IT WAS FOR THE PEOPLE OF MERSEYSIDE
more 1989 final was less about winning about solidarity after horror of Hillsborough
TOMORROW was meant to be FA Cup final day. In the fifth of our series looking back at classic finals, DOMINIC KING recalls a poignant day for his city.
IN time, there will be laughter. It is always the way when Ian Rush and Graeme Sharp meet — and the camaraderie is not diluted by this conversation taking place over video link.
We are reminiscing about the FA Cup, a competition that meant so much to these men. Sharp, an Everton giant, played in four finals and scored in the 1984 triumph over Watford. Rush, Liverpool’s greatest striker, came alive at Wembley and scored five times under the Twin Towers.
The overriding theme of this conversation, though, is loaded with poignancy. The 1989 final was a huge occasion, the second meeting in English football’s showpiece game in three years of Liverpool and Everton, but there was so much more to it than sport and local rivalries.
‘It was for the people of Merseyside,’ Rush points out.
The final took place on May 20 but, on April 15, 96 Liverpool fans had been killed at Hillsborough during their club’s semi-final with Nottingham Forest. Looking back, you wonder how they played it at all. Somehow, in the intervening period, Kenny Dalglish and his players attended every funeral — the emotional strain on men in their mid-to-late twenties impossible to explain. The FA Cup final, remarkably, was their sixth game in 17 days.
‘ Kenny was great,’ explains Rush. ‘He said if you didn’t want to play at any time, it was all fine. He left it up to individuals.
‘We wanted to do it for the fans. We knew we needed to do something for them, for everything they had been through.’
Grief, however, was not confined to Anfield. Everton were in mourning about the horror that had broken the city. Sharp vividly remembers attending Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral, along with team-mate Kevin Sheedy, on April 16 for a memorial mass.
The emotion when the sides walked out side by side at Wembley was charged.
‘Everyone came together,’ says Sharp. ‘The whole atmosphere was incredible because there was an issue to it. This was more than an FA Cup final. Everyone was looking for a bit of solace. Both clubs were great for each other at that time, there was solidarity at every level. They were very close.
‘The first game Liverpool played after Hillsborough was the derby at Goodison (a 0-0 draw). The tragedy was always there — the people who had lost their lives — and, at the back of your mind, you were thinking, “Is this really worth it?” but we knew football would provide hope and courage.
‘ The Liverpool boys were remarkable but it hit us as well. We wanted to win but we knew that everyone was gearing for Liverpool and the fairytale ending of winning the Cup. Everyone was affected. Whether you were Red or Blue, whether you were a player or a supporter.’
It made the occasion completely different to the first meeting between the sides in 1986. In that season they had been engaged in a pulsating battle for the league title. Liverpool won that race on the final day, before sealing the double with Rush scoring twice in a 3-1 Wembley victory.
There was little between the sides — Everton could easily have taken both trophies — but the gap in quality was widening by 1989. After John Aldridge scored in the fourth minute, Liverpool should have won comfortably, but they were pegged back in the last seconds by a Stuart McCall equaliser.
The Scot had come off the bench to rescue Everton but Dalglish had an ace of his own to introduce.
‘Rushie!’ says Sharp, with a rueful shake of the head. ‘That was all we needed. It wasn’t just a sub coming on. I hate saying this as he’s a good lad and I’ve known him a long time. But I never wanted to see him on the pitch.’ With good reason. Rush seemingly had a mission in life to heap misery on Everton. He would enter the history books on May 20, 1989, overtaking Dixie Dean as the record scorer in Merseyside derbies — his tally of 25 is unlikely to be beaten — but, here, he was almost the unlikely hero.
Rush had endured a difficult 12 months having returned to Anfield after a season in Italy with Juventus and was nowhere near peak condition for the FA Cup final.
‘When I came back , I had chicken pox then hepatitis,’ he says. ‘I was playing catch-up after missing pre-season. I told Kenny before the game I didn’t have the energy to start. Normally you would complain if you were sub in a Cup final, but not this time.
‘When you start at Wembley, you don’t take it all in, you’re concentrating on the match. But as I was on the bench, I was looking around and all I could see was red and blue next to each other. I thought to myself — if I score, where do I go to celebrate!
‘It was boiling hot and I honestly believe the conditions brought everyone to my level of fitness. They’d been playing for 90 minutes in scorching heat and I think that’s why I was effective and got the goals. I was nowhere near my best.’
His double in the first period of extra time was picture book Rush — one a shot on the turn, the other a deft header. Everton, for whom McCall had scored a second equaliser, could not raise themselves again. The season, however, was not over.
Liverpool still had two league matches to play — they would ultimately fall agonisingly short of winning the title — so how did they celebrate?
‘ I’ll tell you what they did,’ interjects Sharp before Rush can answer. ‘They stopped partying at 2am rather than 3am!’
They are both roaring with laughter now, remembering the good old days. It is left to Rush to have the final word and he provides a reminder of why 1989 was different to all the rest.
‘We had a game against West Ham on the Tuesday, so Ronnie Moran put our heads in the right place. We had a glass of champagne, but really everyone was talking about the crowd — Reds and Blues standing side by side.’
Watch BT Sport’s marathon of highlights from classic FA Cup finals, from 6am tomorrow on BT Sport 3