Two Cups, One Goalie

(Originally published in 'We Are Liverpool' magazine, issue 3 - September 2014)

There are two things that, I am fairly certain, won’t come as a huge surprise.

One: Liverpool FC have won Europe’s most prestigious trophy, the Champions League / European Cup / call it what you will (except ‘Old Big Ears’, a term which should only be used as a football reference when discussing the career of Francis Jeffers ), five times.

Two: by the early 80s, Liverpool FC enjoyed the kind of dominance rarely seen outside of Madame Fifi’s Saucy Punishment Parlour.

It was a circular process.  More trophies meant a continuation of the supremacy; the aura of success acquired a self-fulfilling motion, leading to more victories, more trophies.  What a glorious time to be a Red. 

And yet, at the risk of sounding like an ungrateful curmudgeon, I have always felt that we underachieved. It sounds insane when you consider the triumphs we witnessed – title after title, cup after cup – but there are a couple of glaring omissions on our roll-call of honours that have haunted me for the last 30 years. 

For two years in succession, 1982 and 1983, we were favourites to lift the European Cup.  For two years in succession we royally cocked it up.

Well, I say ‘we’.  In reality it only took one person to trample our dreams into the dirt.  And I’ve held a grudge ever since.

J’accuse Bruce Grobbelaar.

People who say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place aren’t merely ignorant of scientific reality, they also lack imagination.  I doubt they ever saw Grobbelaar play for Liverpool. 

Sure, the spring-heeled Zimbabwean with the Scouser's 'tache was capable of gravity-defying brilliance when the mood took him, contorting his body like an Olympic gymnast to scoop balls away from his net, a maelstrom of reflexes & instinct.  He would race from his line without hesitation to plunge at the feet of an advancing attacker. He would also, with alarming frequency, eschew conventional goalkeeping techniques in favour of a more esoteric approach. Great in theory.  Often disastrous in practice.

For every spectacular save, every match-turning interception, there'd be a calamity.  A loss of concentration, a reckless charge, a ball squirting through hands or legs.

In his first season at Anfield, Grobbelaar went through the full repertoire.  It was a major culture shock to a crowd accustomed to the steady brilliance of Ray Clemence.  A nadir was reached on Boxing Day, 1981.  In a 3-1 home defeat to Manchester City, Brucie managed to display all the goalkeeping competence of a blocked sink. There seemed no way back, for both keeper and team.

And yet, just a couple of months later, his rehabilitation was almost complete. An ultimately successful title challenge was back on track, the European Cup quarter final beckoned.  Grobbelaar had started to repay the faith Bob Paisley unconditionally placed in him.

At which point, the familiar destructive tendencies once more kicked in.  CSKA Sofia were the opponents. Twelve months earlier, a consummate Souness hat-trick had inspired Liverpool to a 5-1 thrashing of the Bulgarian champions.  With wounds well and truly licked, they saw the rematch as a chance for rapid revenge.

A 1-0 Anfield home win gave few indications of the drama to come.  And for much of the second leg, Paisley’s team exercised a level of control that had long become a Liverpool trademark. Chances were created, a legitimate Rush effort was deemed invalid, penalty shouts went unheeded. There was, of course, a grim inevitability about what happened next.

With 20 minutes left, a speculative cross was punted into the Liverpool area. Like an impatient toddler keen to be noticed, Grobbelaar saw his chance. He shuffled forward with intent, carefully eyeing the flight of the ball. He readied himself to gather. As the ball sailed over his head, it occurred to everyone that, for neither the first nor last time, his judgement had been seriously awry.  I'm talking ‘Boris Johnson in a thong’ levels of awryness here.  Awryness all over the shop.

With the goalkeeper occupying the proverbial no man’s land, CSKA striker and potential Countdown conundrum, Mladenov, had the simple task of nodding the ball into the unguarded net, sending the game into extra time.  As Liverpool imploded, the Bulgarian grabbed a second, to knock the holders out of the competition. 

Now clearly, there are no guarantees in football and we should be wary of jumping to unsustainable conclusions.  But Aston Villa went on to win the European Cup that season.

Cheers, Bruce.

Fast forward twelve months.  The same stage of the same competition.  Opposition from Eastern Europe once again, this time Poland’s Widzew Lodz.  And a repeat of the same dire spectacle, played out as if to reassure those doubting the conceptual validity of déjà vu.

This time it was the first leg.  A comfortable stroll against moderate opponents transformed into an insurmountable deficit thanks to Grobbelaar’s uniquely erratic decision-making tendencies.  Again it was a high ball.  Again there was no logical need for him to attempt to collect.  But that’s exactly what he did.  One-handed.  Like the world’s worst juggler, trying to catch wet soap, blindfold, on a trampoline.  Obviously, he spilled it.  Obviously, the result was a Widzew goal.  Followed, as Liverpool poured forward to atone for their goalkeeper’s well-honed profligacy, by another.

As some kind of warped encore, in the return leg Bruce again raced from his line to concede a penalty, after an uncharacteristic Souness blunder.  There was no way back.  European glory was put on hold for one more year. 

In Rome, redemption, of a sort, was achieved.  As Liverpool secured their fourth European Cup, Grobbelaar was cast in a leading role, with wobbly-legged capers conferring legend status on the madcap gaffe magnet.  

Not for me.  I still have visions of two ruined campaigns.  Of two lost cups.

Some grudges take a whole lot of shifting.