It was the same story with England Under 18s, too. Even after my hat-trick against Switzerland, I was back on the subs bench for the next few International games. By the time the UEFA tournament kicked off for real, in July of 1993, I was nowhere near first- or second-choice striker. England had been drawn in a horrible group, along with France, Holland and Spain. Portugal and Turkey were both tough opponents in the other side of the draw, but ours truly was the Group of Death.
Our opening game, against France at Stoke City’s ground, saw two strong teams cancelling each other out for 70 minutes. It was as though not losing was the big priority so early on in the tournament. If you lost Game One, it would be doubly hard to claw yourself back into contention, so the game was a risk-free stalemate, with France more than happy just to keep possession and move the ball sideways and backwards.
With a quarter of an hour left to go, our manager Ted Powell sent on me and Kevin Gallen, the brilliant young QPR striker. Kev was only 16, but he was already being talked about as the new Clive Allen. Me and him struck up a great rapport in training, and I always felt comfortable playing alongside Kev. Ted’s gamble paid off almost immediately. Kevin slotted a rebound home on 80 minutes and, a couple of minutes later, I put the game to bed with a goal that was a direct throwback to those early days on the rec in Upper Warwick Street when Dad used to make me practise, over and over, on my right foot.
With France pushing for an equaliser, our defence was fighting a rearguard action, happy to just clear the ball long. One of these clearances was nodded back and the ball just dropped nicely, a foot or two in front of me, sitting up and crying out to be hit. A quick glance up and I saw that their keeper was a pace or two off his line, so I just did what came naturally: I leaned back very slightly, got a great connection with my right foot and ‘looped’ it over his head, smack into the net from 25 yards! I ran over to where my dad was standing, with a great big grin on my face, punching the air with both fists.
We were up and running and, in fairness to Ted Powell, he ran with Kev Gallen and I from that point onwards. Next up, we were playing a strong Holland team captained by Clarence Seedorf and also featuring up-and-coming stars like Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Patrick Kluivert. We put up a truly brilliant first-half performance though – once again, Kev Gallen and I got one each, and we were 3–1 up at half-time. Our defence, which included Sol Campbell and Gary Neville, soaked up everything Holland could throw at us in the second half, then we finally broke them with a genius goal from Julian Joachim – a flick-and-volley that was a bit like Gazza’s famous 1996 goal against Scotland at Wembley (more of that one later, too).
That saw us through to our final group game – a winner-takes-all decider against the glamour team of the group, Spain, at the glamour venue of the tournament, Walsall. Neither team had dropped a point. Whoever won this one was going through to the final against Turkey or Portugal. It was a mad, unexpectedly feisty game, with us taking an early lead, Javi Moreno getting sent off for a studs-up tackle on Gary Neville then, with 20 minutes left, Spain getting an equaliser out of the blue. I think we’d been coasting a bit up to this point, thinking we could just keep hold of the ball and wear Spain out. If anything, they became tighter and more energetic after Moreno went off and, for a spell at least, we were rattled.
Then Julian Joachim went on a run down the left, cut the ball back at a lovely pace for me to run onto and I just hit an absolute screamer past their keeper. The scenes! A hugging masterclass only surpassed after Xabi Alonso’s equaliser in Istanbul. We all ran to the corner and went into this massive pile-on, with yours truly at the bottom of the stack, and it was absolute magic! I went on to get another hat-trick, the third goal of which was yet another right-footed looper from outside the box. The Fowler Loop might not have the same ring to it as The Cruyff Turn maybe, but I’m definitely thinking of getting the name copyrighted!
So, it was on to the final against Turkey – fittingly, for me, at Nottingham Forest, scene of my first and deepest England Schools disappointment. The ground was packed with 28,000 fans this time, though – far and away the biggest crowd I had ever played in front of. I didn’t score that day. In fact, the game was something of a tight, drab affair, with Turkey sitting deep and seemingly only interested in grinding the game out to penalties. As it turned out, it was a pen that settled the game, and the tournament, though – a foul on me as I turned inside the box, ready to get a shot away. Darren Caskey was our regular penalty-taker and he made no mistake (though I don’t mind saying I would have loved to have smashed it in myself).
I don’t know whether making the turn that led to the foul that produced the penalty that won the Cup counts as an Assist, but let’s just say we wouldn’t have won without me, shall we? I went back to Liverpool as a champion, Steve Heighway’s congratulations ringing in my ears. ‘Next stop, the First Team,’ he said with a grin – and we went out and signed Nigel Clough. Ah well, the dream was nice while it lasted, but I was off to the back of the queue, again.
