Joe Fagan, along with Bob Paisley, was one of the most unassuming and least understood figures in football. Uncle Joe has also never been given full credit for his achievements. This article tries to correct all those misunderstandings, and at the same time trying to educate the later generations of Reds on the this particular bedrock of Anfield legend.
On
Second Thoughts: Joe Fagan
The
one-time Liverpool manager deserves more acclaim having won three major honours
in his first season in charge of the club.
Joe
Fagan remains the last English manager to have won the European Cup, landing
the trophy with Liverpool in 1984. Photograph: Popperfoto.com
In a
week when the Champions League group stages kicked off again amid a backdrop of
reprisals and recriminations regarding the state of the national game –
initiated by
Greg
Dyke's call to arms and hardened by England's recent
dour
draw in Kiev – it feels appropriate to pose this teaser: Who was the last
English manager to win the European Cup? Answer: Joe Fagan. Cue, one suspects,
a raising of eyebrows by some and a shrugging of shoulders by others.
It
is a curiosity of this country's footballing back story that Fagan, who managed
Liverpool between
1983-1985, remains such an unheralded figure. Rarely, if ever, spoken of as one
of the greats and practically unheard of by many supporters under the age of
30. This, after all, is a man who 15 years before Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest
moment became the first British manager in English football to win three major
honours in one season – the old First Division title, the Milk Cup and the
European Cup. Even more remarkably, the triumph occurred in Fagan's debut
season in charge at Anfield, and with "old big ears" captured against
Roma in Rome.
"Football, bloody hell"
as somebody once said.
The
1983-84 season can justifiably be judged to be the finest in Liverpool's
history, yet even at the club itself there is minimum recognition of the man
who led the glory charge. No statue, no gate, not even a plaque in Fagan's
name. In fairness, there are tributes to his achievements at the club's museum,
as well as a Joe Fagan meeting room at Liverpool's offices in Chapel Street,
and having found himself sandwiched between Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley on one
side and Kenny Dalglish on the other in Liverpool's roll-call of managers, it
is perhaps not a great surprise that Fagan's achievements are not more
obviously celebrated at Anfield, especially given the brief nature of his
reign.
At
practically any other club Fagan would continue to be hailed as a king among
princes but on Merseyside he is generally remembered with fondness rather than
pulsating adoration. Fagan probably would have preferred it that way given his
modest, humble nature, with his only major regret most likely being the nature
of his departure from the Anfield hotseat – the end coming amid the tragedy and
cruelty of the
Heysel Stadium
disaster. "He lived with it all his life," said Andrew Fagan,
Joe's grandson and co-author of Joe Fagan: Reluctant Champion. "He had
served in the Royal Navy during the war, he understood what was a game and what
was not. From what I am told he never really talked about it at home, he simply
carried it with him."
If
the end was bleak then the rest of Fagan's time at Liverpool was tinged with a
golden hue. The born-and-bred Scouser joined the club as a coach on 30 June
1958 and, following Bill Shankly's arrival as manager 18 months later, was put
in charge of the reserves. Having caught the eye of the Scot, Fagan was made
first-team coach in July 1971 and following Shankly's shock resignation three
years later, became Bob Paisley's assistant.
Paisley's
spell in charge was glorious – he led Liverpool to 14 major honours in nine
seasons – and it only enhanced Fagan's reputation as a coach and potential
successor despite his only previous managerial experience coming with
non-league Nelson in the early-1950s. "To Kopites, Fagan's appointment [as
manager] felt like an obvious promotion after the successful in-house
succession from Shankly to Paisley," says writer and long-time Anfield
season-ticket holder Mike Nevin. "In Papal terms, white smoke from the
chimneys on the roofs of Back Rockfield Road filled the Anfield skies in no
time once Paisley's decision to retire was known."
