I WAS ON A NARROW ROAD THROUGH ancient woodland when the awful news came over a crackling connection: “He’s left out Hamann and he’s playing Kewell!” My heart sank. I knew we were doomed. Minutes later I arrived at the University of East Anglia, where I have played concerts since 1977. I was booked to perform just as Liverpool were taking the field in their first European Cup final in 20 years.
I had tried everything to re-schedule the concert, remembering what Paul McGrath had once told me about an Albanian trip with Ireland: “I might pull a hamstring . . .” I had suggested a teatime show or even a late-night show but the best we could manage was to announce through the local radio and newspapers that the start would be delayed until the end of the 90 minutes. This way I would still have sufficient time for a complete set. I had remained quietly confident that it would not take very long for Liverpool to subdue an overconfident AC Milan. That was until I heard the team news.
Now I thought it might possibly require extra time. If so, I would have to get on stage and face the unusual torture of having the score relayed to me by semaphore or hand-printed cards. The last time we attempted this was in Glasgow during the infamous Michael Thomas game at Anfield in 1989. I played the longest song in my repertoire, while keeping my gaze from the wings, knowing that by the time I finished the tune, with the score at “0-1”, Liverpool would be champions. As the applause began, I looked round to see my stage manager holding up “0-2”.
The travelling musician often ends up following an important game in unlikely circumstances, listening to the World Service via an aerial hung from the curtains in a Hamburg hotel, or maybe that was in Nagoya. Then there was the 7am rendezvous in the “The Mad Dog in the Fog” pub in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, for Liverpool’s Cantona-inspired defeat in the FA Cup Final of 1996 and realising that Ray Davies, of the Kinks, was sitting at the next table. Perhaps, more pertinently, there is the memory of staying up all night in Australia to watch the broadcast of Bruce Grobbelaar’s “Spaghetti Legs” defeat of AS Roma in 1984.
So, in contrast, a large-screen TV in a university common room was an unimaginable joy. Then the game started. The absence of Hamann was immediately felt as no one picked up Maldini, even though his powerful downward half-volley might have been saved by a goalkeeper who had been on the park for more than 50 seconds. Things went rapidly downhill. Players who had performed superbly during the season — or at least when they hadn’ t been confined to the treatment table — such as Xabi Alonso and Luis García, looked like boys against Milan’s men. Liverpool’s most improved player of the season, Djimi Traoré, was suddenly returned to the nervous and accident-prone form that he had shown under Gérard Houllier.
At 23 minutes, with the midfield being totally overrun and the Reds’ usually resolute defence looking vulnerable, Rafael Benítez’s big gamble finally paid off: Kewell pulled up. Now, Australian Harry may be a very fine human being but he has the misfortune of appearing to many fans as the epitome of the spoilt modern footballer who places his agent’s agenda ahead of that of the club.
The commentator reported that Kewell had “asked” to come off. In Liverpool folklore you do not ask to come off in a final . . . or any game, unless you are dead. For heaven’s sake, Gerry Byrne played 117 minutes of the 1965 FA Cup Final with a broken collarbone and still managed to set up one of the goals. In 1956 Bert Trautmann, the former German PoW and Manchester City goalie, played in the Cup Final with a broken neck. Did he complain or ask to be taken off? Did he heck. They didn’t even discover his injury until three days after the game.
Then there is the matter of the “Alice” band. At the risk of sounding like a fogey reminiscing about the good old days, I honestly cannot remember “Sir” Roger Hunt, the legendary Liverpool striker, ever sporting one of these accessories. Even an Evertonian wouldn’t wear one. If big Duncan Ferguson grew his hair down to his knees, it is inconceivable that he would ever pace the Goodison dressing-room saying, “Wee man, does this make me look harder or just like a bit of a Jessie?” There doesn’t even seem to be any discernible benefit in wearing the “Alice”. Milan Baros has sported one all season and he still cannot find the goal.
OK, for a short while things did go from bad to worse. Milan continued to cut through the Liverpool defence like a chainsaw through a bucket of ghee. By half-time the scoreboard read 3-0 and I felt a horrible repressed memory welling up from childhood: the morning in 1966 when the paper reported that Bill Shankly’s invincible Liverpool side had been crushed 5-1 . . . apparently by a team named after a famous household cleaner. Now this game was also turning into a humiliation too dreadful to witness. I decided to do the unthinkable and go on stage early.
During half-time, as my crew completed the final checks on our equipment, I fielded a commiserating call from my one friend who is Chelsea fan and a stricken text message from a pal in Istanbul. I began warming up my voice and tried to locate the most reverberant location backstage. This turned out to be the stairwell leading to the now deserted TV room. “Oh well,” I thought. “I might as well see the first few minutes of the second half.” I found that Didi Hamann was on the field, as he should have been at the start, and that Liverpool were on the ball, looking far more organised. I pulled up a chair just in time to witness Steven Gerrard’s magnificent header.
I affected a nonchalant air and strolled back downstairs to indulge in the strange rituals and superstitious practices that precede every performance. “Well, they’ve made it look a bit more respectable,” I said, to no one in particular, as crew members hurried by in every direction. My stage manager called out “five minutes” and I decided to use two of them by taking another quick peek at the screen. It couldn’t hurt.
A member of the university staff was the only person in front of the television. He had a startled look on his face. The score read “3-2”. I heard someone bellowing down the stairwell, “HOLD ON” . . . and it was me.
The crew quickly deserted the stage and burst into the room just as Gerrard burst into the box and was flattened. You could see from Alonso’s eyes that he wouldn’t put away the penalty but he is 23 and much quicker to the goalkeeper’s parry than Milan’s veteran defenders. Unbelievably, Liverpool had levelled the score in just over five minutes. The members of the Imposters (my band) now joined the television audience. Collectively they know as much about football as I know about lacrosse. However, they tolerate my football-related monologues with the indulgence of an elderly aunt humouring an eight-year-old attempting to explain the mythology of Star Wars. Soon they were swept up in the drama.
