Thinking back to that close season of 1994 is one of those moments where I find myself puffing my cheeks out and shaking my head in amazement – not at any particular incident, just at how young I was and how enormous the responsibility was that I had taken on, almost overnight.
This was a season or two after Alan Hansen’s infamous comment that ‘You don’t win anything with kids’. Yes, Man United and The Class of ’92 had bottled it in their breakthrough season, but they won the League in 1993 and 1994. Frankly, I was green with envy. I had been in and around the England Youth scene with the Nevilles, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt for years, and I rated Paul Scholes as a top, top player. But I never thought any of them – or anyone else from my age group – was as good as me. I realise, writing that, how big-headed it sounds, but it’s the truth: you have to be confident in your own ability if you’re going to stand any chance at all of making it as a player and that’s the way I saw it. I’ve only ever thought of a handful of players as being as good as me, or as good a striker. I went away that summer of 1994 absolutely full of myself and what I was going to do once I got a full season under my belt.
What I was going to do there and then was go on a cheap and cheerful holiday to Magaluf. Dom Matteo and I decided we would invest some of our hard-earned fortune in a hard-earned week of frivolity with a few of our mates. In an era before budget airlines, my pal Ste Calvey discovered a thing called a Bucket Shop in Church Street, offering flights at discounted prices. The system was that the charter flight operators and package holiday companies would sell off their unused seats at huge discounts, with the prices tumbling lower and lower the nearer you got to take-off. If you were ready and able to go, there and then, you could sometimes pick up a flight to Tunisia or Crete for as little as £29. The bucket shops could sell you hotel rooms, car hire, day excursions, all sorts, but we thought we were being clever just getting the flights. Stroking our chins with the wisdom of ages, Dom and I assured the others, ‘Rooms are bound to be cheaper over there,’ with the two unforeseen obstacles being that we didn’t get into Majorca until after midnight – and there wasn’t a single hotel room or apartment to be had.
We went to a bar and straight away, this lad recognised us. He asked his ma if it’d be okay for us four to kip on their sofa and we ended up all piling back there until we could find a place of our own. Not only did she find room for us, his mum cooked us all breakfast the next morning! It was a low-key introduction to my gradual understanding of the pull that young footballers were starting to have as wall-to-wall TV coverage became the norm. We were oblivious and although we had a blast and barely saw our beds the entire time we were there, it seemed mad to us, the way our every move was being reported back home. It wasn’t as though we did anything that outlandish, more a case of teenage lads letting off steam.
To any casual onlooker, it must have been obvious that us two born leaders were the lads to turn things round for Liverpool as we held sand-swimming races and competitions to see who could fart the biggest bubbles in our Swimming Pool Jacuzzi Challenge. Those same innocent bystanders must have cupped their hands over their mouths as though they were passing on tactical instructions in a World Cup final and said: ‘Those two, Fowler and Matteo. The devilishly handsome sand-swimmers. Going all the way to the top, they are.’ It was that obvious. But, like I say, if us younger players were expected to lead Liverpool Football Club’s gradual return to international supremacy, then we had a bit of growing up to do – and fast!
Across the Med, in Ayia Napa, Don Hutchison was starting to understand the downside of all that horseplay. Don was always a merry prankster – just a fantastic, natural talent and a natural crowd-pleaser, on and off the pitch. A few of the lads – Jamie Redknapp, Michael Thomas, Don and some of their mates – had gone off for a week of R&R in one of the Med’s livelier resorts. Ayia Napa was the big new party island, home to a lot of R&B clubs and already being dubbed ‘The New Ibiza’ by our friends in the national press. In short, it was the very last place a 24-hour party person like Don Hutch should have been let loose! There was nothing he wouldn’t do for a laugh and I can imagine all too well him out there, enjoying a drink or 60, everyone egging him on.
Clearly well lubricated, the photos that resulted of Hutch have become legendary – his eyes screwed tight in laughter as he demonstrates his love of Budweiser by planting their beer label on his manhood. Is that the worst misdemeanour a professional footballer has ever committed? Far from it, but it turned out to be Don’s last performance in front of the cameras as a Liverpool player. A lot of commentators have retrospectively tarred Roy Evans for a supposed lack of discipline, but he could be strict. He’d openly berate overweight players and, if anything, he was overly strict with Don over Budgate. He transfer-listed him immediately and Don started the 1994–95 season as a West Ham player (signed, ironically, by Jamie’s dad, Harry!).
