In my first year as an LFC Associated Schoolboy, Liverpool won the League with two games to spare. Even though John Aldridge had left earlier that season for a new challenge with Real Sociedad, the club wasn’t quite beating a path to my door to step into his boots just yet. We signed Ronny Rosenthal from Standard Liège, plus there was a fella called Ian Rush playing up front. I did, however, sign on for a second year on Associated Schoolboy terms, resulting in a letter from King Kenny on 14th May 1990.
Dear Robbie,
I am delighted that you have taken the important step of renewing your Associated Schoolboy terms with Liverpool Football Club. We hope you will have another enjoyable and successful year with the club.
We do expect high standards of behaviour and commitment while you are with us. I would also remind you of your continued commitment to, firstly, your school athletic activities and, most important, your academic studies.
Yours sincerely,
K. Dalglish (Manager)
I was obviously chuffed to bits that Kenny Dalglish was even aware of me but after everything he’d done for the families and the wider Liverpool community that past year, since the Hillsborough disaster, I was amazed and touched that he found the time and the headspace to write. He is a truly remarkable man and it’s completely right and fitting that he’s had the Kemlyn Road stand at Anfield named in his honour.
I settled in quickly at Melwood, loving every second as a player on a pathway. Each time I did well, Steve Heighway would dish out the praise but then, just as quickly, remind me how far there was still to go before I was ready to run out at Anfield for the First Team. Steve had a monthly column in the LFC magazine, where he would round up all the news and results from the Youth team. It became a regular thing for him to write words to the effect of ‘another great goal from young Robbie Fowler. Robbie is a sensible lad who knows the First Team is still a stride or two away in terms of standard.’ But, for as long as I was only at LFC on Associated Schoolboy terms, any other team could have come in for me. Everton, having taken it as read that I’d sign for them eventually, finally woke up and started their charm offensive. Suddenly there were ‘Comps for Dad!’
Wolves, who had an excellent Youth set-up back then, made a firm offer. But I’m a simple, loyal sort of fella and it had been Liverpool who had shown the love, right from the start. In my heart of hearts, it had been LFC for me from the summer of the England Schoolboys’ rejection at Nottingham. Having the reassurance of being able to just go back to Liverpool and hang around at Melwood, doing odd jobs, but mainly just watching the stars going about their pre-season training and their day-to-day routines cemented a deep and lasting bond with me. I just loved the feel of the place – it was down to earth, yet there was a real sense of history and greatness.
As soon as I turned 16 on 9th April 1991, I signed YTS terms as an LFC Apprentice on an eye-popping £29.50 a week, with the guarantee of a full professional contract on my 18th birthday (terms to be agreed in good faith). I got my head down, with the immediate goal of trying to cement a place in the legendary Liverpool Reserves team, managed by Phil Thompson. I say ‘legendary’ because going back to the days of Bill Shankly, Liverpool Reserves had been built up to become an almost mythical, unbeatable force – winning their own division, the Central League, season after season and acting as a hothouse for a whole succession of future LFC talents. Phil Thompson himself came through the Reserves system and this was to be another major step in my football education. Up until now, with all my coaches from Mr Lynch to Dave Shannon, Hughie MacAuley and Steve Heighway, I had only ever known a supportive, nurturing, educational approach. Man management had not come into the equation so far, but I was about to find out about a whole new method of leadership.
Let me get one thing straight, right from the start: I like Phil Thompson. I’ve met him on numerous occasions since we both went our separate ways, and it’s clear as can be that his one big lifelong passion is Liverpool F.C. The club is the love of his life and everything he did as an employee of LFC was to further the team’s aims rather than his own. I realise that now, even if it was a bitter pill to swallow sometimes, but by God, did Phil have a special way of motivating you! Right from my first few days reporting to Melwood as an Apprentice, the older Reserves and YTS players advised me to keep out of his way. He was the archetypal drill sergeant – you could hear him a mile off, berating some poor sod for failing to track back or closing his eyes for a header or letting one of his socks slide down … Honestly, you could be bollocked by Phil Thompson for almost anything at all!
