Category Archives: Nostalgia
Classic Matches: Manchester United 2 – 2 Liverpool (October 1995)
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Can you believe that this was almost 17 years ago?
The game itself will be remembered of course for being Eric Cantona’s comeback from the eight-month ban that followed the incident at Selhurst Park, but it’s a memorable fixture in its own right.
Four goals, two stunning efforts from Robbie Fowler, and the moment of fate that was inevitable – even if facilitated generously by the referee.
The 1990s was obviously Manchester United’s decade, and Cantona’s return was the catalyst for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side to claw Newcastle back from the brink of success. People forget quite how good this Liverpool side was though, and their ability seems to have been diluted with time by the unfavourable ‘Spice Boys’ tag – McManaman, Fowler, Redknapp, Rob Jones, Stan Collymore, Jason McAteer. They could play.
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Underrated players: Liverpool’s Robbie Fowler
Liverpool to win the FA Cup and the League Cup – 4/1 with William Hill
It’s obviously strange to describe someone that scored so many goals as ‘underrated’, but there’s now a whole generation of fans who don’t know quite how good Robbie Fowler was, or saw the diluted, injury-ravaged version of him at Manchester City.
Honestly, he’s still the most natural finisher I’ve seen in England. Alan Shearer may have scored more goals, but in terms of looking comfortable in front of goal there wasn’t anyone even approaching prime-era Fowler.
Left-foot, right-foot, head – absolutely lethal with all them. And with that added blend of mischief which made him likeable and three-dimensional than most of his contemporaries. So it’s not really that he’s underrated, but undervalued, because he’s not talked about nearly enough considering what he did in the Premier League in the 90s. And obviously also because I just wanted an excuse to post this.
So, partly because I’m bored of writing negative things about Liverpool, here’s a solid half-an-hour tutorial on how to put the ball in the net, direct from God. Nose plasters, bleached hair, line snorting and all…
Liverpool to win the FA Cup and the League Cup – 4/1 with William Hill
Premier League Moments: Liverpool’s Robbie Fowler ‘does’ the lines at Anfield
April 1999.
Regardless of the sinister aspect to it, this is still probably one of the most original goal celebrations the Premier League has seen. Yes, yes, it’s about drugs so it’s ‘bad’, and ‘irresponsible’ and whatever else, but it was also ‘funny’.
If you’ve read Robbie Fowler’s book – which is actually more entertaining than you’d think – you’ll know quite how much junkie-themed abuse Fowler took from the Everton fans over the years. What’s more, you’ll know quite how fiercely anti-drugs he is.
With the chants of ‘smackhead’ ringing in his ears, it followed naturally that on converting a penalty at Anfield in the Merseyside derby of the spring of 1999, that Fowler would get to his knees in front of the away fans and ‘snort’ the white goal-line. Obviously.
In amongst the goal-scoring exploits, Fowler’s career was spiced with incidents like this – and actually, rather than making him dislikeable, it made him more human and easy to relate to. One of the last ‘local boys made good’ that the game in this country saw – even if he did occasionally come with an ‘explicit content’ sticker across his nose.
“Robbie, the FA’s on the phone…”
Thoughts on Manchester United’s Peter Schmeichel
Eight years after his retirement, I still think Peter Schmeichel is the benchmark for modern goalkeepers. It’s amazing to think how different Manchester United’s modern history could have been without him.
Everybody remembers the two late goals in Barcelona in 1999, but how about the saves the Dane made when United were 1-0 down and chasing the game. How about Ryan Giggs’ FA Cup semi-final goal? That doesn’t happen if Schmeichel doesn’t deny Dennis Bergkamp from the penalty spot. The save against Rapid Vienna? The performances home and away against Newcastle in 1995/1996? You could go on and on.
When you look back on players careers, the temptation is always to over-romanticise their impact and embellish on their qualities; that’s not the case with Schmeichel, he’s exactly as good as we remember.
