My memories of Liverpool v QPR
Anfield
April, 1990.
I’d met my friend Gail, on the Kop, prior to the Luton game, which we just about managed to get a 2-2 from, thanks to a late Nicol goal. She’d been reading one of those new fanzine publications and she gave me one to look at. I loved them instantly. It was a far more entertaining read than the normal match day proy. We arranged to meet up before every game then until the end of the season and keep in touch via old fashioned letter – no mobile or texting in those days.
So we queued-up on that last Saturday and just about got into the Kop. We found a spec right up in the top left hand corner of the goal as you look at it, near what was then the old Kemlyn Stand. The reds needed to win – as usual and a possible win could mean that the title would come back to us after it had been loaned to Arsenal. Beforehand we had smashed Chelsea 4-1 in what had been a vintage display and were on the cusp of yet another title win. QPR were not a bad side and had beaten us at their place in October time so they were no mugs.
As it happened the visitors took a shock lead! It was touch and go for a while. Then Nicol got tripped, debatably just inside the left of QPR’s area and there was a penalty award. Up-stepped Barnsey and he helped calm our nerves with the equaliser. 1-1. A hug from Gail and a kiss – always the same when we scored. The emotion just got to us as it always does when our beloved reds scored.
Then, in the second half, with the reds traditionally attacking a still all standing Kop, I can just recall ‘our Ian’ (Ian Rush) turning at the tightest of oblique angles on the left edge of the keeper’s six yard box, to smash and hook the ball gloriously into the net! It was a fabulous title winning goal.. 2-1. I just cried with joy. It was all my dreams come true. To see Liverpool was all I had wanted to do as a kid growing-up in Wales and now Rushie had worked more magic and I was standing on the Kop, surrounded by Scousers when it had happened..
At the time I used to carry a transistor radio with me to games – again pre internet/facebbok, twitter time and after the whistle, as the Kop bounced singing their well versed ditty of ‘E-aye-addio, we’ve won the League!’, I just was not convinced until Villa had finished their game at home to Norwich, for as all the fans celebrated around me my mind still drifted back to the season before when the same fans had sung the same song, right up until the last second of the Arsenal game and then Thomas had scored THAT goal. So I was strong enough to hold out and make absolutely certain before I too joined in the merriment that was engulfing me.
Then, through the crackle of the radio the final score came through that Villa had indeed drawn 3-3 with Norwich. Then I did celebrate – as joy swept over me, picking Gail up and kissing and hugging her, with tears of joy streaming down my face. I did not want to be anywhere else in the whole wide world at that moment in time.
Liverpool’s players were half-way doing their lap of honour by now – Grobbelaar, Nicol, Hysen, McMahon, Whelan, Venison, Rushie, Barnsey and lest we forget, a crucial player who made such an impact that he gave the team a boost when needed – Ronnie ‘Rosie’ Rosenthal who had scored net ripping goals since March.
It was a great day but I celebrated it in a low-key fashion that night. Just going out with my mate, Gazza, who watched Everton almost religiously home and away, with a couple of beers in Pontypool. I should have booked a room in Liverpool and gone home the next day nursing an hangover!!
What a team, what a day and a week later I was at Highfield Road when we smashed Coventry 6-1 with Barnsey scoring 3 – he was some player was Barnsey..
Great memories
29/03/15
721
I know I've written articles in near past on this forum but I just can't help writing stuff about the reds when the mood takes me. Hope some of you good people like it if and when you read it.