Once again though, Graeme Souness took the trouble to seek me out and reassure me that he had me marked down as one for the future and that, in football, the future could always be just around the corner. He was good with me, telling me to stay positive and work hard and that, sooner or later, my chance would come. ‘Just look at young McManaman,’ he said. ‘A regular, now. Look at Rob Jones, Jamie Redknapp, Mike Marsh, Don Hutchison … If you can prove to me that you’re good enough, age will never be a deterrent.’ In fact, Souey told me that his dream team would always be a blend of youth and experience.
I don’t think I was actively hoping that Nigel Clough would fail – you always want your team to win every game they play, don’t you? But, by my reckoning, Cloughie was more of a Number 10 or an attacking midfielder than a bona fide goal-scorer. As the first game of the season drew nearer – a home game against Sheffield Wednesday – I was still harbouring distant hopes that I might get a place on the bench. As it turned out, I started that season leading the line for the Reserves while Cloughie hit the ground running with both goals in a 2–0 win, then bagging a goal in each of the next two games. Like I say, not a natural goal-scorer by any definition …
Souness was right, though – the future, for me, did turn out to be just around the corner. The team made a pretty decent start to the season, winning three of the first four games. After the 2–0 win against Sheffield Wednesday on the first day, we won 3–1 at Loftus Road – QPR was always a tricky fixture in those days – then 5–0 away at Swindon. But then we lost away at Coventry and at home to the up-and-coming Blackburn team that Kenny Dalglish was beginning to mould after his return to management. The turning point for me came in the next game – away at Everton. Souey had identified the left side of our defence as a weakness. He’d already brought in Razor Ruddock and the day before the Everton game, he signed Julian Dicks from West Ham to play at left-back (Bugsy Burrows went the other way as part of the deal).
Dicks was a notorious hothead; a tenacious, often reckless tackler with a fiery temperament and an even more ferocious left foot. He was supposed to be the hard man who would let the opposition know he was there and going into the derby game, a lot of our fans seemed happy enough to have that kind of no-nonsense character on board. But it just didn’t happen for us, or Dicks. If anything, Everton had all the fighting qualities with Liverpool struggling for ideas and, even worse, seeming to lack guts: we lost 2–0.
For most of the squad I’d imagine it was a long, moody coach ride down to London four days later, for our League Cup fixture against Fulham. For me though, it was pure magic. The management never – or hardly ever, anyway – tell you who’s playing in advance, but you know. Or, if you don’t know for sure, you get a very strong feeling. It’s just the way they interact with you. They’re a bit more tactile, there’s eye contact, smiles, the occasional slap on the shoulders or an extra word in your ear. I was starting to hear from some of the younger lads who had already broken into the team that I might be starting, but I’d had so many knock-backs that I blocked it all out – I didn’t want to get my hopes up again, even though I was desperate to play.
We used to base ourselves in a hotel in Bayswater – a far cry from the spa-style hotels that most teams use today, with extensive landscaped grounds to walk around, physio facilities, or even the private jets some clubs use to get the squad in and out on the day. I was rooming with Nigel Clough – another clue that I was about to get the nod, as the club liked to put the younger players in with a more experienced head who could talk them through it all. Cloughie gave me a big grin and a thumbs-up when I got the tap on the door and Ronnie Moran called me out into the corridor. I could barely take the words in as he told me that I was going to be playing that night and it didn’t even enter my head to ask him if I was starting on the bench or on the actual pitch! I was off down to the payphone in the hotel reception to tell my mum. Remember, this was before everyone had mobile phones and emails and that, and I remember my hand trembling so much, I couldn’t get the money in. My dad and some of the family had come down to London anyway – it must have been on the cards that there was a real strong chance I might play – but I told Mum that if Dad phoned, to tell him to get himself right behind the goal.
The coach ride down to the ground just went by in a blur. I remember thinking, ‘Come on, get us there!’ I wasn’t sick as in queasy, but as we crawled through the London traffic, I was beginning to feel the anticipation building inside of me. Then we headed down this narrow Coronation Street-type road and my heart leapt as I recognised that funny little miniature stand from Match of the Day! Even back then, Craven Cottage was one of the last of the old backstreet stadiums, full of history – and the place where I was about to make my debut. Souness took me to one side in the changing room and told me very calmly that I was in that team on merit. He said to relax and enjoy the occasion – I was surrounded by talented players, all I had to do was believe in myself, play my natural game and keep reminding myself that I was out there in that shirt because I had earned the right. Other than that, the only other thing I had to do was score. Simple!