Not to over-egg the point, but these were the times we lived in. Those laddish magazines and the tabloid press all played their part in stirring and splashing the stories, the more lurid the better. As well as being the dawn of Britpop and all the great bands that came in its wake, this was also the time of Girl Power, The Spice Girls, S-Club 7 and all that. A voracious media wanted real-life soaps played out across their pages; footballers married pop stars, a new breed of people called ‘socialites’ checked into rehab clinics and us daft teenagers on our first professional contracts whipped each other’s backsides with wet towels and giggled over fart jokes.
I was obviously ready to make that next big step towards Kop immortality …
I think it was Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock that first called me God, during those first few days back into pre-season training. Still a fearless, exuberant kid, I would hit a ball from anywhere, any angle and more often than not, they’d fly into the back of the net. Razor would fall to his knees and grovel at my feet and do that whole ‘we are not worthy’ worshipping routine. They all took the piss in the nicest way possible – Razor with this shocked expression, shouting, ‘Surely he is the Son of God!’ and John Barnes, doing this mad Supergran voice, saying, ‘Is there nothing he cannae do?’ It all made me feel ten feet tall, like I was finally a proper, valued member of the team.
We made a brilliant start to the new season, beating Crystal Palace 6–1 at Selhurst Park. It was one of the first games I can remember kicking off at midday, and I think we had a few reservations about the early start, but we found line and length straight away. I scored just before half-time to make it 3–0 and even though Chris Armstrong pulled one back for them early in the second half, Rushy got a couple and Macca finished them off right at the end. Nigel Clough was out of favour and Lee Jones never really found it in the first place. Someone always has to make way though and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t made up that I was now an automatic first choice to play up front with Rushy. Game One of the new season and me, Rushy and Macca were all on the scoresheet in an emphatic win – normal service resumed. This set the scene rather nicely for our first home game of the season against Arsenal, one that turned out to be somewhat memorable for Robert Bernard Fowler (19) of St. Patrick’s Parish, Liverpool 8.
Disclaimer – I like Martin Keown as a pundit and a player. In fact, I really liked him as a player because I could do whatever I wanted to him! It’s funny watching him as a commentator because he’s exactly the same as he was as a player – eyes wide, jugular throbbing, full of passion and absolutely certain of himself. When I had my first tangle with him in that game at Anfield in August 1994, he let me know straight away what he was going to do to me, and it wasn’t pretty. Fortunately for us all, I don’t take these things personally and just to prove it, I stuck the ball through his legs and blew a raspberry as I ran past him.
The game was pretty much even-stevens for the first 25 minutes – and then our first real chance came along. There was a bit of a ricochet in the box as Rushy and Keown both went up for a header and grappled for the loose ball. Rushy mis-controlled it, the ball fell to me right on the penalty spot and I just hit it first time, a little left-footed chip shot across David Seaman and into the far corner: 1–0. By this time, I had a proper goal celebration – a one-handed fist clench, followed by two fists held high (alluring smile optional).
I barely had a chance to celebrate that one though, because a minute later we were 2–0 up. This time Macca spotted my run, weighted the ball beautifully (though a little too far to the left, if I’m being honest). I spared his blushes, took a touch, looked up, saw the gap and threaded a left-footed shot through Lee Dixon’s legs, just inside the far post. In fact, I think it clipped the post on its way into the net. The older pros all ran over – Rushy, Jan Molby and John Barnes grinning away, shouting his Fowler Favourite: ‘Is there nothing he cannae do!’ I winked at Macca and said: ‘Shit ball, mate!’ The third goal in what would, at that time, be the fastest hat-trick in Premier League history was almost the best…
A beautiful, effortless ball from John Barnes cut their defence in half. I ran onto it, scampered away from Keown and Dixon and waited for David Seaman to commit himself. He read my first effort, getting down and spreading himself to keep my shot out, but I kept the rebound in play right on the touchline, steadied myself and clipped it in with my right foot. The crowd went berserk and I reeled away towards our dugout. I can remember thinking to myself, Christ! How quick was that? I was doing this counting thing on my fingers, but even I had no idea I was a record-breaker – four minutes and 36 seconds, to be exact. That record stayed intact until Sadio Mane shattered it with a hat-trick in less than three minutes for Southampton against Aston Villa in May 2015. A couple of days before Liverpool’s Champions League win in Madrid, I was interviewing Mane for the Daily Mirror. I said to Sadio:
‘Hey, you! Thanks for breaking my record! You better go out and score against these, or I’ll be coming after you!’