Bob Paisley, left and Joe Fagan on the bench
at Anfield. Photograph: Pa/PA Archive/PA Photos
But
as the title of the book Andrew Fagan wrote alongside author and LFC TV senior
producer Mark Platt suggests, Joe Fagan did not himself deem his elevation from
assistant to manager as an obvious step. "He was very reluctant to take
the job," says Platt. "Joe's feeling was that he was so ingrained in
the club's rise to champions of Europe that he was almost duty-bound to take
the job, especially as he was next in line to the throne. He also felt that if
an outsider came in there was a strong chance he'd destroy the bootroom ethos
that was behind Liverpool's success. Joe pretty much told Roy Evans, Ronnie
Moran and the rest of the staff that he took the manager's job so they would
keep theirs.
"The
club's long-term plan was to give the manager's job to one of the senior
players – Phil Neal and Kenny Dalglish were both in the frame – but they still
had much to offer as players so Joe was seen as a more than worthy short-term
appointment. And given he was 62 when he took the job, just two years younger than
Paisley, that was all it was ever going to be, short term."
It
it no surprise Fagan was so protective of Liverpool's bootroom given he
essentially founded the fabled inner sanctuary. It was he, after all, who took
delivery of the crates of Guinness given as a thank you from the brewery's
team, which Fagan sometimes coached. With no obvious place to put the gifts
Fagan ended up storing them in the same room as the boots which, holding a
consistent and increasing supply of alcohol, became an obvious place for the
backroom staff to gather, relax and share their thoughts.
Fagan
officially became Liverpool manager on 1 July 1983 and soon two contradictory
charges were thrown at him – that he was too soft to be the manager of a team
that had to compete for major honours having won three of the last four league
championships and three of the last seven European Cups, and that he was bound
to succeed given the strength of the side Paisley had left him. Put another
way, Fagan could not win or lose.
The
soft-touch charge in particular was a myth. The laconic Fagan was anything but,
with a host of players and coaches who worked with "Uncle Joe"
testifying to his steely, no-nonsense attitude. Neal, who Fagan made Liverpool
captain following Graeme Souness's departure to Sampdoria in the summer of
1984, tells a story of how the then assistant manager took it upon himself to
hold the players to account after they found themselves 12th in the First
Division following a 3-1 home defeat to Manchester City on Boxing Day 1981 .
"One morning we came into training and Joe Fagan said to Bob Paisley:
'Boss, you go down to Melwood. I'm going to have the lads,'" remembers
Neal.
"Joe
sat us all down and had a go at every single player, to Souness, to Dalglish,
to me. He said: 'We've had more meetings in the last month at this club than
I've had in 17 years. [Alan] Hansen, start heading the ball, Souness, you
haven't won a tackle, Dalglish, you should have twice as many goals by now'.
Joe was such a strong man that no one would doubt what he was saying. His
finishing words were: 'I've said my piece. You're all playing like individuals,
start playing as a team. I'm not having another meeting from now 'till the end
of the season'. We went on to win the league."
Souness
also remembers Fagan as a man who could get his message across "with a
single look", a device he may well have used when telling Dalglish in
October 1984 that he had been dropped for the upcoming league visit to
Tottenham, a close-to-unthinkable decision at the time and one that stunned
John Smith and Peter Robinson, the club's chairman and chief executive, when
they heard the news upon landing in London for the game having been in Germany
securing a new kit deal with Adidas. Liverpool lost 1-0 and Fagan admitted
afterwards that he had made a mistake in dropping Dalglish, yet his reason for
doing so was sound. The Scot had lost some of the spark that made him the key
creative cog of a winning machine and, as Fagan saw it, when Dalglish played
badly so did Liverpool.
Kenny Dalglish vies for possession with Bryan
Robson during Liverpool's FA Cup semi-final with Manchester United in April
1985. The match came near the end of a difficult season for the Scot.
Photograph: Bob Thomas/Bob Thomas/Getty Images
This
touches on the other charge laid against Fagan – that success as manager was
inevitable given Liverpool's strength at the time. There is no doubt he was
taking over an awesome side, but therein also lay a problem. "Liverpool
were so far in front of everyone else, domestically at least, that complacency
had begun to set in," says Platt. "They won the title in '83 at a
canter and, if anything, it had been too easy. The team failed to win any of
their last seven games, losing five, and it was obvious that the players had
taken their foot of the pedal. The danger was this attitude carried into the
following season, and so Joe's main task was to remotivate the squad and stop
them thinking winning was easy."
