Merseyside's JFK moment: Dalglish back at Goodison 20 years after first reign ended there
End of an era: Kenny Dalglish takes a Liverpool side to Goodison Park for the first time since a draw there in 1991 proved to be his last game in charge
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Everton v Liverpool 7:45pm - mio : 102 / 110
Every Friday, Sportsmail's man on Merseyside, Dominic King, will provide expert analysis and behind-the-scenes insight into the affairs of a footballing heartland.
This week's focus is on King Kenny's return to Goodison with Liverpool.
It was a typical Kenny Dalglish tactic. Asked a poignant question during his pre-match press conference, he defused the situation with a blend of humour and straight talk.
'If we get four goals on Saturday we will be delighted,' he said. 'But we have been through all that many times before and there’s no point revisiting it. But I’d settled for four goals for (again)! If it was four for us it would be entertaining but I’m not sure that would be the case for the Blue half!'
Dalglish had just been asked about how he would feel stepping back into the same dugout at Goodison Park that was the scene for his final stand as Liverpool manager during his first spell in charge back on February 20, 1991.
As far as he is concerned, that chapter of his life has long since closed. His reticence, though, will not stop others talking in the build up to the 216th instalment of this local scrap. After all, the day Dalglish left Liverpool (February 22) was one of the most seismic events in modern Merseyside sport.
For a city that eats, sleeps and breathes football, this was its JFK moment. 99 per cent of the people you ask where they were when hearing Dalglish had gone would be able to tell you their exact location (this observer, for the record, was on the playground of Cardinal Heenan lower school).
Whether you were Red or Blue, it didn’t matter. The thought of Liverpool and Dalglish not being together was initially impossible to comprehend and only when editions of the Liverpool Echo hit the streets with a picture of a haunted looking Dalglish on the front did the news become real.
The man himself, of course, knew on the afternoon of that FA Cup fifth round replay that the tie would be his last in charge of a club with whom he had won eight league championships as player and manager, plus a further three European Cups, a brace of FA Cups and four League Cups.
Mentally drained and physically shattered, the unique pressure which stemmed from leading Liverpool through its darkest hours following Hillsborough tragedy two years earlier had taken an enormous toll on Dalglish. For his health, for his sanity, he needed a clean break.
What followed in the subsequent 120 minutes convinced Dalglish he simply had to leave. He had lost his ability to think quickly. When he thought about pushing Jan Molby back to play as sweeper to preserve Liverpool’s lead in extra time, he dithered, did nothing and Everton equalised.
He would later, in his memoirs My Liverpool Home, describe himself as being 'shot' that frenzied night and said he felt as if his 'head was exploding'.
Failing to put Molby back to plug what had suddenly become a porous defence was the tipping point.
‘At that instant of indecision, I knew the emotional conclusion I’d reached that afternoon was justified,' he wrote. 'I should have put Jan back but I froze.
Time to go… After the game, the dressing room went on around me but I was there in body, not mind.'
It was a quite astonishing night. Four times Liverpool had their noses in front yet they were pegged back on each occasion and that has ensured the game, perhaps the most open derby of all time as a 4-4 final score would suggest, is viewed in widely different ways on Merseyside.
Liverpudlians, for instance, look at it as a great missed opportunity, a night when they got what they deserved – nothing. Squander an advantage four times at the home of your oldest rivals cannot be viewed with any affection and events with Dalglish merely exacerbated those feelings.
Evertonians, by contrast, still reflect on it with great fondness and with good reason. With their side showing great tenacity, they refused to give up and got their reward in the second replay, when skipper Dave Watson scored the only goal of a contest that reverted to its typically cagey type.
That night, Dalglish was far away in Orlando on a family holiday trying to move on. He has been back to Goodison as a manager five times since that fateful night, winning three and drawing one with Blackburn and Newcastle, but this time there will be a different resonance.
When he shuffled out of that dugout 20 years ago, Dalglish thought his Liverpool story had reached an unsatisfying conclusion but tomorrow he will return to it an invigorated and determined man – one who is ready to write a new, successful chapter in his life.