It’s funny the things you remember. I was out on the pitch at Craven Cottage, warming up, kicking in, all the usual pre-match routines that you do, whatever level you play at. I was buzzing just being out there in that famous red kit, with my own number on my back. I had a great big 23 (no idea why the numbers were so massive!), a number that, in the future, would become synonymous with Jamie Carragher – I made the shirt, though! Out there on the Craven Cottage turf, excited as I was and as much as I was trying to play my part in the little drills you do pre-match, my main focus was trying to locate my dad in the Liverpool end.
The backdrop to all this was that, in the wake of the Taylor Report, the world-famous Kop terrace was about to be demolished to make way for a new all-seater stand. The Taylor Report had come after the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 and decreed every single top-flight ground had to become all-seater by the start of the 1994–95 season. Most fans understood the reasons, I think. But the real hardcore who stand in the middle of The Kop and start the songs at Anfield were reluctant to see this huge part of their culture taken away from them. They started a campaign to try and have the all-seater decision reversed and it was all reaching a climax in the 1993–94 season, which was to be the last in front of a standing Kop. This is all coming back to me now, anyway, because that’s how I spotted my dad! My eye was taken by this big banner behind the goal that said: ‘NO KOP SEATS’ and as I was reading it, there was my old fella coming down the terrace and taking up a space just behind and to his left of the goal.
I can’t tell you what a buzz that gave me, not just knowing my dad was there but knowing where he was. Mum did absolutely everything for me and, straight up, without her, I would be nowhere. She was the strong, dependable, loving presence who ensured that the only thing I had to worry about was my game. Somehow or other, she always made sure I had the bus fare to get myself up to training and I will always be grateful for that. But the other big part of my football journey was all about me and Dad, on foot, buses, whatever it took to be wherever the next game was; me out there on the pitch, banging them in, him on the sidelines, cheering me on.
Any nerves I might have had just disappeared. I felt great. And I knew, 100 per cent, I was going to score. We had a good team out that night – just as Souness had said, back in the summer, a blend of youth and experience. I had Ian Rush and Nigel Clough to talk me through the game, with Jamie Redknapp, Rob Jones and Don Hutch in and around me, and now I knew where my dad was, I couldn’t wait to get started and show the world what I could do. To my mind, young as I was, I’d been held back. But now I was in – and I meant to stay in!
I got in behind the last man early on and flashed a header just past the post. I wasn’t daunted at all – I felt right at home, playing at this level with these teammates. I might have been trying a bit too hard, if anything, but as that first half wore on, I started to see a lot more of the ball. We were playing some nice stuff – Don Hutch, in particular, was at the heart of it all, orchestrating our counter-attacks with some lovely passes, long and short. I was involved in both our opening goals – my cross from the right was pulled back by Hutch for Rushy to tap in. At the time I remember thinking how much I’d love a chance like that, an unmissable tap-in just to get my goal-scoring account up and running. Then I played a little one-two with Rushy and put a cross in that Nigel Clough managed to scuff off his thigh, over Fulham’s keeper Jim Stannard and into the net. Two scruffy goals, but they all count – and we were 2–0 up at half-time. Fulham stuck at it and pulled one back in the second half, but as the game went on, we were opening them and creating chances to kill the game off. I kept trying to work out how long was left. I assumed the boss would take me off before the end and I was desperate to mark my debut with a goal – whether it came off my thigh, my knee or my bum!
When the chance came, though, I was made up that my debut goal was anything but scruffy – it was an absolute beauty if I say so myself. I started the move with a lay-off to Hutch. He played it out to Rob Jones, who gave it back to Hutch; he looked up, saw I was making a run and whipped in the sort of lethal, bending cross that is horrible for defenders and irresistible for strikers. As the ball curved away from the keeper, I stole in and took it on the half-volley, using the weight of the cross to smash it past him with my left. What a moment! Goal number one, and I was over the moon that it was such a belter. For that split second, I could see my dad jumping up and down, pumping his fist – then all the lads were hugging me and patting my head. Rushy was grinning in my face, saying, ‘First of many! First of many!’ and Macca (Steve McManaman) was doing that ‘We are not worthy’ bowing thing. Once the lads stopped manhandling me, I ran to the Liverpool end and gave it one last clenched-fist salute, hanging on to the moment just that little bit longer. My first goal for the big team and now I’d seen the net bulge, I wanted more.
