Defeated Reds still wrap up their 14th League Championship
Tottenham 2 Liverpool 0, 30th April 1983
The piece of retrospective writing that follows was originally penned and published on 10th February 2022 and a year or so later was featured in Liverpool Football Club’s only remaining independent fanzine “Red All Over The Land” (issue 293) with the editor kindly bestowing upon me the great honour of being the custodian in chief of their “Yesterday’s Paper” column as well as commenting:
“This piece has been adapted from an article originally written with a quill”
and quite frankly I’ll take that compliment all day long!
So here she is in her original form as well as the printed version and via a reading from my Youtube channel. As you will immediately note, this was another reading from my “riverside sessions” as I perched myself precariously on a fishing peg beside the River Severn in central England and with the oldest iron bridge in the world as THE perfect backdrop in early October 2023.
I’ll leave you to hopefully enjoy and especially so the amazing reflections from the river of my spiritual home of Ironbridge.
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
As long term readers will attest, I was bathed in the mighty Red of Liverpool from an early age and as such you’d imagine this brief retrospective match report would centre firmly on my footballing favourites. However, apart from two very late in the game half chances falling to my hero Kenny Dalglish, and one from a mistake from an otherwise majestic Tottenham Captain Steve Perryman, Liverpool were clearly dreadful on this day nearly 40 years ago.
From the scant highlights I have just seen for the first time in over four decades, they deserved little else than the comprehensive 2–0 defeat inflicted by a rampant home side. The Reds needed just a point to wrap up their 14th English League Title but with Manchester United only drawing at Norwich City on the same day, the required point was immaterial and Liverpool wrapped up the Title anyway, but on a day they were thoroughly and comprehensively outplayed.
I hadn’t seen the fuller highlights of this game and only the 2 goals over the past near 40 years and what struck me as I revisited this via www.youtube.com recently was the typical “blood and thunder” of an English top division game as well as the complete dominance that Tottenham exerted and a Tottenham team containing so many footballing names of both then and indeed now. In addition to the magnificent displays from their Captain Steve Perryman and a very young Gary Mabbutt their team contained ex Liverpool Red Ray Clemence in goal and in a rather fetching dark blue goalkeeping jersey too, Chris Hughton, Graham Roberts and the fast attacking threats from Steve Archibald, Tony Galvin, Alan Brazil and the mercurial Glenn Hoddle. Liverpool too were virtually at full strength with their Scottish backbone of Alan Hansen, Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish aided and abetted by League winning veterans such as Bruce Grobbelaar, Phil Neal and Ian Rush. But from the first whistle until virtually the last knockings of a fast paced game, Tottenham were seemingly in full control and fully deserving of the three points on offer for a win.
Although the two Tottenham goals would appear in the second half, the template for the game as a whole was settled very early in the first half with Glenn Hoddle, socks already nearing his ankles, pulling the strings and splaying passes beautifully around a packed White Hart Lane. Alongside Hoddle was his busy bee like Captain Perryman and Mabbutt in midfield and the trio continually set Tony Galvin in motion on the wing or with incisive passes to the front two strikers of Brazil and Archibald. Liverpool didn’t feature as an attacking threat at all in the first half as first Hoddle released Archibald before he fired over Grobbelaar’s crossbar and Hoddle himself fizzing a fantastic strike just past the Liverpool goalkeeper’s post. With Liverpool struggling to gain any foothold in the game Mabbutt set Brazil clear who saw his fierce shot well saved by a busy Grobbelaar and the first half closed at 0–0 only due to the wonderful goalkeeping of Grobbelaar who saved well from a rasping high shot from Tony Galvin.
Inside just 7 second half minutes Tottenham were 2 goals to the good and the game effectively over as slack Liverpool defending allowed a brilliant cross from Hoddle to find a bullet header from Steve Archibald and then the Liverpool defence parted like the Red Sea for Archibald to run through on goal and slot home a coolly taken second goal past a helpless Grobbelaar. The two half chances for Dalglish were at the dying embers of a game that Tottenham could and should have won more comprehensively. Gary O’Reilly saw a great shot beaten away by Grobbelaar, a flick header from Archibald saw him narrowly miss his hat-trick before a Mabbutt volley from outside the area dipped just over the bar. Hoddle again thundered a fantastic drive from outside the penalty area but directly at Grobbelaar and the very impressive Mabbutt again drove narrowly just past the upright of Grobbelaar’s goal.
The result though was immaterial on the day and Liverpool were crowned as Champions of England for the 14th time and this precious silverware was added to the Charity Shield and the League Cup previously won in the 1982–83 season. Tottenham would eventually qualify for European football the following season, leading to their famous UEFA Cup Final triumph in a penalty shoot out over their Belgian opponents, Anderlecht.
My collected pride and joy, also available via Amazon and all FREE to read should you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” package:
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.