I never imagined the role Sunderland Football Club and city would play in my life when I watched one of the first games of live football in my memory. Norwich beat Sunderland 1-0 in March 1985 to win the League Cup known as the Milk Cup at that time. It was a competition my team, Liverpool, had dominated in the early 80’s much like Man City are doing now. Liverpool had won it for the previous 4 years along with league titles and European Cups, not that I remember them winning any of these. Sunderland player Barry Venison would later be part of the last Liverpool team to win the league. At the time of the 1985 Milk Cup final, I was the grand old age of 8 and I was mad about football and Liverpool FC. I was born and raised in Newry, Northern Ireland. My dad went to school with Pat Jennings. In fact everyones dad claimed they went to school with Pat Jennings! How I started supporting Liverpool, I’m not really sure. If you were into football when you were 8 you either supported Liverpool or Man Utd. You might find the odd fan of another English team but by and large it was Liverpool or United. My classroom was no different. Half the boys supported one Lancashire giant and half the other. United of course were going through a similar league drought to what Liverpool have experienced since 1990 so it wasn’t easy to be a United fan back then and most kids who supported them would have been made to by fathers who had grown up on Best, Law and Charlton. It was easy to support Liverpool. They had been the best team in England and Europe for 7 or 8 years but ironically the year I started supporting them was their worst in years. I have a long family connection with Liverpool. My mum studied Nursing there in the late 60’s. She stayed with her brother and his family who were all blues. Mum never caught the football bug although she always has the radio on and listens out for Liverpool and Arsenal results for me and my brother (I wouldn’t let him support Liverpool). My Da has no real interest in football but he worked with some men who were Liverpool fans and once when they went to Anfield, my da gave them money to buy some stuff from the club shop for me. My teacher, Mrs Hollywood, when I was 7 is now my mother in law and she also did her training in Liverpool as did her husband who saw 1966 World Cup games played at Anfield and Goodison. He went to school with Pat Jennings too. I took him to a couple of games in the last few years and the day after Liverpool beat City in March 2016, ( a few days after losing to them in the League Cup final) we went to Kirkby on the bus to find the school he taught at. Neither of my in laws are Liverpool supporters but they know I am so they want to see them do well. My bedroom walls were covered in Liverpool posters. My best friends were Brendan and Glenn Martin who lived down the street. Brendan was two years older than me, Glenn a year younger. Brendan supported Liverpool and I have a feeling he was a big reason why I started supporting the reds. He wouldn’t let his younger brother support the same team as him so Glenn went for Spurs. Their dad was Sandy Martin who had the distinction of playing every position for local Irish League team, Newry Town. He was supposed to be a fantastic footballer and the boys inherited his talent. The Martin house seemed to be coming down with trophies that Sandy had won playing football. More trophies than he wanted it seemed because when we started playing two a side tournaments on our street, Brendan presented the winners with some of his dads old wooden trophies that didn’t have inscriptions on them. I still have a couple of them in my parents house. Sandy was a United fan and my next football watching memory was the 1985 FA Cup final. Glenn and I watched the game in his house. We both got very excited whenever the camera showed the crowd because his dad was at Wembley! United were playing Everton, the best team in England at the time. the Red Devils had Kevin Moran sent off but the 10 men went on to win the cup one nil with one of the greatest FA Cup final goals of all time scored by Norman Whiteside. The ball was sent down the right for Whiteside to chase. He got there ahead of the defender and backed him up into the box. Then he performed the most mesmerising piece of skill the 8 year old me had ever seen - the step over, followed by the most mesmerising piece of