It
helped Fagan that the squad he inherited from Paisley was not only talented but
also fully accepting of his rise from No2 to No1, no one more so than the
captain. "Souey was a big fan of Joe's," recalls Mark Lawrenson in
Reluctant Champion. "That pre-season he called a meeting just for the
players. He came in and said: 'Right, we think the world of this fella and this
year we are absolutely determined to be successful for him.' To a man everyone
said: 'Yep, you're right.'"
The
squad of 1983-84 contained seven players – Neal, Hansen, Lawrenson, Alan
Kennedy, Souness, Dalglish and Ian Rush – who would walk into many Kopites'
"greatest Liverpool XI" and would have been strengthened to an even
greater degree had Fagan been able to secure his key summer transfer targets:
Charlie Nicholas of Celtic and Brondby's Michael Laudrup. For different reasons
neither were signed, leaving Fagan instead to wrap up deals for the young
Scottish defender Gary Gillespie from Coventry and the Brighton forward Michael
Robinson. Gillespie did not feature until February, in a 2-2 draw with Walsall
in the semi-finals of the Milk Cup, but Robinson was prominent straightaway,
starting in the opening-day draw with Wolves as the manager opted for a
three-man attack that also contained Dalglish and Rush.
It
was a tactic Fagan turned to regularly during that season and contradicted the
perception of him being an orthodox British coach and of the Liverpool team of
that time being less than imaginative. Nevin describes them as "seldom
fluent", while in a tribute to Fagan on the club's own website the side of
83-84 is deemed to have operated with
"cool,
calculating efficiency".
In
fairness, the stats back up those assertions. In Fagan's first season,
Liverpool won 22 league games, scoring 73 goals and conceding 32, which
compares to 24 games won, 87 goals scored and 37 conceded in Paisley's final
campaign in charge. In other words, they appeared to have become tighter at the
back and less rampant up front. But it should be noted that under Fagan,
Liverpool beat Luton and West Ham 6-0 and Notts County and Coventry 5-0 en
route to winning their 15th league title and won every European away game prior
to Rome, including a 4-1 victory over Benfica in Lisbon. The Milk Cup,
meanwhile, was secured with a
1-0 win against Everton
in a final that to be replayed at Maine Road after the initial tie at Wembley had
ended goalless.
The
European Cup final was, as Nevin puts it, "
more absorbing than thrilling".
Liverpool took the lead through Neal's 14th-minute strike before Roberto Pruzzo
headed in an equaliser just before half-time. There were no more goals, leaving
the visitors from Merseyside with the daunting prospect of having to beat Roma
in a penalty shootout in front of a largely partisan crowd at the Stadio
Olimpico. Here, though, came an opportunity for the manager to shape his own
crowning moment.
"With
exhausted, limp players preparing for a shootout, Fagan played his trump
psychological card, explaining to his team that he didn't care if they
prevailed on penalties or not after such an epic season-long effort,"
recollects Nevin. "The pressure removed, enter stage left
Bruce Grobbelaar's jelly legs
to cause Roman mental implosion."
With
Grobbelaar having done his bit to put off the home side, Kennedy tucked away
the decisive penalty to crown Liverpool kings of Europe for the fourth time
since 1977. Fagan, in turn, joined Jock Stein, Matt Busby, Paisley, Brian
Clough and Tony Barton as part of the select group of British managers to have
landed club football's greatest prize.
Joe Fagan celebrates winning the 1984 European
Cup with his Liverpool players. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Bob Thomas/Getty Images
Souness
collected the trophy and it was to be his final act as a Liverpool player ahead
of his departure to Sampdoria. Platt describes losing the Scot as a
"massive blow" for Fagan, the man who was not only his captain but
also the driving force of an all conquering side. The manager reacted by signing
Jan Molby from Ajax, but the 21-year-old was a different player to Souness and
not yet ready to become an influential member of the Liverpool side (that would
come a season later when he inspired Dalglish's team to the
league and FA Cup double).
