Logos of the Beatles who abandoned the city just as Bill Shankly was
Logos of the Beatles, who abandoned the city just as Bill Shankly was winning his first championship, greet motorists at the end of the M62. Their museum sits near that celebrating Merseyside’s largely defunct maritime heritage while over at Anfield they still sell icons of Shankly a short distance from his statue just beyond the Paisley Gateway. The past is another country and in Liverpool they travel to it on package holidays. Logos of the Beatles, who abandoned the city just as Bill Shankly was winning his first championship, greet motorists at the end of the M62.
Their museum sits near that celebrating Merseyside’s largely defunct maritime heritage while over at Anfield they still sell icons of Shankly a short distance from his statue just beyond the Paisley Gateway.
You can listen to the violin swoop that precedes the final chorus of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” just before the players appear and pretend that the 1990s, Merseyside’s dead decade, never happened.Surprisingly for a man who used to teach in Liverpool, Gérard Houllier professes to have little interest in what has gone before. “I don’t want to be remembered, except as a team builder and I don’t care about the past,” said the Liverpool manager when asked if victory over Roma in the Olympic stadium might assuage the immortals like Ian St John, Tommy Smith and Ian Rush who pass stern judgement on Radio City’s football broadcasts and in the pages of the Liverpool Echo.”How can you compare us to a side that won four European Cups over seven years? I am constantly reminded of the past They [the players of that era] always let us know. But we have the humility to know where we stand.”The present looks bright enough. Unless Roma produce something stunning at Anfield tomorrow night, Liverpool should seal their progress to the quarter-finals of the Uefa Cup before travelling to Cardiff for the Worthington Cup final, aiming for their first trophy in six barren years.”In no other country would they accept playing a final two and a half days after a big European game,” he says. “But I’m very English and I don’t moan about it.”When Houllier took over from Roy Evans in November 1998, his first wave of signings were overwhelmingly foreign, leading Eddie Braben, Morecambe and Wise’s scriptwriter, to give up his season ticket, arguing that Liverpool footballers no longer knew where the Pier Head was.”I had a budget of £12m and I couldn’t buy English players for that,” said Houllier. “I wanted Sol Campbell, but Tottenham wouldn’t sell and I can understand that – I wouldn’t sell him to me if I was at Tottenham.
I had to go to Stéphane Henchoz and Sami Hyypia because I believe great teams must be able to play from the back.”You look at Manchester United, who have they bought who is English? Not Barthez, not Fortune, not Stam, not Silvestre, not Yorke.”But when I have had money I’ve bought British; Emile Heskey and Nick Barmby – together they represent the cost of Rio Ferdinand I want to keep a British heart to the side. I like the British attitude; you can see them puff their chests out when they play. Michael Owen is a bit like that.”Liverpool’s heart is also England’s heart. Half a dozen are expected to figure when Sven Goran Eriksson names his first squad on Friday and Houllier, who spent 10 years as either manager or technical director of the French national side, believes that in terms of natural ability England will have an enormous advantage by the time the World Cup after next comes around.”English football has this vast reservoir of talent. Most countries have about 20 outstanding young players but in England you have 40 and they will come to their peak between 2005 and 2008. It is difficult for Eriksson because he has to qualify for a World Cup and you need experience to do that. Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka could not have succeeded unless they had experienced players like Didier Deschamps around them.”There has been a sea change at Liverpool’s training ground at Melwood, similar to the one Eric Cantona effected at Manchester United when he asked for two members of the youth team and some balls to practise with after training.”Two years ago they would get into their cars and go, there was nothing you could do about that, nothing,” Houllier said.