It’s been said many times that Manchester United never really replaced Peter Schmeichel, which isn’t really a failing of Sir Alex Ferguson as where would he have found such a player? This is a goalkeeper who was peerless during his career, and still doesn’t have a contemporary equal – he was generational talent.a. If you create a list of the Premier League’s top goalkeepers over the last ten years, and that’s a list that might include Petr Cech, Pepe Reina, Brad Friedel and Edwin Van der Sar, then Schmeichel would still belong comfortably at the top of it.
Even if you extend that list to include global greats like Casillas, Kahn, Buffon, Toldo, then you may have players that exceed Schmeichel’s ability in a single category, but not in his all-round attributes. Others may be more flamboyant and make more eye-catching saves, but you’d always pick peak-era Schmeichel ahead of all of them.
Maybe it was part of the aura built-up by Manchester United’s dominance during that era, but that team looked so secure with the Dane in goal. You were almost surprised to see him concede goals. One-on-ones, shots from distance, reflex saves, he had it all – there was no obvious weakness.
That’s what made Peter Schmeichel great; he had a complete set of goalkeeping attributes. He had the emotional presence to control his defence, he had the agility to claw shots out of his top corner, he had the physical assets to be genuinely dominant within his 18-yard-box, and he had the temperament to play at the very top of the game. Maybe my generation was spoiled by growing-up watching him, because he was essentially perfect.
There may be a time when we do see a better goalkeeper, but it’s a huge complement to say that it’s hard to imagine how Peter Schmeichel could’ve been improved upon.
Premier League Moments: Kevin Keegan succumbs to the pressure in 1996.
It’s that time of the year again when you need to be inventive to create content. Our contribution to the various means of wasting time until the season begins is this; a run-down of the seminal moments in Premier League history – a poor man’s version of Sky Sports’ Premier League Years if you will.
1995/1996 remains one of our favourite seasons, Newcastle’s scintillating football, their collapse, Man United’s pursuit, Robbie Fowler scoring for fun – it had a little bit of everything, and of course it had Kevin Keegan’s infamous rant in front of the Sky cameras.
Sky have obviously played the footage ad nauseam now, but outside of the simple slapstick entertainment value it retains, it marks the beginning of something – the era of ‘managerial mind-games’. Or, more accurately, the tabloid invention of managerial mind-games.
To believe in the emotional manipulation of one manager by another, is to believe that managers possess the mental fragility of a ten-year-old girl. It’s a complete myth. In the final third of each season, any time Alex Ferguson says anything to the press that relates to another team, they just can’t help themselves. We’re led to believe that generic press-conference quotations can have significantly impact a trophy’s destination, and that ultimately his fellow professionals’ grip on their own self-belief is so tenuous that it’s in serious danger if ever questioned in public.
Football clubs have spent millions of pounds on the infrastructure that provides physical and emotional conditioning to their employees, but all that is supposedly rendered useless by some well-aimed media-peddled rhetoric. Sorry, but it’s nonsense – it’s another press phenomenon that’s been kept alive to sell newspapers.
If i’m a player in a team within touching distance of the league title, and an opposing manager doubts our collective credentials, am I more likely to dismiss the comments because their agenda is so transparent, or is my confidence going to evaporate into thin air. Natural, non-artificial pressures exist in sport at all times – a tennis player serving for the Wimbledon title tightens-up because of internal doubts, not because of anything his opponent may have said to him at the change of ends.
In the Spring of 1996, had the burdens of a club nearing their first significant trophy in 41 years, a disintegrating lead, and his own level of expectation weighing down on him – that’s where the mental frailty came from. That Alex Ferguson said what he did ‘about a man like Stuart Pearce’ was neither here nor there, because in truth, Richard Keys could probably have elicited the same response with an appropriately awkward question. But that’s why the Keegan moment is so important, because it’s the seed of every half-arsed ‘mind-games’ story that gets published in March and April.
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