It didn’t take too long for me to find myself on the wrong side of his attentions. One of our jobs as apprentices was to bundle the kit for the First Team players. Remember, this was still in the days of us young lads cleaning the boots and so on, and we’d hang each player’s shirt on their individual peg. I was quite a bubbly character, I got along with everyone (at least I hope I did), but I was particularly good mates with Phil Charnock – who is a physio at the club, these days. One day, us YTS lads were laying out the First Team kit and I was standing there with Ian Rush’s Number 9 shirt, holding it up, staring at it and telling Phil Charnock that one day, I was going to wear that shirt. I was just a kid, starstruck. It wasn’t like I was saying, ‘I am the great Robert Bernard Fowler. This shirt is mine, it is only a matter of time!’ I was just daydreaming out loud, thinking, ‘One day …’, ‘Imagine how it must feel …’, that sort of thing. Next thing, Phil’s gone quiet and this shadow falls over the dressing room and there’s Phil Thompson, letting me know in very robust terms that I wasn’t fit to lace Rushy’s boots and I would never, ever be good enough to wear the shirt!
I knew not to even try to explain myself. It had already been instilled in us not to try to answer back to Thommo and I think I was more amazed than crushed. I just stood there gaping at him. Looking back, I think all the shouting and so on was just his way of trying to get the best out of the kids. By goading us and challenging us and berating us to breaking point, I think he was testing us all to see who had the spirit to withstand the brutal reality of big-time football. Even though it worked well for me, it still seems an odd way of motivating a young player – and I doubt it’ll be one I’ll take into my own management career.
Sadly, the after-effects of Hillsborough took their toll on Kenny Dalglish to the point where he simply couldn’t carry on. In January 1991, he left the club after an epic 4–4 draw at Goodison in the FA Cup replay, before I ever had a chance to play for him. Graeme Souness came in and, ultimately, he would be the manager who gave me my chance. But, in the short term, there was a time-served path of progression that every home-grown player had to follow: B Team, A Team, Reserves, First Team, and I was no different. So I carried on scoring at a meteoric rate and made my way through the gears quite quickly. I was a regular in the Reserves under Sammy Lee by the time I was 17, even though I was still professionally and emotionally an Apprentice. But I played alongside some fantastic pros in that team, picking up priceless tips and tricks and insights into the game. Depending on who was coming back from injury or who had suffered a dip in form and been dropped from the First Team, I found myself lining up alongside players like Jan Molby, John Barnes, Mark Wright, Glenn Hysén, Mark Walters, even the great Ronnie Whelan. How can you not learn from talent like that?
Yet, with every seeming stride forward there’d be a snag waiting to bring you back down to earth. Before the start of the new season, Graeme Souness brought Dean Saunders in to partner Ian Rush up front. I’ll be honest about it, even though I was still only 16, in my own mind I was definitely starting to eye that second striker role. Soon after Souey came in, he started to break up Kenny’s team. Peter Beardsley left for Everton and even though we had players like Paul Stewart, Ronny Rosenthal and Mark Walters, there wasn’t another natural striker in the squad. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I’d looked up the stats on Liverpool’s youngest ever player and was holding out vague thoughts that I still had plenty of time to beat Max Thompson’s record.
Then, in April 1992, with the Reds in an FA Cup semifinal against Portsmouth and me starting to imagine myself being out there at Wembley, one day, scoring the winning goal in a Cup final, Liverpool went and signed a young teenage striking sensation – paying Wrexham £250,000 for 18-year-old Lee Jones. Lee was a year older than me and had already been knocking them in on a regular basis at a much higher level than I had ever played. But, we’re only human and for me, signing Lee Jones was a very bad sign. Even I could accept the logic of Souness wanting to reunite Rushy with his international partner, Dean Saunders – two seasoned professionals, off-the-peg and ready to go. But that partnership had not really gelled in the way Souey had banked on and I was allowing myself to think that this could be my way in. Maybe I might start by getting a place on the bench? Maybe, if things were going really well – or really badly – I might even get a minute or two on the pitch? That’s what I was starting to dream about, then we went out and signed another young striker. I was gutted. In my heart of hearts, I had to believe I was a better prospect than Lee Jones, but what can you do? Back to the drawing board, back to work.