He didn’t quite get on the score sheet, but he certainly made a key contribution!
The season went from strength to strength. By the end of November, I’d scored 14 League goals, but the downside was that my face was everywhere. The tabloids had all these nicknames for me – The Kop Kid, The Toxteth Terror and so on – but the lads just called me Growler. I kept my head down and carried on as one of the first names on Roy Evans’ team sheet as we went into 1995.
Every game was still a big game for me, but I was licking my lips as our League Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace drew near. The first leg was Anfield in mid-February. Bearing in mind that we had beaten them 6–1 on the first day of the season, Palace’s sole objective seemed to be to ensure this was no St Valentine’s Day Massacre, more like The Battle of the Alamo. We must have had 20 corners and at least ten shots on goal, but Palace’s keeper Nigel Martyn was the equal of everything we threw at him … until injury time. Ninety-two minutes were on the clock when Macca, for about the fiftieth time that night, skipped past the last man and pulled the ball back towards Rushy. Instinctively, he knew I was coming in behind him, stepped over the ball, leaving his Welsh teammate Chris Coleman floundering in no-man’s land, and I smashed the ball in with my right. A narrow win, but it completely took the wind out of Palace’s sails. Considering this was a game we’d been expected to win, and comfortably, too, our celebrations on the final whistle were pretty wild – I think it was just the relief of finally breaking Palace’s resistance. The fact the goal came with just about the last kick of the game only added to the drama.
I scored in the second leg, too, but this time we all made sure our goal celebration was a little more restrained. The week before, on another rainy midweek night, Eric Cantona found himself red-carded in Man United’s 1–1 draw at Selhurst Park. As he walked off, shoulders back and back typically stiffened, bristling with the injustice of it all, a Palace fan goaded him from the crowd: ‘Off you go, Eric!’ crowed the Palace supporter – ‘It’s an early bath for you!’ So incensed was Cantona by this cruel and deeply personal insult that he launched himself two-footed into his tormentor’s chest. For this, he received an eight-month ban, a precedent none of us was keen to emulate by riling the Palace faithful. We settled for a brusque handshake, a slight nod to one another and I might even have muttered ‘Goal!’ under my breath – that’s how crazy I was in those days.
Still, we were into the final of a Cup competition in my first full season. I’ve said time and again that bringing home cups and medals is what it’s all about for me, so I was nigh on delirious at the chance to actually win something with Liverpool. The fact that we’d be playing Bolton from the league below us in the final only made me more confident that we’d come home triumphant.
In a season where games were kicking off at all sorts of crazy times, the 1995 League Cup final – or the Coca-Cola Cup, as it was that year – kicked off on a Sunday … at 5pm! The last scheduled trains back to Liverpool and Manchester were around 7pm, so even 25 years ago, the fans who turned out in their thousands to vocally support their team were being side-lined in favour of the television viewer. Not that the inconvenience deterred the hordes of Liverpool fans who descended on the capital. It was just one of those days when you wake up and you know it’s going to be your day. The sun was shining late into the afternoon and we ran out at Wembley to a fantastic noise from a shirt-sleeve crowd. From my earliest days as a junior footballer I had been dreaming of occasions like this and in those dreams, Robbie Fowler would step forward to score the crucial goal with the game at a dramatic point.
It had been me who had done the business in both semi-finals, but that game against Bolton was run from start to finish by Steve McManaman. He was on fire that day and it’s still hard to digest how we only won that game 2–1. Bolton had their moments and they did come back into the game’s second half, but by God we were good – and Macca was absolutely brilliant! He scored two, ran them ragged, created countless more chances and was deservedly given Man of the Match.
