When English club football ruled the waves.

When English club football ruled the waves.


There was  a time when English club football could do no wrong at all. In fact for the last few years of the 1970s and the first two seasons of the 1980s English club football simply ruled the waves. Nobody could touch the likes of both Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and finally Aston Villa for four rip roaringly triumphant years.

 After Liverpool's recent Champions League Final defeat by Real Madrid at the end of this season it almost seemed as if we'd come full circle. But memories are so much sweeter when nostalgia comes calling and although now regarded as historic events from another age, English football can still pat itself on the back.

Last night ITV took us on a brief journey down memory lane to a time when old English First Division clubs became impregnable powerhouses who won one of the biggest prizes in world football and perhaps more pertinently European football. It is hard to believe now but Liverpool once dominated English club football, winning every trophy they could get their hands on. The story might have been that the Anfield trophy cabinet had become so congested that at times you'd have been hard pressed to find any more room for more.

In 1977, after those magisterial seasons of League Championship victories and that steady accumulation of silverware, Liverpool approached the climax of the League season with all of the carefree, cartwheeling, freewheeling, somersaulting, exquisite, free flowing football that would become their permanent trademark. Liverpool played with a freedom, flexibility, theatricality and immaculate improvisation that very few critics had ever thought English teams were capable of.

When the friendly, easy going and avuncular Bob Paisley took over from the immensely clever and remarkably visionary Bill Shankly most of the Liverpool fans were desperately worried. Besides, Shankly had achieved  almost Messianic status at Anfield and legends were few and far between in English club football.

But when a certain Kevin Keegan asserted himself forcefully in those final weeks of the season, after so many outstanding goal scoring exploits in front of the seething, swaying Anfield Kop, Keegan was reaching his prime. Keegan had that ripped, toned, well honed athlete's body that would have been the envy of any gym.

 By the start of the 1977 European Cup Final against Borussia Monchengladbach, he could hardly be held back, straining every muscle and sinew, fully motivated, energised, always eager, a bustling, determined, ambitious, headstrong striker, a stick of footballing dynamite about to explode in front of an ever feverish fan base - intent on creating back page headlines.

When the ever willing and powerfully industrious Terry McDermott weaved his way through a retreating Borussia defence to guide the ball into the net for Liverpool's opener, most of the Liverpool fans must have suspected privately that this would be the evening of all evenings. With Steve Heighway, ever the footballing intellectual, joining forces with the always probing, prompting, inquisitive and wisely influential Ian Callaghan, Liverpool were sailing and gliding into the sunset. Their first European Cup Final victory could almost be felt and sensed. A young Jimmy Case had also begun to make his playmaking presence felt, a cultured and wonderfully intelligent midfielder.

Then suddenly the Germans hit back at Liverpool with a well worked equaliser from Danish wonderkid Allan Simonsen that temporarily sucked the air out of Liverpool's potentially devastating strike force. Parity though was only partially restored because that rugged, rumbustious, hard as nails centre half Tommy Smith leapt with almost balletic grace from a Heighway corner in the second half and sent the most perfectly timed header past the German goalkeeper. Liverpool were back in cruise command, in the lead and seemingly well on course for that distinctively big eared European Cup.

When Kevin Keegan, not for the first time ran heroically at Borussia's equally as hard running full back Bertie Vogts, Vogts reminded you of one of those Olympic long distance athletes gasping at thin air and then assuming the role of the valiant pacemaker. To quote footballing parlance Vogts had been turned inside out, Keegan sprinting for goal before being dragged down in the penalty area. Phil Neal, that loyal and dedicated full back tucked away the penalty as if he'd done the same thing since he was a kid in his back street.

On that sultry summery evening in Rome, Liverpool thought they had literally conquered the world if not Europe. Only Celtic and Manchester United had done anything to preserve English blushes with those masterly European Cup Final victories in 1967 and 1968. For those who were in Lisbon and Wembley Stadium on those royal variety performance evenings for English club football, it seemed that Liverpool had jumped onto the same bandwagon and everything in the garden would always be rosy.

The following season Liverpool also embarked on one of those emotionally stimulating, roller coaster European Cup runs that left most of us flabbergasted and lost for words. At the beginning of that season Liverpool unveiled their latest destructive striking weapon. Sir Kenny Dalglish as he should be referred to as, arrived at Anfield at the beginning of the 1978 season from Celtic. The fresh faced and angelic Scotsman had ravaged and rampaged through most of the old First Division defences with a bumper crop of remarkable and breathtaking goals.

In that season's European Cup Dalglish became the familiar force of nature, shouldering and shepherding defenders all over the place into zones of maximum discomfort. He could shield the ball away from his opponents as if protecting a valuable set of rings before careering towards goal and striking the ball firmly past helpless goalkeepers.

But the 1978 European Cup Final against Belgian side Bruges had to be Dalglish's for the taking, his occasion, his most salubrious environment, a striker who knew that this was his night. Liverpool had admittedly struggled and laboured their way through the game as if it were some arduous slog and chore rather than that special occasion destined to end in a convincing victory. Dalglish though, anticipating that crowning moment on his head, responded joyfully.

