NOT BEATING UNITED STUNG ... BUT THE CONSOLATION WAS WINNING EUROPEAN CUPS!
MARK LAWRENSON WAS KEY TO THE BRILLIANT TROPHY-LADEN LIVERPOOL TEAM OF THE 1980S — BUT THEY HAD A SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT TIME AGAINST THEIR MOST BITTER RIVALS
THIS is an interview that starts with a quiz question. Mark Lawrenson played for Liverpool for seven seasons in the 1980s. He won five League titles, three League Cups, an FA Cup and a European Cup. But during those years of eminence, how many times did Liverpool beat bitter rivals Manchester United?
‘I know it was not many,’ Lawrenson says down the phone from his home in Southport. ‘There was a League Cup final and then one we won with a Craig Johnston goal in a minging game at Old Trafford. I would say that’s it. Two.’
The answer is actually three. Three wins out of 19 games.
Liverpool, the best team in the country, went more than six years — April 1982 to September 1988 — without beating their great foes at Anfield.
‘They had Robbo (Bryan Robson) and Remi Moses and Norman (Whiteside) and used to kick the s*** out of us,’ laughs Lawrenson. ‘We had Charlie (Graeme Souness), of course, and sometimes I got chucked into midfield to help. It was physical.
‘After 70 minutes, the referee would finally say, “Right, let’s put the ball on and have a match”. But they had really good players, too. Good players who would also try to kick the s*** out of us.’
Lawrenson is half joking but the point remains Liverpool v United has always been a strange rivalry. Few are harder to predict, which brings us to tomorrow and a game that champions Liverpool can ill-afford to lose.
When Lawrenson looks at Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s league leaders, what does he see? ‘Lots of match winners and Bruno Fernandes,’ he says. ‘I haven’t seen a lot of players who have an effect like him. Masterstroke. If you are up front for United it must be brilliant.
‘He passes it forwards. Not many midfielders do.
‘United are still vulnerable and I don’t think Solskjaer knows his best team yet. But they do have good players.
‘When we didn’t beat United it stung, but we consoled ourselves by winning everything else. We had European Cups and things. We were the biggest two games of their season.’
LAWRENSON could have signed for United from Brighton in 1981. Arsenal were interested, too.
‘Arsenal offered me less money than I was on at Brighton but said they had the bust of Herbert Chapman and underfloor heating in the dressing room,’ he recalls. ‘Big Ron (Atkinson) at United was trying to sign Frank Stapleton first. I was really close to going there. But while I waited I met Bob Paisley and (chief executive) Peter Robinson at Liverpool and it was done in 10 minutes. The rest of the country were asking, “Mark who?”’
That last bit is not strictly true. Liverpool had already tried to sign Lawrenson for £70,000 when he was a youngster at Preston. They eventually paid £900,000 for one of the country’s most sought-after defenders. It was then a club record and the third biggest fee in the English game.
Lawrenson was a superb footballer; a rangy, aggressive defender who could play almost anywhere. At Liverpool he played in eight different positions.
‘I didn’t mind as it meant I was in the team,’ he says. ‘When I got there I had to show them I could play. But it wasn’t hard. We always had the ball, for a start.
‘The best two players — Kenny (Dalglish) and Charlie — had come for big money so they knew how it felt. Straight away Kenny said, “Come and live in Southport near us”. The car for training every day was me, Ken, Al (Alan Hansen) and Ronnie (Whelan). We did that for years until Kenny became boss and sacked us off.’
Lawrenson’s central defensive partnership with the imperious Hansen is among the best Europe has seen. Souness said Hansen would end a game without a mark on him, while Lawrenson, well, would not. ‘Yeah, that’s how it was,’ Lawrenson says. ‘I would be covered after 10 minutes. But football was just so easy for Alan, too easy really.’
Liverpool won the League in Lawrenson’s first season. And the next two. Five times in seven remarkable years. So what does it feel like to be invincible?
‘I have no idea because we never did feel that, never,’ he says. ‘We always knew how bad we could be on our day. This Liverpool team know that now. They have lost 7-2 at Villa. We had a 4-0 at Coventry when Terry Gibson scored a hattrick and me and Al were awful.
‘And you know what the boot room was like. You would win 5-0 and they would tell you the other team had been rubbish. That was Ronnie Moran. He was only happy when he was unhappy.
‘And the senior players bought into that. Kenny was a miserable sod in training. Play a pass not to the inch he wanted it and he was on you. “What the f*** was that?”
