End of an era: Kenny Dalglish takes a Liverpool side to
Goodison Park for the first time since a draw there in 1991 proved
to be his last game in charge
Saturday, 1
October 2011
Everton
v
Liverpool
7:45pm - mio : 102 / 110
Every Friday, Sportsmail's man on
Merseyside, Dominic King, will provide expert analysis and
behind-the-scenes insight into the affairs of a footballing
heartland.
This week's focus is on King Kenny's return to
Goodison with Liverpool.
It was a typical Kenny Dalglish tactic. Asked a
poignant question during his pre-match press conference, he defused
the situation with a blend of humour and straight talk.
'If we get four goals on Saturday we will be
delighted,' he said. 'But we have been through all that many times
before and there’s no point revisiting it. But I’d settled for four
goals for (again)! If it was four for us it would be entertaining
but I’m not sure that would be the case for the Blue
half!'
Dalglish had just been asked about how he would feel
stepping back into the same dugout at Goodison Park that was the
scene for his final stand as Liverpool manager during his first
spell in charge back on February 20, 1991.
As far as he is concerned, that chapter of his life
has long since closed. His reticence, though, will not stop others
talking in the build up to the 216th instalment of this local
scrap. After all, the day Dalglish left Liverpool (February 22) was
one of the most seismic events in modern Merseyside
sport.
For a city that eats, sleeps and breathes football,
this was its JFK moment. 99 per cent of the people you ask where
they were when hearing Dalglish had gone would be able to tell you
their exact location (this observer, for the record, was on the
playground of Cardinal Heenan lower school).
Whether you were Red or Blue, it didn’t matter. The
thought of Liverpool and Dalglish not being together was initially
impossible to comprehend and only when editions of the Liverpool
Echo hit the streets with a picture of a haunted looking Dalglish
on the front did the news become real.
The man himself, of course, knew on the afternoon of
that FA Cup fifth round replay that the tie would be his last in
charge of a club with whom he had won eight league championships as
player and manager, plus a further three European Cups, a brace of
FA Cups and four League Cups.
Mentally drained and physically shattered, the
unique pressure which stemmed from leading Liverpool through its
darkest hours following Hillsborough tragedy two years earlier had
taken an enormous toll on Dalglish. For his health, for his sanity,
he needed a clean break.
What followed in the subsequent 120 minutes
convinced Dalglish he simply had to leave. He had lost his ability
to think quickly. When he thought about pushing Jan Molby back to
play as sweeper to preserve Liverpool’s lead in extra time, he
dithered, did nothing and Everton equalised.
He would later, in his memoirs My Liverpool Home,
describe himself as being 'shot' that frenzied night and said he
felt as if his 'head was exploding'.
Failing to put Molby back to plug what had suddenly
become a porous defence was the tipping point.
‘At that instant of indecision, I knew the emotional
conclusion I’d reached that afternoon was justified,' he wrote. 'I
should have put Jan back but I froze.
Time to go… After the game, the dressing room went
on around me but I was there in body, not mind.'
It was a quite astonishing night. Four times
Liverpool had their noses in front yet they were pegged back on
each occasion and that has ensured the game, perhaps the most open
derby of all time as a 4-4 final score would suggest, is viewed in
widely different ways on Merseyside.
Liverpudlians, for instance, look at it as a great
missed opportunity, a night when they got what they deserved –
nothing. Squander an advantage four times at the home of your
oldest rivals cannot be viewed with any affection and events with
Dalglish merely exacerbated those feelings.
Evertonians, by contrast, still reflect on it with
great fondness and with good reason. With their side showing great
tenacity, they refused to give up and got their reward in the
second replay, when skipper Dave Watson scored the only goal of a
contest that reverted to its typically cagey type.
That night, Dalglish was far away in Orlando on a
family holiday trying to move on. He has been back to Goodison as a
manager five times since that fateful night, winning three and
drawing one with Blackburn and Newcastle, but this time there will
be a different resonance.
When he shuffled out of that dugout 20 years ago,
Dalglish thought his Liverpool story had reached an unsatisfying
conclusion but tomorrow he will return to it an invigorated and
determined man – one who is ready to write a new, successful
chapter in his life.