In fairness to Graeme Souness (who, as manager, doesn’t have to explain himself to anybody, let alone snotty-nosed 16-year-old apprentices), he called me in to reassure me that he, and everybody at Melwood, had the highest of hopes for me and the greatest of faith I would make it. He just didn’t think I was ready, yet – that old thing about me being too slight to withstand the physical rigours of the Premier League. I wanted to say to him, if I’d have known it was a matter of body size, I could have just doubled-up on the chippy dinners and crisp butties! Seriously, though, it meant the world to me at that point in a career that hadn’t even taken a run-up, let alone got off the ground, to hear from the manager’s own lips that he rated me and my chance was going to come.
It came in November 1992 at Vale Park – of all places – and after that painful rejection all those years ago, my breakthrough came with England Under 18s, rather than Liverpool. In the 1992–93 season, there was more focus than usual on the nation’s new crop of Under 18s as the UEFA Youth tournament was due to be held in England at the end of the season. I was behind some of the young strikers like Julian Joachim, Jamie Forrester and Paul Scholes, who had come through the Lilleshall system, but I was handed my first ever international cap for a game against Switzerland. The mad thing is I didn’t get that many chances – but I managed to get a hat-trick anyway, and we won 7–2. Mr Lynch was there as always, and Steve Heighway came along to support me too, with a gang from the Liverpool Youth set-up. But, more so than for anyone, my first ever International goal must have been pretty special for my dad. I ran over to where he was standing, with a great big grin on my face, punching the air with both fists. I know he was made up – he was hugging everyone in sight, pointing and shouting, ‘That’s me lad, that is!’ – but nobody was more made up than me. It wasn’t so much a two-fingers to the suits at the FA who I thought had held me back, more the sheer joy that goal-scorers always feel, no matter how scruffy or sublime a goal is, when the ball hits the back of the net. I was over the moon and came home clutching the match ball to convince myself it wasn’t all a dream.
My goal-scoring feats for England didn’t go unnoticed. Graeme Souness called me in again and congratulated me on the hat-trick. He said that scoring in a game like that was definitely another step in the right direction for me; I was doing everything right, everyone knew sooner or later I’d break into the First Team. For now, so long as I just kept my head down and kept on working hard, it was bound to be sooner. I think I floated out of his office on a cloud of self-esteem!
On 13th January 1993, I thought the day had finally arrived. We were playing Bolton of the Second Division – two leagues below us – in the replay of our third round FA Cup game. We weren’t great at all in the original game at their place, but managed to come back from 2–0 down to level things up. Everybody, including Bolton’s manager, Bruce Rioch, thought they’d let their chance slip now the game was going to a replay at Anfield. Liverpool were expected to batter them and, in my head, I was thinking I might get on for the last 10 or 15 minutes if we were winning comfortably. This is how footballers think – especially at that age. We’re selfish, it’s normal. I wanted to get on that pitch, score my first goal for Liverpool and hear the crowd chant my name. I even had a song for myself in my head! I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I knew that I might at last be about to get a game for the Reds.
I was on the bench with Don Hutchison, who we’d signed from Hartlepool that season – another exceptionally talented young player. It was a bitterly cold night and I spent a lot of the time trotting up and down the touchline, mainly just to stay warm. Unfortunately, it was the Trotters from Bolton who took the game by the scruff of the neck. They scored very early on and went in 1–0 up at half-time, our attack barely troubling them. Anyone in the crowd could see there was no chemistry among the Liverpool front three or four – and that was a big part of the problem. With Mark Walters, Paul Stewart and Ronny Rosenthal as our attacking three, there was no out-and-out striker there, no real goal threat at all.
Things got worse in the second half when Michael Thomas suffered a nasty tendon snap. This meant Hutch was on for the last half-hour or so, while I carried on patrolling the sidelines. As I jogged past, I could hear individual voices in the crowd shouting out to me:
‘Go on, Robbie, lad. Get on there and sort this shambles out!’
Bolton got a second goal with about 15 minutes or so remaining and those individual shouts were turning into angry demands from the crowd.
‘Get the kid on! He can’t be any worse than this shite!’