‘Charlie was the same. People say now, “Who is Charlie?” It’s Souey. Champagne Charlie. But what a player. Kenny was a genius. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t head it and he had a fat a***. But he was still a genius.
‘Then he would come off and give all the praise to someone else. If you did an article and came across as Billy Big B****cks, the senior players would be on you.
‘And Kenny was hard. Never wore shin pads. He said to me once, “The day I can’t see a tackle coming is the day I pack it in”.’
Lawrenson (below), now 63, has a fantastically thick skin and an enviable capacity for self-mockery. He says he developed it at Liverpool.
‘When we lost, it was a national debate,’ he says.
There was a time when rumours circulated Merseyside that he may be gay. He still laughs about it. ‘It started when I got highlights in my hair,’ he explains. Then Peter Robinson said the police had been on. They said I had been seen with some guy on Otterspool Promenade. I was like, “No, that wasn’t me”.
‘ But it became one of those rumours and eventually me and my wife did a piece in the Liverpool Echo. It still comes up now occasionally. ‘ Maybe my voice didn’t help. And my running style. And my hair. But that’s just life, isn’t it?’
WHEN the call was made to ask if he fancied a chat about his distinguished career, Lawrenson’s reply was instant. ‘Did you say distinguished or extinguished?’ It is true we do not see Lawrenson on TV as often as we did. Once he was in the vanguard of modern punditry, his partnership with Hansen moving from the field to the Match of the Day studio. Now he is more likely to be heard on BBC Radio 5 Live. ‘The TV landscape was changing and I saw it coming when Al stepped away,’ he says. ‘You can think you’ve done a good job but it’s life. It changes. I don’t mind who does it now as long as they are the best person for the job. ‘When you listen, are they telling you something you don’t know? Honesty is important, otherwise there’s no point. I upset Evo (Roy Evans) one day. And Reidy (Peter Reid) and Big Sam ( Allardyce). They all pulled me. But it was just my opinion.
‘ Graeme is the best pundit and Gary (Neville) and Jamie (Carragher) are really good. But technology was coming and the BBC were behind the curve.
‘When Gary and Jamie did the Sky Monday thing they got the kit installed in the house. Can you imagine the BBC doing that?’
Lawrenson has experienced disappointments before on a much greater scale. An achilles injury ended his career at 29. Managerial spells at Oxford and Peterborough did not last long. In the wider context, none of it really matters anyway. His dreams came true the moment he made his debut for his home-town club at 17. His father had played for Preston while his step dad was on the board.
Lawrenson could have been a cricketer — Lancashire offered him terms — while his mother wanted him to be a priest. In the end, Nobby Stiles and Sir Bobby Charlton changed all that.
‘All I ever wanted was to play for Preston,’ he says. ‘Bobby was manager and rang my headmaster and asked for me to be released to sign. My mum passed away 15 months ago but her and Lady Norma ( Charlton) were still sending Christmas cards. I played for Jack with Ireland as well. The only player to play for both Charltons.
‘But Nobby was the one. He was youth-team manager and had the biggest input in my career. We were 4-0 down at Villa in the Central League. I was left wing. He was in the team and put me in the centre of defence for the second half. That was me, up and running.’
Football lost Stiles and Jack Charlton to dementia last year. Sir Bobby has also been diagnosed. Lawrenson ponders the sadness of that. Like many others, football still provides him with security and balance. In Southport and along the coast at Formby, he is one of 10 former players from his time and they still mix.
‘None of our lads lived over in the posh parts of Cheshire and Manchester like some Liverpool players do now,’ he says. ‘That would have been unthinkable.’
Back to the rivalry and Lawrenson still views Liverpool as a cut above and does not see it changing as long as their front three stay fit and firing. He wonders if Mo Salah has had his head turned, though.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked on Jurgen Klopp’s door before long,’ he says.
Said without malice, it is just an opinion. There was never anything that was nasty about Lawrenson, either on the field or off, though Souness once ventured he would occasionally arrive late into a tackle on purpose — just to make a point. ‘ Yeah, yeah… maybe,’ Lawrenson concurs. ‘Mind you, I still got there a damn sight earlier than he ever did.’
‘If you are up front for United it must be brilliant. Bruno passes it forwards. Not many midfielders do’ ‘Kenny was a genius. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t head it and he had a fat a***. But he was still a genius’