skill I’d ever seen - the curling left foot shot into the bottom corner. What a thrill for Sandy to see his fellow country man win the cup for United and what a goal to win it. We went straight outside after the game and tried to recreate what Whiteside had done. I still love a step over to this day. 21 years later Steven Gerrard would score the most unbelievable FA Cup final goal since then when he equalised against West Ham with a 35 yard volley that travelled from boot to net at a steady 2 foot off the ground. Liverpool reached the European Cup for the second year running in 1985. By this stage I had a small black and white tv in my bedroom which was pretty cool for an 8 year old. I hadn’t seen the 1984 final, I’d been out playing but I remember someone coming out and saying Liverpool had won and celebrating because I supported Liverpool. The World Club Championship will always have a special place in my heart because the 1984 Toyota Cup, as it was known then, was played between Liverpool and Independiente and it’s the first game I ever remember watching. I was delighted when we finally won that trophy in 2019 when we beat Flamengo. We wouldn’t go to that tournament in 1985 because we lost the European Cup final by a dubious Juventus penalty scored by one of the best players in the world, Michel Platini. Of course, that game was totally overshadowed by the deaths of 39 football fans after violent clashes between rival fans led to Liverpool fans pushing a wall down on top of Juventus fans. The game was delayed until way past my bed time but I turned it on in my room with the volume turned down. As a child growing up in Northern Ireland in the 80’s, I was hearing about death and violence everyday and was already somewhat desensitised to murder. Watching the news back then, I heard about bombs being dropped in Tripoli and I assumed it was somewhere in Ireland. I was only interested in the football. Liverpool lost and that’s what devastated me. Years later, I would pause by the Heysel commemorative plaque at the back of the Centenary Stand before each game. In memoria e amicizia. Joe Fagin stepped down as manager and my hero, Kenny Dalglish became player-manager and so began my greatest period as a Liverpool fan. A couple of games stand out from that season. Kenny scoring the winner at Chelsea to clinch the league. It was another goal I practiced a hundred times. The ball dropped over the defenders head, Kenny controlled it on his chest and caressed a volley with the outside of his right foot across the keeper and into the side of the net. The other memory of that season is the FA Cup final that clinched the double. Ian Rush was the scourge of Everton and he did it again with 2 goals in a 3-1 win. Craig Johnston scored the other and Jan Molby ran the game in the second half from midfield. I was straight outside afterwards reliving every moment of the game. That summer was Mexico 86 - The Maradona World Cup. I think I must’ve played football from morning to night that whole summer or I would have done only my parents enrolled me in some amateur dramatics musical with rehearsals every Saturday and then performances every night for about 2 weeks. Pat Jennings, who played for Spurs and Arsenal, was playing his final tournament for Northern Ireland at 40 years old. I was only involved at the start of each night of the play so sat backstage for about an hour until I had to go on at the end for the curtain call. if Northern Ireland were playing, my da gave me his little radio to listen to. They didn’t make it out of the group but Maradona was singlehandedly destroying every team Argentina came up against. I watched his brilliant individual goal against England and re-enacted it dozens of times. He beat Belgium on his own in the semi final too. In our two a side games, Brendan was Maradona and I was Daniel Passarella. The final was on a Sunday and we went to my nana’s every Sunday. I just wanted to stay at home, watch the final then go outside and play the final again with my friends. No such luck and worse still when I discovered nana’s tv was broke so we ended up LISTENING to the final. what sort of prehistoric shit was this? The radio was for listening to music not the biggest game in world football. My great uncle was visiting from London and he listened to it with me and we talked about his grandson who was a football mad Chelsea fan.