I got on well with everyone in those early days. There was a real nucleus of proper teammates, all young lads on their way up, fighting for the same thing. There was Dom Matteo, Rob Jones, Tony Warner, and Stevie Harkness, in particular, was a really good mate. Steve was a down-to-earth Cumbrian, one of those fellas who always had a smile on his face, yet was fiercely competitive, too – you wouldn’t want to come up against him in a one-on-one!
But Macca and me were becoming especially firm friends by now: two young Scousers, living the dream. We cavorted on the pitch, big mad smiles all over our grids, congratulating ourselves as we looked for our friends and families in the crowd. I had an idea where my dad would be and what he’d be wearing, so I spotted him pretty quickly – and the icing on the cake, for me, was that Mr Lynch was sat there, right next to him. From Liverpool 8 to Wembley Way via Penny Lane had not been a painless process, but here, side by side, were two of the people whose belief and patience had helped me get where I was going. I ran over and gave my dad my winners’ medal for safe keeping, then legged it to join in the celebrations. Don Hutchison was no longer with us, but Razor Ruddock was, so suffice to say, those celebrations went on long into the night. I’d say they lived long in the memory, too – but I can’t remember!
A pretty good season ended with us beating Man United 2–0 to virtually hand the Premier League to King Kenny’s Blackburn Rovers side with four games to go. But, from a position where they only needed five points from those final four games, Blackburn suddenly started to wobble – losing games they should have won and conceding late goals to draw when they’d been winning. This was the start of Alex Ferguson’s notorious ‘mind games’ – he was never off the telly and the radio, talking about the pressures of leading from the front and how it was harder to stay ahead than to make a run from behind. Blackburn had a great team – Tim Flowers in goal, Alan Shearer, Colin Hendry, Tim Sherwood, Stuart Ripley supplying the crosses. They stumbled towards the finish line, but they were still top of the League going into the final weekend. All they had to do was beat us on the last day, or hope Man United failed to beat West Ham.
They started off well enough, with Shearer scoring about his hundredth goal of the season in the first half. But anyone expecting Liverpool to roll over had another thing coming, as John Barnes equalised around about the hour mark. That last 30 minutes was strange: the Liverpool fans obviously didn’t want United winning a third title in a row yet they always wanted to see their own team play well and beat whichever opposition was put in front of them. They urged us on, but it wasn’t exactly heartfelt. As things stood, a draw was going to be enough for Blackburn, but the tension was unbearable as we turned the screw on them, creating chances and pressing them further and further back, until everyone except Shearer was camped out in their box.
With virtually the last kick of the game, Jamie Redknapp sent a pearler of a free-kick curling past a flailing Tim Flowers. I don’t think I’ve seen such a muted goal celebration from a squad of players – there was almost a sense of ‘Shit! What have we done!’ But, no more than a minute later, a big cheer went up around the ground. I could see Kenny stood up, trying to find out what was going on, and a lad with a little radio leaning over, trying to hug him. If Man United had scored one more at West Ham, they would have been Champions – but they could only draw 1–1. We had done our bit by beating Blackburn – no half measures or kid gloves at Anfield – but United couldn’t quite find that elusive second goal.
I had videoed the whole last day and watched it all through later. United laid siege to that West Ham goal in the second half. Right at the death, Andy Cole was through on goal, but somehow, the ball just would not go in for him. For the neutral, it must have been fantastic viewing. Right at the end of our game, you can see the message has got through to Kenny that everything is okay – they’ve won the League. Everyone is smiling, The Kop is able to relax and salute our returning King – but I couldn’t help skulking off to the sidelines, wishing that it was me, not Alan Shearer, holding up the big trophy.
But, I’d had a decent season. I played in every single game – 57 of them – scoring 25 League goals and 31 in total. I won the Young Player of the Year Award and, most important of all, my first major medal as a League Cup winner. That was the big thing – Liverpool had won a Cup in my first full season and I was getting a taste for it, big time. There were bigger prizes, home and abroad, for club and country, and I was determined to win every single honour going. Watching Alan Shearer cavorting on the Anfield turf with the Premier League Champions trophy was a massive incentive to me. He may well have been the one holding that big silver cup aloft there and then, but I was praying it wouldn’t be much longer before I did, too.