Whelan at the double as the Reds edge closer to their 13th League Title
Retro Series Vol 24: Southampton 2 Liverpool 3, 24th April 1982.
Retro Series Vol 24: Southampton 2 Liverpool 3, 24th April 1982.
I’m presupposing that you’re reading this article and the 24th volume in a long running series of retrospective articles on my beloved Liverpool as either a fellow fan of the Reds, perhaps a follower of today’s vanquished opponents and the “Saints” of Southampton or an impartial lover of the sport Pele once famously described as the “Beautiful Game”. If so, can I respectfully redirect you to the wonderful www.youtube.com channel linked at the end of this opening paragraph and suggest you watch the 24 minutes of highlights recently uploaded of this incredible, dare I say almost epochal, game of football? Where now we have the impeccable and perfect billiard table green pitches that allow for this game to be not just beautiful but almost as unreal and as expertly performed akin to a PlayStation or Xbox console game, back on this late April day of 1982 Southampton’s quaintly unorthodox and outdated ground “The Dell” was packed to it’s wooden rafters and enthralled by a game of five goals, a spectacular “Goal of the Season” candidate and two internationally flavoured teams approaching the apex of their respective team eras on a sandy and bobbly pitch that shouldn’t have afforded even these legends to produce such a high quality version of the beautiful game.
Dave Waller
This channel is about a football team - the greatest team you've ever seen. A team that played total football, won the…www.youtube.com
Now that you’ve watched the incredible game under discussion I’ll briefly recap the game, and Liverpool win, that 40 years ago took the Reds to the precipice of their 13th League Championship title, but first, a more personal tale. For “Southampton Away” (as it was always known growing up) was a pivotal fixture to find and pen with ink onto my footballing calendar every season as I grew up roughly 19 or 20 miles along the south coast in the neighbouring city of Portsmouth and hence, just a 30 minute train ride away from seeing my footballing heroes from Liverpool play. As is thoroughly documented in the article linked at the bottom of this particular paragraph, I attended at least 15 of these footballing clashes between my first in 1985 and my last in the mid 2000’s. I also have a claim to a further 3 matches I can’t account for due to missing match tickets and programmes (as well as a failing memory) and I hopefully weave an interesting story around these games with the attending and being inside Southampton’s famed old (and now no more) stadium “The Dell” with the home “End” appearing ready to fall into the adjacent road or the antiquated floodlights atop the outdated stands and the players who entered the field of play from an old building in the corner of the ground that was past its sell by date long before I first went there in the mid 1980’s.
There were the hologram match tickets that always had the face of local hero Steve Moran on them, the short but eventful train journeys with regular companions Marc and Roger, the paying in cash at the turnstiles and the hours of waiting for them to open and trying to act like a man in a world I was too young and juvenile to understand. I try and paint a picture of what it was like to be amongst “Scousers” and the fervent fans from the city of Liverpool, all of whom had travelled many, many hours to be here whilst I, an interloper from down the road, had travelled three or four stops on the train, and as the subtitle of my article suggests, I rejected love on Valentines Day to be at this famed old stadium and my indulgent local yearly fixture I so looked forward to, only to be smacked in the face by a Jamie Redknapp howitzer in practice before the game that knocked me out!
A St Valentine’s Day Massacre indeed!
Not quite but it is one of the earliest pieces of long form writing I ever produced on the Mighty Reds of Liverpool and it’s a rather fine article that I’d be pleased if you gave it a read sometime.
A lifetime of “Southampton Away”
and how I got into an argument with Jamie Redknapp that almost resulted in a bloody St Valentines Day massacre!medium.com
Today’s game was an instant classic of its time that ensured the Reds held a 4 point lead at the top of the English 1st Division (as it was then known) over their nearest foes Ipswich Town in what was now a two horse race for the title. Southampton had in fact been this season’s early pacesetters at the top of the league before being usurped by first the surprise team of the season Swansea City who were then surpassed by Manchester United. As the north west giant fell away they were replaced by Ipswich Town but with the Reds of Liverpool on an unbelievable winning run since the turn of the year, they claimed top spot after a 1–0 win at home against Notts County on 2nd April 1982 and here, 22 days, 4 wins later and 9 consecutive league wins all told, the Reds had ascended to the top of the 1st Division to stay, and eventually, claim their 13th League Championship title.
All that was for the future but the past, present and footballing futures all collided on this late April afternoon to provide an incredible English classic of the age.
The home team Saints in their traditional red and white striped shirts.
The Reds from Liverpool in their beautifully distinctive and still favourite alternative strip of all yellow with faint red pinstripes.