Soon realising this, Fagan then deployed Lawrenson in centre-midfield before
also using Kevin MacDonald after he arrived from Leicester in November '84.
None
of them, however, came close to filling the void left by Souness, and with
Dalglish suffering a dip in form and Rush out injured until October, the
1984-85 campaign proved a gruelling affair for Liverpool. They found themselves
17th after a 1-0 home defeat to Everton on 20 October, and while Fagan's men
were able eventually to string some wins together they could not maintain their
grasp on the title and finished second to Howard Kendall's side. Liverpool also
lost to another rival, Manchester United, in the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
Another
European Cup final was reached, however, but this, prior to Hillsborough, was
to be the darkest moment in the club's history. Rioting by Liverpool supporters
in Brussels led to the death of 39 Italian and Belgian fans and a subsequent
five-year ban from European football for all English clubs. Juventus's victory
was something of an afterthought, especially for Fagan who had told his players
before the game that, afterwards, they could call him Joe instead of boss
having taken the decision some months earlier to retire. He returned from
Belgium a broken man, seen crying on the shoulder of Evans as he stepped off
the plane and barely able to comprehend what he had witnessed the previous
evening.
The aftermath of crowd rioting at Heysel in
1985 which left 39 Italian and Belgium fans dead. Photograph: David
Cannon/Getty Images
It
was an awful way for Fagan's spell as Liverpool manager to end and it is
further credit to the then 64-year-old that he took it upon himself to speak
for the club at a memorial service at Liverpool's Catholic cathedral. "We
pray for the families and friends who have suffered through bereavement,"
he told the congregation. "We pray that the sporting spirit, so treasured
on Merseyside, may never be lost to violence or bitterness."
The
address characterised Fagan's warmth as a man, a quality Liverpool's all-time
record-appearance holder Ian Callaghan saw from the time they first worked
together at reserve level.
"Joe
was a lovely man, someone who was always around to give you advice and help in
any he could," says Callaghan. "I remember once, we were at the
Daresbury hotel, where we always stayed before a home game, and I was injured
and needed to get to Anfield for some treatment if I was to stand any chance of
playing that afternoon. Nobody was around to take me so Joe said he would. We
got in his car and, on the way, he asked if I was hungry and wanted to eat
something before my treatment. I said I wouldn't mind so he drove me to his
house where his wife Lil made me scrambled eggs. That was typical not just of
Joe but of his entire family – they were lovely, down-to-earth people."
Joe,
Lil and their six children lived in a semi-detached house in Lynholme Road, a
short walk from Anfield, and it was where they remained even after Fagan, upon
becoming Liverpool manager, was offered a larger place by the club in
Southport, Formby and the Wirral. The property became Fagan's sanctuary after
retirement, offering him a quiet, family-orientated existence which suited him
perfectly. Eventually he became a source of advice and encouragement to Evans
after he took the manager's job in the mid-1990s and who looked upon Fagan as a
mentor, describing him in later years as the "glue that held everything
together" during Liverpool's golden era.
Fagan
died following a battle with cancer on 30 June 2001, aged 80. It was perhaps
apt given how his managerial achievements were overshadowed by those of Shankly
and Paisley that his passing should occur in the same week as the Liverpool legend
Billy Liddell and his fellow bootroom disciple Tom Saunders. Once again Fagan
did not have the spotlight to himself but the fact that hundreds of Everton as
well as Liverpool fans lined the streets as his funeral procession made its way
to Anfield Crematorium showed Fagan had left his mark on the city of his birth.
"When
you look at the all-time greats of Liverpool, Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, you
have to have Joe up there," said Hansen shortly after Fagan's death, while
Dalglish described his contribution to the club as "immense".
From
Souness, who attributes much of his success as a player to Fagan, came perhaps
the greatest tribute. "Joe was Mr Liverpool," he said. "His
contribution should never be allowed to fade from the memory."
From an article in The Guardian.
