THEY TOOK THE MICKEY OUT OF HIS LIMP AND CALLED HIM DUGGIE DOIN’S!
Extracts from a new book on the incredible (and often hilarious) story of the legendary Bob Paisley
IT DIDN’T help that Bob Paisley was wearing his unflattering red Gola tracksuit. It had never done much to conceal the rotund demeanour that had made him such a foil to taut drill sergeant Bill Shankly.
The kit had always been part of the faintly comical air Paisley gave off in the years when he was just ‘ Bob’, Liverpool’s assistant manager.
Yet here he was standing in front of the players, July 1974, telling them he was going to be manager.
It would have lifted the mood of despondency caused by Shankly stepping down if Paisley had been able to impress upon them that they were all in this together. But it wasn’t like that. He didn’t want to be there, Paisley told them over and over.
Kevin Keegan responded first. Paisley had to take the job. He was entitled to it, Keegan said. Emlyn Hughes, the captain, was in the corner, still unable to accept that Shankly was leaving. A few of the players rolled their eyes.
Paisley mumbled some selfconscious thanks. Three minutes later he’d run out of things to say and ventured off, with the familiar limp they’d all come to know.
He had made it clear to Liverpool chief executive Peter Robinson and chairman John Smith that he did not want the role.
Paisley was also thinking of what had happened 40 miles up the road where, five years earlier, Frank O’Farrell had stepped into Matt Busby’s shoes at Manchester United. Paisley knew Busby well enough to have an insight into O’Farrell’s disastrous 18 months.
Liverpool’s opening game of 1974-75, at newly promoted Luton Town, awaited the new manager.
His first Friday team talk — at 10am in the little Melwood room where players would gather on chairs round a table with a baize cloth laid on top of it and blue figures to mark out the tactical plan — revealed Paisley was no speechmaker.
Paisley’s instructions for defender Tommy Smith were not to go ‘wandering round like a miner without a lamp’. Midfielder Brian Hall was to ‘ keep an eye’ on ‘what’s-his-name’. Hall, a squad player looking to make an impression, wanted to be sure who he was supposed to be dealing with. ‘Eerm, eeerm . . . what’s his name?’ Paisley replied, still unable to conjure the name. ‘Ah b******s,’ said Paisley. He swept the figures to the floor, told the players to just go out and beat their opponents, and left the room.
Paisley sold central defender Larry Lloyd on August 15, two days before his first game, to Coventry City for £240,000. ‘That was Bob’s biggest call and it came right at the start,’ says Phil Thompson, who replaced Lloyd.
‘It was Paisley saying, “I want a different, ball- playing kind of central defender”.’ They beat Luton 2-1 but there were reality checks — a 2-0 defeat at Manchester City and defeats at home by Burnley and away to Ipswich.
PAISLEY was being hammered in the press and in november he told Robinson and Smith he wanted to step down. They talked him around. They realised this quiet man was open to ideas.
The Anfield maintenance man, Bert Johnson, mentioned a sign he made. In white letters on a red background, it read, ‘ THIS IS ANFIELD.’ Johnson thought he might place it above the players’ tunnel. Paisley agreed. Paisley’s vocabulary could be a mystery, because of his struggle to recall a name and the almost indecipherable County Durham accent.
He disclosed before a game against Aston Villa that he had been speaking to one of their scouts, whose surname eluded him. ‘I’ve been speaking to Duggie . . . Duggie . . . Duggie Doin’s,’ he said. The players dissolved into laughter and from that day on, Paisley was known to them as ‘Duggie Doin’s’ or sometimes plain ‘Duggie’.
There was some merciless mickey-taking. Terry McDermott, comedian in chief, adopted the ‘Bob walk’. An ankle injury from Paisley’s playing days created a tendency for him to sway from side to side as he moved, with a pronounced swing of the arm.
This was recreated to great comic effect by players who complemented the routine with his favourite expletive: ‘What the f***! What the f*** are you doing?’
His first season saw Liverpool squeak second place by a mere 0.038 superior goal average over Bobby Robson’s Ipswich. A year later, they needed a 1-1 draw or a win at Wolves to take the title.
For Shankly, this would have been a moment for the big speech. For Paisley, it was another moment of unintended comedy gold.
Vast numbers of Liverpool fans had turned up without tickets, including Thompson’s brothers. The defender was worrying about them getting in and, since the door of the dressing room at Molineux opened out on to the main road, he kept disappearing to see if he could find them.
‘Boss, you have to help,’ he said. ‘My brothers have been to every game this season and now they can’t get in.’
Paisley went into the corridor, buttonholed the elderly steward for a key and told Thompson to ‘get them up here’. But then Hughes — never one to pass up an opportunity — informed Paisley: ‘My mates are out there as well.’
Paisley opened the door once again, and this time 40 people filed in, carrying flags, banners and horns and singing their Liverpool anthems in the dressing room.
What was supposed to be an
environment of calm was bedlam.
Paisley started to panic. ‘What the f***?’ he shouted at no one in particular, single- handedly attempting to force the door shut. ‘How many are in your family?’
Thompson recalls: ‘We were in pieces. It was typical Bob. It relaxed us more than any team talk.’
Liverpool clinched the title by a point from QPR and retained the championship the following summer. The European Cup felt unattainable, but Paisley instilled a more subtle style.
HE Was very suspicious of foreign territory and Liverpool travelled abroad with a siege mentality.
Players knew better than to consume any of the local produce. soup was served up in Romania. ‘Don’t touch it,’ Paisley told his players. ‘It’s probably drugged.’
In 1977 Liverpool reached the Rome final against Borussia Monchengladbach. They went ahead in the first half through McDermott.
The Germans equalised but Tommy smith put Liverpool ahead with a header and Phil Neal sealed things with a penalty.
Paisley would go on to win the European Cup three times, retaining the trophy against Bruges at Wembley in 1978 and seeing off Real Madrid in Paris in 1981.
In only one year between the blank opening season and his retirement in 1983 did Paisley fail to clinch the First Division title.