#Two tribes: How Liverpool and Everton became unbeatable in the 80s"

[torentialtribute]

Two tribes: How Liverpool and Everton became unbeatable in the 80s

A new film, Two Tribes premieres this week, counting the tale of Liverpool in the 1980s.

Scarred by riots, political unrest and economic decline, the city was in turmoil and on collision course with the Government. Amid this troubled backdrop two football teams.

Liverpool and Everton dominated the domestic and European game, offering Liverpudlians fresh hope and identity.

Liverpool and Everton dominated in the 80s and shared eight out of 10 league titles

The league title stayed on Merseyside for eight out of 10 years but then, in tragic circumstances, the sport that had given its people a voice shook the city through disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough.

Lord, Sportsmail recalls how the decade unfolded with two of the film's contributors, Everton's Peter Reid and Liverpool's Mark Lawrenson …

Peter Reid

Everton midfielder, 1982-89

Unemployment had ripped the heart out of Liverpool when I signed for Everton in 1982. You couldn't ignore the political landscape.

I'd grown up in Huyton where Harold Wilson, the former Labor Prime Minister, was my MP.

It's fair to say we weren't great lovers or Margaret Thatcher's government. There'd been riots the year before, companies were closing down, my dad Peter's job had been affected, my brother Michael had to join the Merchant Navy and my other brother Gary went down south for work. It was difficult.

Peter Reid represented Everton for seven years between 1982 and 1989 before joining QPR

But Liverpool is a city of strong opinions and it is ground to bite back. There was great music, the comedians were sharp and there was Derek Hatton.

Derek was a left winger, not in Kevin Sheedy terms, but the Labor movement. He wasn't equally popular in his own party but he was passionate about his beliefs and one happened to be Everton.

We struck up a report on a few drinks in town where he spoke eloquently about his love for the club and its importance to fans.

One night we were having a drink with Adrian Heath and his dad, and Derek promised to get Adrian mentioned on Question Time.

Sure enough, in the heat of a political debate, Adrian's name pops up. But Derek had a point. Football had become an emotional crutch for supporters whose lives were in a downward spiral.

Liverpool were in their pump and Everton had a leg in the doldrums. Howard Kendall was under extreme pressure when the FA Cup came round in 1984 and we were away to Stoke City.

Howard opened the slats of the window in that Victoria Ground dressing room and said, "Just listen to that." All you could hear was this wall of noise from our fans. That made us feel 10 feet tall.

They gave us confidence and we were fed off to become a good team.

We couldn't believe how half of them got into Wembley for the Milk Cup final against Liverpool. Climbing roofs, sneaking in vans, scaling walls.

England midfielder celebrates Everton's Cup Winners' Cup victory over Rapid Vienna in 1985

The game wasn't much and it's lashed down with rain but I can remember welling up seeing reds and blues walking across Wembley Way and afterwards when the whole stadium sang 'Merseyside'.

Whether it was a cry of defense, unity – whatever, it was powerful.

When we got to the FA Cup semi-final against Southampton at Highbury, it was absolutely packed with Evertonians. Every vantage point was blue. It was electric and we said to each other: "We didn't come off this pitch without winning."

Claiming that first trophy, the FA Cup against Watford, was the best feeling. Seeing Howard's broad smile that day will never leave me.

He knew it was the watershed moment. Standing in The Quiet Man pub back in Huyton with my dad surrounded by reds felt fantastic. I was a winner.

The following year, we did a Cup final song, Here We Go, and turned up at the recording studio in party mood. The studio told us that we couldn't go on unless we took it seriously, so we refused and cracked open a few drinks.

Next thing they relented and one of my mates from school, John Fargin, is on the record as only him and Paul Bracewell were fit to do any singing.

Some fans who were our mates even ended up on Terry Wogan's show in tracksuits singing at the back.

Brian Clough said Everton should have dominated the 90s but the Heysel tragedy meant that never happened.

As champions in 1985 we knew we would challenge for the European Cup but whatever disappointment we felt we had to put into perspective against the lives that were lost that night.

