Aged 34, Reds around the world were resigned to seeing our greatest ever goal scorer (346 goals and a figure so high I doubt it will ever be eclipsed) in another club’s shirt in the near future.
Welcome to Part 9 of my scrapbooking odyssey on the football team my dear old Mum “persuaded” me to follow when just a small boy and around the mercurial times of Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish, winnings cups in May and seemingly always holding that beautiful gleaming trophy with the “Big Ears”.
I attended my first Liverpool game as a 10 year old on 8th August 1982 when the Reds formed a “triangle” of pre-season friendlies with Coventry City and Ipswich Town and all hosted by my hometown club of Portsmouth. I was already a Red as far back as 1980 and I have no idea how my Mother achieved such a feat but she bought me the “Hitachi” home shirt and one I proudly wore as an 8 year old to a very stuffy, best bib and tucker occasion at Portsmouth Guildhall as I met the Lord Mayor after winning a painting competition with my entry, naturally entitled, “The Football Match”. So of course I was going to attend this Gala event as an 8 year old in my Liverpool shirt. What self respecting Red at that age wouldn’t?
So I’m not a Scouser (though I envy those with that particular birthplace) and I’m an “out of towner”. But please allow me to very briefly give you some bona fides as to the veracity of my support for this wonderful football club.
My first game was 1982 and my last was 2012. In the 30 years in between I have followed the Reds at over 55 league grounds in England and Wales as well as 7 European grounds and I’ve probably travelled to see them 300+ times. Not an idyll boast, nor is it overly ground breaking. I’ve been incredibly lucky as well as being incredibly skint watching the Reds! I became a season ticket holder in the season before the first lock down after being on the waiting list since 1998 . I had the crest tattooed on my arm as a 15 year old, I’ve sat on a cold coach for days going to Switzerland for a 2nd Round Cup Winners Cup tie, I watched *that* goal in *that* 1996 FA Cup Final on a tiny Casio TV outside “our” end of Wembley without a ticket.
Well, I had a ticket, but that’s a whole other story for another day.
So I’m a Southern born Red with a lot of scrapbook cuttings to share and maybe the occasional commentary to go along with them too. I hope you enjoy sharing them with me.
“Allez! Allez! Allez!”
Disclaimer — All pictures contained within this blog will be almost certainly from the “main” UK publications of the day but more importantly perhaps wholly contained within some loved, if dusty, scrapbooks of a 30 year vintage and placed here purely for enjoyment purposes and I hope that this disclaimer meets everyone’s needs. If not, thank you www.guardian.comwww.dailymail.co.ukwww.thetimes.co.ukwww.mirror.co.ukwww.telegraph.co.ukwww.liverpoolecho.co.uk et al for entertaining this Pritt Stick and scissors wielding young child/spotty teen/tall and gangly late teenager and young adult who should’ve stopped ripping and cutting up newspapers long before he hung up his scissors! All programmes shown here are from my personal collection.
Disclaimer II — This is far from a fully comprehensive review of the season and purely the contents and selected pages from my scrapbooks and boxes of football programmes. I was nicknamed by my Liverpool match going pal as “The Cutter” in reference to an Echo and the Bunnymen song and so hence, here are my cuttings.
Disclaimer III — There will be images from a certain reviled newspaper that I will not name and I only include them (where available) as they represent the cuttings at that time. I despise that “newspaper” and when I used to “go the match” I always wore my Hillsborough Support Group scarf and a white sticker imploring everyone not to buy that unnamed “newspaper”.
So onto the good stuff! I have 10+ seasons of cuttings to share and I hope these scraps from my books jog a memory of the match concerned or the era, the city in general or your life at that time.
Human memories are a precious commodity. I hope you enjoy.
The Reds huge Summer signing of Stanley Victor Collymore
Liverpool (1) Sheffield Wednesday (0), 19th August 1995. 40,535 were in attendance for this opening fixture of the league season at Anfield and to pay homage to our new Number 8 who scored a spectacular winning goal on his Anfield debut.
L to R: more action from the opening day victory over Sheffield Wednesday, a 1–0 reverse at Elland Road against Leeds United before a blonde haired God celebrates scoring at White Hart Lane in a 3–1 victory over hosts Tottenham Hotspur. The Reds collected 6 points out of a possible 9 at the start of the season.
More action from the 3–1 away win at Tottenham Hotspur before the month of August closes with a 1–0 home win against Queens Park Rangers and the Reds collect 9 out of 12 points in the opening month of the season.