On the coach home, Ronnie Moran had a quiet word – praising my all-round game and telling me that the task now was to do it again and again and again. He said I’d done the hard bit; so many strikers are so eager to make an immediate impact that they try too hard and end up struggling to find that first goal. I’d hit the ground running and it was down to me to keep on doing it on a regular basis. I wasn’t daunted in the slightest; I couldn’t wait to get out there and do it again, and I didn’t have long to wait.
Although the return leg at Anfield the following week might have seemed like a foregone conclusion to most people, it isn’t like that at all for strikers. As a striker, what you want is goals – as many goals as possible. As soon as I knew I was back in the team I was sure I’d get a couple that evening, Fulham were there for the taking. But I’m sure Rushy was thinking exactly the same; he’d be planning on getting a hatful and I was very much the junior partner! As it turned out, the senior pros were brilliant that night. Rushy passed up chances for himself, trying to play me in, and the first goal wasn’t long coming. I knocked in a rebound from one of his shots – even Razor Ruddock laid one on a plate for me from a free-kick inside Fulham’s box. I was in dreamland. This was all I’d been thinking about for the past ten years – scoring big goals in big games, the crowd singing my name. We blew Fulham away 5–0 and I got all five – goals with either foot and, to cap it all, a diving header. I went off with the match ball and the sound of my name ringing in my ears. I hadn’t just arrived, I’d exploded onto the scene. Surely the boss couldn’t leave me out, now?
He didn’t. Without any big announcement being made, I found myself part of the First Team set-up and it wasn’t long before I notched my first League goal. If my debut goal at Fulham was one to savour, this one was not exactly a classic! Not long after the Fulham game, I was involved in a shocking, scrappy tie against Joe Royle’s Oldham. Once again, in spite of all our experienced internationals, we just couldn’t get into any kind of a rhythm. We tried to gift Oldham goals a few times, then with about 15 minutes left, they scored. Up until that point, we hadn’t looked as though we had a goal in us, but we upped our urgency and I managed to scuff an equaliser right at the end. Like I say, not a classic at all but enough to spare our blushes.
My goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of Oldham – we sensed their legs were beginning to wobble. We’d played about five minutes of time added on in an era before that was the norm and threw everyone forward for one last attack. The unlikely hero was that marauding, whippet-quick winger Razor Ruddock, who trapped a raking cross-field pass like Michel Platini, left his man for dead and fizzed in a cross so deadly, Oldham’s right-back could only divert the ball into his own net.
As we came off the pitch, Joe Royle was raging at the ref about the added time, but we were elated. We knew we’d got out of jail and we simply had to do better and be better in future. It was going to be a while, though.
The very next home game I scored my first League hat-trick – at Anfield against Southampton. The Kop chanted my name to the old ‘Bring on the Champions!’ tune:
Roooooobie Fowler, clap-clap, clap-clap-clap!
It didn’t quite scan, but did I care? Did I heck! It sounded fantastic! Some players can go their entire career without hearing their name sung and here was I, a crowd favourite after a handful of games. I loved it! I followed up the hat-trick with my first penalty, against Spurs. If anything, that was the goal that proved to the manager (and the board) that I had the temperament. I was going to make it, and that was it – the club had me in double-quick to start talking about an improved contract.
Bear in mind I was still 18 and up until then I was still on my original deal of about £200 a week. This is another part of my progression where I owe Graeme Souness a huge debt of gratitude. Technically, the club didn’t have to offer me a new deal until my 19th birthday, but Souey made sure they had me tied down to a much better, long-term deal as soon as possible. He was always very respectful to my dad, but he told us both it was in my best interests for me to get proper representation and sound financial advice.
It was Souness who introduced me and Dad to George Scott, the straight-talking Glaswegian who has looked after me ever since. Graeme introduced George to my dad, Dad liked him, brought me in for a chat, and that was that. After George spoke to the club, I signed a five-year deal that, if I saw it through and hit my goal and won bonuses, would make me a millionaire. Jesus! I was British football’s first teenage millionaire. All of a sudden, I was a real player on real money – and I felt fucking great!