The singing Gladiators
IT IS the eternal city, and for Liverpool it has provided eternal pride.
Rome in 1977 was their first European Cup triumph. But 1984 was perhaps the greatest.
Gladiators fronting the might of Roma in their own bear pit, it was a night of legend, of folklore.
Ian Rush, a Spartacus that night and in that remarkable season, can talk for hours about the game: the spaghetti legs, the unlikely hero, singing pre-match as they waited in the tunnel (surreally Chris Rea’s ‘I Don’t Know What It Is But I Love It’).
“You can talk about the tunnel, the singing, but it was the feeling we had,” said Rush. “I went into that tunnel thinking ‘We’re not going to lose’. I think Roma felt that too. You could see it in their faces.
“As we were singing, they were looking at us as if to say ‘Seriously? You’re coming into the Colosseum, the lion’s den’. We were going into that theatre with an incredible spirit and it shocked the Italians.”
It was not a misplaced belief. That ’84 team is arguably the best Liverpool ever had. Rush was at his peak, scoring 47 goals that season. “I maintain it was 50 as I scored two for Wales and one in the penalty shoot-out against Roma,” he quips.
He picked up both Footballer of the Year awards, a Welsh one too, and was the First Division’s top scorer. But it was another prize which made him most proud.
“I won the European Golden Boot,” he said. “The first time a British player had done it. I get people asking me, ‘Were you a good player?’ Yes I was. I can say that now. I couldn’t then without looking like a big head.”
Beating Roma in their own stadium in the final was an extraordinary feat. After Phil Neal’s opener the Italians levelled and seemed content to go to penalties. A mistake. They were undone by Bruce Grobbelaar’s wobbly legs and the unlikely sight of left-back Alan Kennedy, who admitted to being hopeless from 12 yards, converting the winner.
Rush is modest about his role in the shoot-out but Bruno Conti’s miss meant it was 2-2 and his spot-kick was suddenly vital.
“There were 60,000 screaming at me. Deafening. The walk from halfway was the most frightening time of my life,” said Rush.
“Socks down, heart pumping, brain whirring, where do I put it? Just as I was about to hit it the keeper moved, so made up my mind for me. I’ve never been more relieved when it went in.”
It was never so important. Scoring piled the pressure on Francesco Graziani, and he caved. Kennedy stepped up, history was made.To the tune of Chris Rea.