Wimbledon (1) Liverpool (0), 9th September 1995 at Selhurst Park. 19,530 (and the vast majority of the crowd overwhelmingly Red) saw a spiky defeat to the “Crazy Gang” and a second league defeat of the season.
Liverpool (3) Blackburn Rovers (0), 16th September. An Anfield crowd of 39,502 saw a Blackburn Rovers side a shadow of their former Championship winning selves and without Kenny Dalglish at the helm.
L to R: More from the 3–0 home win over Blackburn Rovers and a 2–0 home win against Sunderland as the holders of the Coca-Cola Cup begin their defence of the trophy.
Liverpool (5) Bolton Wanderers (2), 23rd September 1995. Attendance at Anfield 40,104. Robbie Fowler scores 4 goals in just 67 minutes for a stunning individual performance. Again.
L to R: The Reds sneak through to the 2nd Round of the UEFA Cup before the new distinctive four quartered away shirts of this seasons Reds draw 2–2 at Old Trafford against Manchester United.
Manchester United (2) Liverpool (2), 1st October 1995. At an under redevelopment Old Trafford, 34,934 welcomed back their French hero and I was enormously blooming annoyed on this particular day. Next!
3 days in mid October see two consecutive 0–0 draws with Coventry City in the league and with Brondby of Denmark in the 2nd Round 1st Leg of the UEFA Cup.
6 days in late October with 13 goals scored and only 1 conceded as Southampton are beaten 3–1 at The Dell and Manchester City are beaten 10–0 on an aggregate basis between their 4–0 defeat in the Coca-Cola League Cup and a 6–0 defeat at Anfield just 3 days later.
Liverpool (0) Brondby (1), 31st October 1995, 2nd Round 2nd Leg of the UEFA Cup. 35,878 witnessed a shock away win for the Danes and thus ended the Reds European dreams for yet another season.
More cup heartache for the Reds as a month after going out of the UEFA Cup they lose 1–0 at home to Newcastle United in the Coca-Cola League Cup and their holders tag is no more. I was in a crowd of over 40,000 for this 4th round tie and I thought the Reds were going to go all the way to Wembley in this trophy again. In between the two cup defeats was a nadir of the season as they lost 3 and drew 1 of their other games during a dispiriting month of November.
Part 1: Liverpool (1) Southampton (1) and Bolton Wanderers (0) Liverpool (1), 2nd to 9th December.
Part 2: Liverpool (1) Southampton (1) and Bolton Wanderers (0) Liverpool (1), 2nd to 9th December.
Liverpool (2) Manchester United (0), 17th December 1995. Attendance at Anfield 40,546. “God” with a sublime free kick and his best mate Steve McManaman following up with a second goal 8 minutes later.
New Year fixtures as the Reds draw with Chelsea at the end of 1995 before defeating Nottingham Forest 4–2 on the first day of 1996. The calendar year ahead of 1996 was to be a momentous one in so many ways.
Liverpool (7) Rochdale (0). FA Cup 3rd Round at Anfield, 6th January 1996. 28,126 saw a hat-trick from Stan Collymore and another FA Cup goal for legendary goal scorer Ian Rush. The Reds were on the Wembley trail again.
Sheffield Wednesday (1) Liverpool (1), 13th January 1996. Attendance at Hillsborough 32,747.
Liverpool (5) Leeds United (0), 20th January 1996. Attendance at Anfield 40,254. A brace of goals apiece for Neil Ruddock and Robbie Fowler blow away Leeds United at Anfield.
More from the above game and Liverpool’s 5 goal demolition of Leeds United on 20th January 1996.
8 days in early February and 4 more points as the Reds stay in the pack in the top 6 places in the Premier League after a 0–0 home draw with Tottenham Hotspur and a much needed 2–1 away win at Queens Park Rangers.
Shrewsbury Town (0) Liverpool (4). FA Cup 4th Round at Gay Meadow. Attendance 7,752.
In the middle of a 5 game consecutive winning streak in February the Reds won 3–2 away at Blackburn Rovers, the scene of a bizarre goal from Stan Collymore that bobbled over one of Tim Flowers goalkeeping “marks” and the Reds dominated a straight forward win from then on. The Reds would go unbeaten throughout February and well into March and were unbeaten dating back to 25th November, but frustratingly they couldn’t significantly close the gap on the two main Championship contenders of Newcastle United and Manchester United.
Aged 34, Reds around the world were resigned to seeing our greatest ever goal scorer (346 goals and a figure so high I doubt it will ever be eclipsed) in another club’s shirt in the near future.