Whereas today’s Premier League is awash with continental and world wide football stars from every possible nationality, forty years ago the English game was still very inward looking and parochial. Not so today’s home team Saints and the visiting Reds from Liverpool. Following the departure of club legend Ray Clemence, Zimbabwean eccentric Bruce Grobbelaar was still bedding into his first season as the Reds goalkeeping custodian whilst in the Saints goal stood Croatian international Ivan Katalinic. Despite the five combined goals these two legendary figures would concede on this particular afternoon, it could easily have been double had it not been for their incredible acrobatic skills in goal.
Playing in front of these goalkeepers were two teams with a steely backbone of English and British players as well as a mix of the youthful promise that would later become household names as well as the already incredibly famous veterans playing alongside internationally renowned players such as Southampton full back Ivan Golac (Yugoslavia) and Liverpool’s energetic bundle of fire Craig Johnston (Australia) in his first season of many for the Reds. Whereas Southampton, under the direction of their legendary manager Lawrie McMenemy, blended the youth of Graham Baker and Mark Wright (who would later captain Liverpool to a FA Cup Final win exactly 10 years later) with the incredible experience of ex Red Kevin Keegan, Mick Channon, Alan Ball and David Armstrong, Bob Paisley was blending a Liverpool team of promise (Bruce Grobbelaar, Mark Lawrenson, Craig Johnston and Ian Rush) with the tried and trophy winning formula of legends and veterans in the shape of Phil Neal, Phil Thompson, Alan Hansen and the King, Kenny Dalglish. Regular captain Graeme Souness was absent again through injury today but in his stead was a young Irishman and future Liverpool captain who throughout his career seemed to have an incredible knack for scoring vitally important goals, and today was no exception.
Headline grabber Ronnie Whelan would score two goals today and the crucial winning goal with just 2 minutes left on the clock, but his first on 54 minutes was a gem. A back to front move started by a defensive headed clearance from Phil Thompson was cycled from Mark Lawrenson to Craig Johnston who expertly with the outside of his right boot set Whelan clear and running through on goal. As Ivan Katalinic raced from his goal to narrow the angle, Whelan nonchalantly chipped the advancing goalkeeper with the ease of a 21 year old starlet at the peak of his youthful powers that brought TV commentator Gerald Sinstadt to exclaim triumphantly:
“That goal was a surgeon’s scalpel through Southampton”
If that wasn’t grand enough, yet another of TV’s iconic football commentators of the time would outdo himself just minutes earlier. With the score line standing at 1–0 in favour of the Reds after a brilliant over the shoulder volleyed goal from Ian Rush on 12 minutes, the Saints of Southampton would equalise with that vaunted title of “Goal of the Season” and what a goal it was and what a goal I’ve admired now for nearly four decades. As with Whelan’s early second half strike above, Southampton’s first equaliser of two on this day would result from a brilliant and eventual breath taking move from defence into attack and without a single Liverpool touch along the way. The first part of the move was fairly pedestrian following a defensive headed clearance from Chris Nicholl that David Armstrong and Nick Holmes together first brought under control before exchanging passes and Holmes playing his usual cultured left footed clearance along the left wing. Here Kevin Keegan improvises with an instant header infield that Keith Cassels and Alan Ball now control between them before Cassels releases back to Keegan who in turn now passes back infield past the forward run of David Armstrong and into the path again of Alan Ball. The veteran’s pass forward is instantly helped on by Graham Baker into the running path of Keegan who delicately chips an instant pass to David Armstrong who returns this pass with a ridiculous and deliberately weighted over the head return pass to Keegan who heads back across goal to a marauding Mick Channon who takes a first touch to control a bouncing ball before rifling it into the roof of the Liverpool net. As veteran Mick Channon takes off to celebrate in his distinctive “arm whirling” celebration, the TV commentator exclaims excitedly:
“You won’t see a better goal than that this season. That was marvellous!”
And it was and still is and a footballing marvel I’ve grown up with now for nearly four decades.
But with time running out and Liverpool mounting one last attack in their desperate attempts for the victory that would take them a step further toward their 13th League Championship, Ian Rush refuses to give up on a non-threatening situation by the corner flag before releasing Kenny Dalglish with his back to goal. With a feint to go one way he turns the other before releasing a perfect pass into the running stride of the 21 year old Irishman Ronnie Whelan, and the youngster smashes an unstoppable first time shot past Ivan Katalinic in the Saints goal.
Cue Gerald Sinstadt again:
“Ronnie Whelan’s second goal wins the game for Liverpool”.
Thanks for reading. My Liverpool FC archives contain a wealth of articles past, present and often personal, or you can find the three most recently published articles on their season hence far linked below:
Ex Red Awoniyi cuts down a ragged and out of sorts Liverpool
Nottingham Forest 1 Liverpool 0, 22nd October 2022.medium.com
Nunez goal enough to see off powder puff Hammers at Anfield
Liverpool 1 West Ham United 0, 19th October 2022.medium.com
Cancelo cancelled as City capitulate at a white hot Anfield
Liverpool 1 Manchester City 0, 16th October 2022medium.com