Reid battles with Tottenham defender Gary Stevens during a league match in August 1984

When Hillsborough happened in '89, I had joined QPR with Nigel Spackman, who had been at Liverpool. I'll never forget that day.

We were playing Middlesbrough and Don Howe the coach pulled Nige and me at half-time to say: 'It looks like there's been fatalities at Hillsborough, do you want to carry on ? "

We finished the game then took what was happening on TV, devastated. I knew Everton fans had been leaving their semi-final against Norwich at Villa Park to check on family and friends.

In the week afterwards, Nige and I went up to Anfield to see Kenny Dalglish and Alan Hansen. What I saw was heartbreaking, the messages, the flowers and what hit me was the number of blue scarves tied across the ground.

That our two teams should play that year's Cup final was only fitting. On the eve of the game we bumped into some fans at the Royal Lancaster Hotel and I offered to get a round in for the three or four who were there and put it on my room.

The next morning I came down, got the bill and it was £ 2,000 for drinks. The cheeky sods had obviously got my number and had a good night on it. But hey, if anyone deserved it, they did.

Peter Reid was talking to Simon Jones

Mark Lawrenson

Liverpool defender, 1981-88

Mark Lawrenson moved to Liverpool in 1981 from Brighton and stayed for seven years

Talk about a different world. In 1981, when I was playing for Brighton, I lived close to our training ground in leafy Hove.

I had an old English sheepdog at the time called Barnaby and every morning I'd walk through the park to work with him. Barnaby would stay in the office while I trained, then afterwards we'd head home via the same route.

It's fair to say I couldn't do the same when I moved to Liverpool. Having been on the south coast, I hadn't fully appreciated the social problems Liverpool as a city had encountered and it would become worse in 1981 when the riots erupted in Toxteth.

For a footballer whose transfer fee was almost £ 1million, it made you think.

I can't be disingenuous and say I saw the issues on a day-to-day basis. I didn't. Like a lot of the players from both clubs, I lived out towards Southport. You would go to training and be cocooned from it all.

Not once did I think I'd made the wrong move. I had to contend with being called a 'Woolly Back' for the first six months, but as a lad from Preston, I knew I had made the right decision to come back north. As much as I loved Brighton, it felt like I had moved home.

But, just now, little things give you a sense of what it was like. It felt like Anfield was always full but if you ever see old footage, you can see the empty seats – a lot of fans simply couldn't afford to get to matches.

The one thing Liverpool and Everton provided, however, was escapism. You knew on Saturday afternoon that many of the crowd would have a bit of money together and you were left in no doubt exactly what football meant to them.

Lawrenson slides to ground to tackle Everton striker Adrian Heath in 1984 League Cup final

It was an incredible time. We were going with the hammer and tongs with Everton for much of the decade but the rivalry on the pitch brought camaraderie off it. I lived near Everton's Graeme Sharp and Pat van den Hauwe and we would see each other out and about.

What was really the period up for me at the 1984 League Cup final at Wembley.

It was the first time the clubs had played each other for a trophy – the first final played on a Sunday – and I think there were concerns in London about the mass movement of 100,000 coming down from the north.

The people of Liverpool had been battered, cut adrift by the Government, and the Police were braced for being the two clubs in London. But there wasn't a murmur of trouble. There was a show of solidarity and the fans showed the world they came from a proper city.

Unfortunately, the game didn't live up to expectations. Dear me, it was terrible and thank God VAR was not in play then.

Alan Robinson, who refereed the game, must have been the only person in the stage who didn't see Alan Hansen handle a shot that was going in from Adrian Heath.

Afterwards, as the teams walked around the pitch and the crowd were chanting 'Merseyside', we all got together and there was an impromptu photo of red and blue shirts alongside each other.

I think that summed everything up.

Two clean clubs, two clean teams and one clean city.

Mark Lawrenson was talking to Dominic King

Two Sports Tribes, the latest in award-winning BT Sports Films series, premieres on March 30 at 9pm on BT Sport 1.

Lawrenson goes on and on with Everton striker Gary Lineker during the 1986 FA Cup final

Source link