That was until someone charged in from the street shouting about fighting in the square. This was an era when hooliganism was common and Sydney Moss, a director, was horrified. “Call the police,” he declared. “Lock them up!”
Er, it’s the players.
Ian Rush had sided with Hodgson and the pair took on the rest of their colleagues but the brawl spiralled out of control into a free-for-all. Rush was covered in blood with his nose splayed across his face. Alan Kennedy was given a black eye. The left back, who would score the winning penalty in a shoot-out a week later, could not stand up. Kennedy and Hodgson were so drunk that neither could walk.
Moss approached the pair and said: “Gentlemen, this is Liverpool Football Club.”
Hodgson grabbed Moss’s belt, dragged himself up and replied: “Mossy, you old bugger, you might be a director but I think you’re a great fella.”
Then things got surreal. Kenny Dalglish and Souness, the team’s elder statesmen, had seen the writing on the wall and had left the bar when the drinking games started. They heard the commotion from their room and went out to see what was happening. There was still some scuffling taking place as Moss and the backroom staff ushered the drunks into the lift.
“The lift was one of those really old ones, like a cage,” Souness said. “They were all packed into it, still pushing and shoving each other, and suddenly the lift got stuck between floors. I thought they’d kill each other. Instead, they started singing.”
Once the lift broke down, the combatants became partners in adversity. The song they chose seemed appropriate to the astonished Italian journalists.
It was the theme from the M*A*S*H television series that had recently been in the charts. The words seemed appropriate.
“Suicide in painless,
It brings on many changes…”
“The Roman reporters couldn’t believe it,” Kennedy said. “They could hardly comprehend that this team had reached the final, let alone that we could win it on hostile territory.”
In the cold light of morning, Fagan and Bob Paisley gathered the players. Moss spoke first. The hungover miscreants waited for their bollocking.
“I have been involved with the club for more than 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like last night,” the director said. Then he paused.
“I’ve had many accolades passed on to me but never have I received one so touching as from David Hodgson.”
With that, Fagan pulled back the hanging tablecloths to reveal a stack of crates. The team were told to get drunk again.
“It was masterful psychology,” Souness said. “No one fell out. No grudges were held.”
The next week, Liverpool went to Rome and beat Roma in their own backyard. Their behaviour in the Stadio Olimpico was equally wild and unpredictable.
I’ll tell that story on the anniversary. The feats of these boys need to be remembered.
I Don’t Know What It Is But I Love It, the book about the 1983-84 season, is available here
The extract from Far Foreign Land, which deals with the experience of fans in Rome in 1984, can be read here and the book is available here: Cost £10 UK, £15 Europe, £18 Rest Of World. All including postage