When Graeme Souness joined Liverpool from Middlesbrough, it had appeared that Liverpool had added a huge sheet of steel to their team. Souness was never a shy and retiring wallflower because Souness was never that kind of anyway. Instead Liverpool had brought a classy, stylish midfield playmaker who could pick out his passes as if somebody had given him his very own tape measure. Of course Souness could be hard but then when the mood was right he could also do passion and aggression that always bordered on the criminally illegal.

This was also Souness big night. With minutes to go Souness, hovering just outside the Bruges penalty area, briefly sniffed the old Wembley air, controlled the ball with his educated feet before dabbing a handsomely weighted ball through the eye of a needle. Dalglish, moving quickly into his place, latched onto Souness dainty ball, hustling forward into the tightest of spaces, and chipping the ball delightfully past the Bruges keeper for Liverpool's winning goal. The European Cup had been retained for Liverpool and the smile on captain Emlyn Hughes's face was as wide as Mersey.

By the following year there was a noticeable sea change. There were intruders and impostors at the gate and Liverpool were no longer in ownership of the Cup they'd thought had become their rightful property for ever. The Merseyside monopoly had now been snatched away from Liverpool and there was another voice, another accent, another manager, another team ready to take over. It was the rudest of awakenings and the most dramatic of all football's rags to riches stories was now about to burst into life.

A certain Brian Clough, who'd won the old First Division championship with both Derby County and now Nottingham Forest was like one of those rooting tooting cowboys who swagger into some Wild West saloon. Clough was everything that football had privately longed for and in some quarters dreaded. Clough was strong willed, fiercely opinionated, blunt, forthright, maybe too pompous and bombastic for his own good and anything but quiet. Clough expressed himself clearly and honestly, destroying characters and reputations with one swift verbal attack that occasionally amused but frequently hurt for much longer than his opponents would have cared for.

But Clough was a purist, a subtle technician of the game, an academic student of football's finest arts  insistent until his very final game at Forest that the game should of course be played on the grass rather than the planet Mercury. Clough carefully sculpted, fine tuned, moulded, fashioned and refined a Nottingham Forest who had played most of their League games on the sticky, cloying mud baths that had become so commonplace back in the late 1970s.

Now though Clough had gathered around him a Forest team that were quite clearly going places. He had at his disposal those hard grafting, industrious blue collar, boiler room workers who were prepared to sacrifice everything if they knew Clough would approve. There was Archie Gemmell,  dashing, darting, hurrying, hassling, pestering opponents for the ball, badgering away and then winning the ball decisively for Forest. There was John O Hare, the smoothest of midfield operators who like Gemmell had followed Clough from Derby. And finally John McGovern, another Baseball Ground tireless toiler who gave Forest a thick layer of craft and silky skill on the ball.

There was also and quite importantly and famously Trevor Francis. Having served his City and Guilds Apprenticeship at Birmingham City, Francis became the first £1 million player in Britain. A notable landmark had been reached in a game that was now rapidly evolving. When Clough interrupted his game of squash at the Press conference which heralded Francis arrival at the City Ground, football took a sharp intake of breath.

After an intriguing and fairy tale route to the European Cup Final, Forest quite stunningly beat Cologne in the semi final when most experts were convinced that they were on the way home from Germany with a flea in their ear. Forest may well have ground their way through the competition but now against all ridiculous odds Forest beat Malmo in the Final.

 John Robertson who may well have been cruelly dismissed as a shuffling, lumbering slowcoach with very little in the way of any pace, played the classic winger's game, hugging the touchline, drawing defenders deceptively out of position, teasing and taunting with another show of deviousness and then bursting along the flank.

With minutes to go before half time, Robertson, after another game of pat a cake with his struggling defender, powered for the touchline and then drove in a superb cross. The ball almost seemed to have Francis name on it as the former Birmingham City goal machine lunged himself at the ball with a glancing header that flew into the Malmo net. Forest simply went through the motions in the second half and, although not the greatest of any European Cup Finals, were now acclaimed European Champions. All of Clough's bluff and bluster had proved wondrously well judged.

The final chapter of this first in an ITV series, saw Forest, quite astoundingly holding onto the European Cup after another stodgy and flat Final against Kevin Keegan's Hamburg. By now the miracle that had been achieved a year earlier had once again fallen out of a sky of twinkling Nottingham Forest stars. This time John Robertson, a winger par excellence, had pinched the ball out of a chaotic tangle of legs steering the ball neatly past the Hamburg keeper without batting an eye lid.

For the next two years English club football flourished and bloomed like the most eye catching of orchids. When Bill Shankly had retired from the game at Liverpool it was widely felt that Bob Paisley would never be remotely as successful. Shanks would though have given grudging approval to both the exploits of Clough but most certainly his noble successor Bob Paisley. Football does seem to go through any number of cycles. Maybe that's the reason we continue to watch the game in our global millions. It's time for that World Cup in Russia.