The 1986-87 season wasn’t a good one for Liverpool. Everton won the league, Coventry City won the cup and Arsenal beat Liverpool in the league cup, now called the Littlewoods Cup. My cousins were all Arsenal fans and they all ribbed me after that one. Charlie Nicholas scored two and Liverpool lost for the first time when Ian Rush had scored, a record that went back 144 games! The fickleness of youth saw me briefly flirt with the idea of changing my allegiances to Spurs. Glenn made a good case for me switching. Liverpool had won nothing in 87 and Spurs were in the FA Cup final. Glenn and I became a 2 a side team with me in the Glenn Hoddle role and Glenn as Clive Allen. I also loved Chris Waddle in that Spurs team. We share the same birthday. Of course, I couldn’t bring myself to leave Liverpool and Spurs won nothing either. 1987-88 was my last year in primary school. My teacher Mr McCaul was a Leeds fan and he loved football. He played for a local team in the 60’s with my uncle Brian, who supported Villa because another local man Peter McParland played for them in the 50's. Once we got the eleven plus out of the way and the weather got better we played football everyday. The girls played as well. There was no soccer team in school. This was catholic Ireland and we had to play gaelic football which we also loved but not as much as soccer. We won the schools league that year and the girls won the netball league. Our teacher made us play netball against the girls so they got practice. He sold it to us as good preparation for secondary school where we would be playing basketball. My next great Liverpool team was about to explode on the scene. We’d already signed ruthless finisher John Aldridge in the 87 season to replace Ian Rush but we then added bustling, attacking midfielder, Ray Houghton, a new number 7, Peter Beardsley and the majestic John Barnes who all hit the ground running. Barnes in particular was one of the greatest footballers I've ever seen. Liverpool ran away with the league going 29 games unbeaten only to lose that record with a 1 nil defeat to Everton. Wayne Clarke got the winner. I didn’t watch it, not sure it was on telly but I recall clear as anything hearing the score and the scorer while standing outside a shop that Sunday afternoon. Liverpool also went to the cup final that year. They were heavy favourites to win another double as they came up against the crazy gang of Wimbledon who provided one of the biggest shocks in football history when they beat Liverpool one nil. I had the programme from that game. I bought it on a tour to Wembley when my new school went on a trip to London in December 88. The following season Liverpool were even better. The double was on again only for the world to come to a standstill on 15th April 1989 when 96 fans went to a match and never came home. 20 years later my second niece would be born on this date. Another reason never to forget. I’ll never forget the name of the 96th person to die. His name was Tony Bland. We were learning about euthanasia at school. Tony was the first person in England allowed to die with dignity by the courts when his family made the devastating decision to let their son and brother die. It was almost four years after the crush in the Leppings Lane end left him with severe brain damage that he would never recover from. Liverpool went on to reclaim the FA Cup in an emotional final against Everton. Ian Rush returned from a year with Juventus to break blue hearts again. The FA Cup final was before the last game of the league that season because of fixture postponements after the disaster. The game was effectively another final. Liverpool were at home to Arsenal who needed to win 2 nil to win the league otherwise Liverpool would win the double. 12 million people watched live as Michael Thomas found his way through the reds defence late on to achieve the impossible and win the league for Arsenal. I watched that in a house full of Arsenal supporting cousins. I cried losing that one. That was also about the time I stopped believing in God. We were made to go to mass every Sunday and sold the idea that if we were good then good things would be repaid to us. I was particularly good all day that Friday but my prayers were not answered. We won the league again in 1990 but the writing was on the wall for this Liverpool team when our defence was carpet bombed by Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi final. Steve Coppells team pulled off a Wimbledon sized shock to win 4-3 and get to the final. Less than a year later, well on our way to number 19, King Kenny would step down as manager and that league title we won in 1990 was our last. Jordan Henderson was born a month after we last won the league. My memories of that 1990 team are Ronnie Rosenthal coming in towards the end of the season and winning us game after game. He was direct and skilful not unlike Suarez. There was more football on tv at this point as RTE, the Irish channel we got in Northern Ireland because we were close to the mast at the border, showed a first division game most Saturdays but it was running half an hour behind the 3 o’clock kick off. Liverpool were on most weeks of the run in and eventually won the league. It wasn’t boring or nonchalant we were just the most successful team in english football, we had an unbelievable team and manager. A team that played the Liverpool way and won a league or cup in May. Nothing lasts forever and the good times came to a grinding halt in February 1991 when Kenny had to take a break from football and for the first time since 1987, we won nothing in a season. This time I wasn't tempted to change my team.
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