Liverpool (2) Charlton Athletic (1). FA Cup 5th Round, 28th February 1996. Goals from a goal scoring partnership in real bloom, Robbie Fowler and Stan Collymore, secure the Reds place in the FA Cup Quarter Finals against a battling and gallant Charlton Athletic.
On 3rd March 1996, Aston Villa visited Anfield in a League encounter and in front of 39,508 the visitors were 3–0 down within just 8 minutes of an incredible start and two best friends in the shape of Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler tore them to shreds. McManaman scored the first with a deft volley from a cheeky Fowler flick into his path before “God” took over with two supreme goals, the first of which was receiving the ball around 40 yards from goal, brilliantly turning past ex Reds defender Steve Staunton and running in stride to hit a wonder goal from 30 yards. The third goal wasn’t bad either!
4 days in early March and 2 varying degrees of draws but the Reds were still unbeaten in the League since late November and crucially, still in the FA Cup and facing a replay with Leeds United at Anfield.
A 2–0 win for the Reds at home to Chelsea on 16th March and the Reds remained on their long unbeaten run but frustratingly couldn’t make any inroads into the 2 teams that continued to set the pace at the top of the league.
Liverpool (3) Leeds United (0). FA Cup 5th Round Replay at Anfield. Attendance 30,812. I was extremely nervous driving to this game as I had a feeling Wembley beckoned if we could just get past Leeds United. And get past them we did with second half goals from those Liverpool born best friends again, Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler. The Reds were in the Semi-Finals of the FA Cup for the first time since 1992.
The long league unbeaten run sequence comes to a crashing end at the City Ground as Nottingham Forest beat one of their old boys, Stan Collymore, and the Reds, 1–0 on 23rd March 1996. A four month unbeaten league run had come to an end.
FA Cup Semi-Finals don’t come as easy as this! On 31st March 1996 at Old Trafford, the green and white quartered shirts of Liverpool simply rolled over Aston Villa 3–0 (a brace of goals from Robbie Fowler) and the Reds were in the FA Cup Final for the first time in 4 years.
Liverpool (4) Newcastle United (3), 3rd April 1996. 40,702 fans witnessed what would later be voted on and described as the “Greatest ever Premier League game”, a game that would lead to a gaggle of famous quotes, an outburst from Kevin Keegan and a proclamation from Manager Roy Evans that the Reds were not only chasing down the leaders of the League but were gunning for the FA Cup too.
This ridiculous game will go down in the annals of footballing history as one of the most captivating and watchable pieces of football carnage possible! Re-watching the game now, it never stops, end to end, frenetic pace, drama, action and plenty of goals. Robbie Fowler put the Reds in front inside 2 minutes but 12 minutes later they were trailing 2–1 to a rampant visiting team from Newcastle. Fowler equalised 12 minutes into the 2nd half only for Faustino Asprilla to restore the Newcastle lead almost immediately. However, just 3 further minutes pass before Stan Collymore restores parity at 3–3 and there’s still 27 minutes to go. With seconds remaining, the two old stagers in John Barnes and Ian Rush are playing passes to each other on the edge of the penalty area before a perfect pass to Stan Collymore which the commentary greeted with “COLLYMORE CLOSING IN!” before the net rippled, Newcastle hearts were broken and Stan Collymore celebrated like never before. An incredible game of football.
Following the incredible game with Newcastle, the Reds lost 3 days later at Coventry City and this all but extinguished any further hopes of winning the Championship. They would go unbeaten until the end of the season, picking up 9 points from a possible 15 but they were still way off the pace set by Newcastle United and Manchester United at the top of the table.
Ian Rush’s final game in the red shirt of Liverpool and a season ending 2–2 draw at Maine Road that crazily saw Manchester City relegated on goal difference. The Reds finished 3rd, 7 points behind Newcastle United in 2nd and 11 from Manchester United. However, the season was not over for either the Reds of Liverpool or indeed the Reds of Manchester United as they met in the 1996 FA Cup Final at Wembley. If you’ve read my disclaimers above you’ll be aware I went to this game, didn’t have a ticket but “acquired” one and well, I was in out of Wembley in a matter of seconds! It’s a very long story, nothing nefarious or criminal happened, but that’s enough talk of that FA Cup Final and those bloody white suits! Cuttings from the Final seemed to have vanished into the space time continuum and the Final itself didn’t really happen. Honest!
I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this ramble through the season. If so, can I direct you to the recently and previously published other seasons I’ve lovingly put together from my old scrapbooks:
