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This is an interview that begins with a test question. Mark Lawrenson played for Liverpool for seven seasons in the 1980s.
He won five league titles, three League Cups, one FA Cup and one European Cup. But during those years of eminence, how many times did Liverpool beat Manchester United?
“I know there were not many,” Lawrenson says by phone from his home in Southport. “There was a League Cup final and then one that we won with a goal from Craig Johnston in a mixed match at Old Trafford. I’d say that’s it. Two.’
Actually, the answer is three. Three wins out of 19 games. Liverpool, the best team in the country, spent more than six years, from April 1982 to September 1988, without beating their great rivals at Anfield.
‘They had Robbo [Bryan Robson] and Remi Moses and Norman [Whiteside] and he used to kick the shit out of us, ”laughs Lawrenson. ‘We had Charlie [Graeme Souness] of course and at times I was thrown into midfield to help. It was physical.
After 70 minutes, the referee would finally say, ‘Okay, let’s put the ball in and have a game.’ But they also had very good players. Good players who would also try to kick the shit out of us … ‘.
Lawrenson is only half joking, but the point remains that Liverpool versus United has always been a strange rivalry. Few are more difficult to predict, which brings us to tomorrow and to a game, oddly, that champions Liverpool can’t 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 have not seen many players have an effect like him. Masterstroke. If you’re up front for United, it must be brilliant. He passes it forward. Not many midfielders do.
United are still vulnerable and I don’t think Solskjaer knows his best team yet. But they have good players.
“When we didn’t beat United it hurt us, but we did console ourselves by winning everything else. We had European Cups and things like that. We were the two most important games of his season. ‘
Lawrenson could have signed for Manchester United from Brighton in 1981. Arsenal were also interested.
“Arsenal offered me less money than I had in Brighton, but said they had Herbert Chapman’s bust and underfloor heating in the locker room,” he recalls. ‘Big Ron [Atkinson] at United were trying to sign Frank Stapleton first. I was very close to getting there. But while I was waiting I met Bob Paisley and [chief executive] Peter Robinson in Liverpool and it was done in ten minutes. The rest of the country was asking, ‘Mark Who?’
The last bit is not strictly true. Liverpool had already tried to sign Lawrenson for £ 70,000 when he was young at Preston. They eventually paid £ 900,000 for one of the country’s most wanted defenders. It was a club record and the third largest fee in the English game.
Lawrenson was an excellent footballer. An energetic and aggressive defender who could play almost anywhere. In Liverpool he played in eight different positions.
“I didn’t care because it meant I was on the team,” he says. “When I arrived I had to show them that I could play. But it was not difficult. We always had the ball to start with.
The two best players – Kenny [Dalglish] and Charlie, they had both come for a lot of money, so they knew how he felt. Right away Kenny said, ‘Come live in Southport near us.’ The car to train every day was me, Ken, Al [Alan Hansen] and Ronnie [Whelan]. We did that for years until Kenny became the boss and fired us. That was a shock. No…’
Lawrenson’s central defensive partnership with the imperious Hansen was one of the best European football has ever seen. Souness said Hansen would finish a game without a mark on him, while Lawrenson, well, no. “Yeah, it totally was,” Lawrenson agrees. ‘It would be covered after ten minutes. But football was 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 feel that, ever,” he says. ‘We always knew how bad we could be in our day.
‘This Liverpool team knows it now. They have lost 7-2 at Villa. We were 4-0 at Coventry when Terry Gibson scored a hat-trick and Al and I were horrible.
And you know what the boot room was like. You would win 5-0 and they would tell you that the other team had been silly. That was Ronnie Moran. I was only happy when I was unhappy.
And the veteran players accepted that. Kenny was a bastard in training. Play a pass not to the inch he wanted and was on you. ‘What the hell 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 lead it, and he had a fat ass. But he was still a genius.
Then he would go out and give all the compliments to someone else. If you did an article and found yourself like Billy Big Bollocks, the senior players would be with you.
And Kenny was tough. What an example. I never wore shin guards. He once told me, ‘The day I can’t see a rig coming is the day I pack it.’
Lawrenson has fantastically thick skin and an enviable ability to poke fun at himself. He says he developed it in the Liverpool dressing room. “When we lost, it was a national debate,” he says.
There was a time when rumors circulated in Merseyside that he might be gay. He still laughs at that.
“It started when I put highlights in my hair,” she explains. Then Peter Robinson said that the police had been on the march. They said they saw me with a guy on Otterspool Promenade. I was like, ‘No, that wasn’t me.’
But it became one of those rumors and eventually my wife and I did a piece at the Liverpool Echo. It still appears now from time to time. A Man United fan might call me ‘gay boy’ or something like that, but only if he’s an idiot. Hey ho.
Maybe my voice didn’t help. And my running style. And my hair … But that’s life, right?
When the call was made to ask if he would like to chat about his distinguished career, Lawrenson’s response was instantaneous. Did you say distinguished or extinct?
It’s true that we don’t see Lawrenson on television as often as we did. Once at the forefront of modern experts, his association with Hansen moved from the field to the Match of the Day study. Now he is more likely to be heard on BBC 5 Live.
“The television landscape was changing and I saw it coming when Al walked away,” he says. ‘You may think you’ve done a good job, but it’s life. Change. I don’t care 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? Anyone can say the obvious. Honesty is important, otherwise it doesn’t make sense. Annoyed Evo [Roy Evans] one day. And reidy [Peter Reid] and Big Sam [Allardyce]. They all threw me. But it was just my opinion.
‘Graeme is the best expert and Gary [Neville] and Jamie [Carragher] they are really good. But the technology was coming and the BBC was behind the curve. When Gary and Jamie did the Sky Monday thing, they installed the kit in the house. Can you imagine the BBC doing that?
Lawrenson is still a BBC man at heart. He is a devotee, for example, of Mark Kemode’s movie reviews on Radio5. “He has 90 seconds to cover a two-hour movie and he’s brilliant, an absolute authority,” he says.
As for the current craze for phone calls, he’s less enthusiastic. “They are like Twitter for the radio, no thanks.”
Lawrenson has experienced disappointments before on a much larger scale. An Achilles tendon injury ended his career at age 29, while stints at Oxford and Peterborough did not last long. In the larger context, none of that really matters anyway. His dreams came true the moment he made his debut for his hometown club at age 17. His father had played for Preston while his stepfather 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 the manager and he called my manager and asked to let me sign. My mother passed away 15 months ago, but she and Lady Norma [Charlton] They kept sending Christmas cards. I played for Jack with Ireland too, of course. The only player who plays for both.
But Nobby was the one. He was the director of the youth team and had the greatest contribution in my career. We were 4-0 down at Villa in the Central League. I was on the left. I was still in the team and he put me in the center of defense during the second half. That was me, up and running. ‘
Soccer lost Stiles and Jack Charlton to dementia before Christmas. Sir Bobby has also been diagnosed. Lawrenson reflects on the sadness of that. Like many others, soccer still provides you with security and balance. In Southport and along the coast in Formby, he is one of ten former players of his day and they still mix.
“None of our guys lived in the posh parts of Cheshire and Manchester like some Liverpool players do now,” he says. That would have been unthinkable.
Back in the rivalry, Lawrenson still sees Liverpool as a cut above and doesn’t see it change as long as his three forwards stay in shape and shooting. However, he wonders if Mo Salah has turned his head.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked on Jurgen Klopp’s door in no time,” he says.
Said without malice, it is just an opinion. There was never anything unpleasant about Lawrenson, on the field or off it, though Souness once ventured that he was occasionally late for a tackle on purpose, just to make a point. “Yeah yeah … maybe,” Lawrenson agrees.
‘Mind you, I still got there a damn sight before him …’
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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