It was unfair on my teammates, who were trying like mad to stave off this looming Cup Upset, but it just wasn’t clicking for them. In my head and in my heart, I could not for the life of me understand why Graeme Souness didn’t just take a gamble and throw me on for the last ten minutes. Firstly, the crowd is always massively supportive of any player making their debut – especially a local lad, one of their own, who has come through the ranks. Secondly, there’d be the element of surprise. In cases like these, even experienced defenders are liable to underestimate an untried young kid. Most rugged centre-halves think a bit of the rough stuff during your first duel will put the rookie back in his box. But a lot of ‘kids’ are streetwise enough to take a kick from The Bruise Brothers and give one back while they’re at it – I certainly was. But the main thought running through my head as the clock ran down and the Reds faced a humiliating FA Cup exit was that the gaffer should just throw me on because nothing else was working! That team out there wasn’t going to score if the ref added another 90 minutes’ injury time so, with the alternative almost certain defeat, why not just go for it? There was no downside.
Years later, Souey told me that he rated me so highly, he didn’t want to taint my name by association with this all-time low. He didn’t want it on his conscience that a player he expected to go on to great heights would have ‘defeat against lower-league Bolton’ next to his ‘Debut’ statistics. And he was worried that such a negative start would affect my natural game – I might over-think things, become cautious, safety-first rather than following my instincts. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the thought, but I still wish he’d thrown me on – I defo would have scored!
I felt I was edging ever closer though, so much so that I decided to make a statement purchase that would mark me out as a serious player among this group of top-class pros. Right throughout my association with Liverpool F.C. up to this point, I had travelled everywhere by bus. My dad didn’t drive, but I had not long passed my test. I’d always been into my cars, as a fantasy thing, going back way before the time Sir Kenny ran me home in his Merc. It’s one of the things you grow up dreaming about, isn’t it? What car would you buy if money was no object? John Barnes and Rushie had BMWs, Razor Ruddock had a Porsche, so I felt the time had come to make my own announcement. I threw my hat into the ring and let anyone who was in any doubt know that Robbie Fowler was the new kid in town.
It was with great pride, therefore, that I arrived for training in the spring of 1993 in the lovingly preserved 1983-plate beige Ford Escort I had purchased with my bulging footballer’s pay packet. The tsunami of respect and love I felt from my admiring teammates as I parked up for training that Monday morning still lives large to this day among my fondest memories: I had definitely arrived.
My first game for Liverpool did not arrive, however. Once again, I found myself on the bench for a dead-rubber last game of the season versus Tottenham, though this one was starting to feel more promising. We blew Spurs away in the first half, going into a 3–0 lead, when the boss uttered those five immortal words: ‘Go and warm up, Robbie.’ Out there on the green, green grass of Anfield was my former Everton hero, Pat ‘Psycho’ Van Den Hauwe. Psycho was notorious for being one of the hardest tacklers in hard-tackle history, but I didn’t care who I was up against, I fancied myself to beat anyone and score anywhere.
Standing there, looking out onto the pitch, I had a combination of goose bumps, shivers, cold sweats and a thumping heart, but above all, I was grinning inside like a lunatic. The moment had come, I was going on! I was about to make my debut for Liverpool Football Club.
I stripped off and did as Souey said, trotting gently but meaningfully up and down, my eyes never once leaving the action. By that time, I had built up a minor but growing reputation from scoring so many goals for the Reserves and the various youth teams on my way up through the system. There were ripples of recognition and applause as I jogged along the touchline – then Tottenham went and scored. The bastards! Souness immediately jumped up and started waving me back to the bench. Instead of throwing the Boy Wonder on, he decided to shore things up and make sure we ended this wretched season with a win. He sent Torben Piechnik on; they scored another: 3–2. Then Spurs got a penalty, which Bruce Grobbelaar saved – a rare miss for Teddy Sheringham. I was looking down at the back of Souness’s head, trying to transmit thought suggestions to him:
‘Play Robbie Fowler! Put the kid on! Robbie will put this game to bed, Souey! Give Fowler a chance!’
But the call didn’t come. It was only in the last five minutes that we got a penalty ourselves. Mark Walters slotted that one very coolly and Tottenham threw the towel in. Before the end, both Rushy and John Barnes chipped in with goals and we ran out easy enough, 6–2 winners. As I joined in with the low-key walk around Anfield to applaud the crowd for their unstinting support, none of it felt particularly real to me. I was gutted, in all honesty. I’d been that close, but ultimately hadn’t got onto the pitch, and I was now seriously beginning to wonder whether I ever would. The club kept telling me how much they rated me, yet I was still on the same terms of that first basic contract, treading water. Making the big time felt a million miles away.