There was a ray of light shining over Liverpool 4. After replacing me with Milan Baros, El Hadji Diouf, Antony Le Tallec and Sean Dundee, Gérard Houllier had still not managed to find the elusive formula that would bring the Premier League back to Anfield. Inevitably, in the summer of 2004, there was a parting of ways and Liverpool brought in Rafa Benítez from Valencia to try something new. Benítez inherited Houllier’s final signing, Djibril Cissé, but not his luck.
At different times during a difficult first season, Benítez lost Cissé, Harry Kewell, Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso to sustained periods of injury. Somehow, however, his makeshift squad of juniors, reserves and foot soldiers made it to the final of the Champions League, more as a result of sheer collective resilience and willpower than any great skill. If ever a team was more than the sum of its parts, it was that Liverpool side of 2004–05 – their strength as a unit overcoming all and any technical inferiority.
Not that they were lacking in individual brilliance – this was a team that boasted Luis Garcia, Harry Kewell, Xabi Alonso and the inspirational captain, Steven Gerrard, in their ranks. Like I say, though, Benítez rarely had the chance to put all four of them on the same pitch at the same time. At different times during crucial ties against the likes of Juventus, Bayer 04 Leverkusen (who had Michael Ballack, Dimitar Berbatov and Roque Junior in their ranks) and the all-powerful Chelsea, Rafa had to field Scott Carson, David Raven, Igor Biscan, Antonio Nunez and Josemi to make up the numbers. It was an incredible feat by Benítez, managing to drive this team on all the way to Istanbul. With my season’s duties over with Man City, I was only too happy to accept the invitation to join a small bunch of former players travelling with the club to watch the final.
Nothing that I can say will add to the legend of Istanbul – it was simply incredible. There was no way anyone would have forecast that that Liverpool team, dead on its feet, dead in their hearts as they trudged off the Ataturk pitch at half-time, would come back out and, within 15 minutes, turn the entire game on its head. Not even our chaotic, brilliant win in Dortmund came close – it was football at its mad, unpredictable, remarkable best. I was cheering and screaming as loudly as anybody when Jerzy Dudek saved that penalty from Shevchenko and I was lucky enough to join in the celebrations with Stevie, Carra and the squad back at the team hotel.
I saw Rafa in a corner, watching everyone enjoying themselves – a big, contented smile on his face. Yet, knowing him as I do now, he would already have been thinking ahead to the next stage: ‘How do I build on this? How do I take this team to the next level?’ I went over and congratulated him and gave him a cheeky wink: ‘All you need is a proper goal-scorer, now.’ I was half-joking with him – in fact, I was pretty much completely having a laugh with him – but the glaring truth was that the end-of-season stats showed with nine goals in all competitions, Milan Baros was Liverpool’s top scorer. That was that – the party continued, and the team went back to Liverpool to an unbelievable hero’s welcome.
With Andy Cole and Darius Vassell arriving at City in the summer of 2005, my playing time was becoming even more limited – but there was to be one last, glorious cameo and one hell of a twist in the story before I said my goodbyes. I’m led to understand that the first led directly to the second …
It was the middle of January, 2006, and we were playing Man United at The City of Manchester Stadium – remember, this was before Thaksin Shinawatra’s ownership, let alone the turbo-powered Sheikh Mansour era. I was on the bench, but City came out of the traps all guns blazing. Joey Barton was winning all his duels in midfield, Cristiano Ronaldo was continually complaining to the ref about this tackle and that challenge, but City ran into a 2–0 lead and, by half-time, it could easily have been 4–0.
Talk about a game of two halves! Ronaldo decided he’d give a bit of needle back and received a straight red for a nasty challenge on Andy Cole with about 25 minutes of the game left to go. As so often happens in football though, instead of this making the game easier for City, we didn’t seem to know whether to stick or twist. Ruud Van Nistelrooy pulled a goal back and Wayne Rooney went close. The boss pulled Andy Cole off on 75 minutes, put his arm around me and said, ‘Go out and nick us one, Robbie.’ But the goal that settled the game wasn’t so much a pickpocket as a complete smash and grab. In the 94th minute, with nerves jangling and the ball ricocheting around the Man United box, like pass-the-parcel, I ran in and smashed it high into the net for what turned out to be my last goal for City. A 3–1 derby win, and I was a Manchester City hero at long last – better late than never, and the goal was an absolute pearler, too!
Rafa Benítez must have agreed. Stuart Pearce had given us the Monday off. It’s almost an unwritten rule that footballers take up golf, snooker or both – and I’ve never been one to disappoint my audience – so I was about to tee off at Caldy Golf Club when my phone went. I was actually going to ignore it, but when you have kids, there’s always one emergency or another, so I whipped it out of my pocket just to make sure. I didn’t recognise the number, so I let it ring out. Again, I was about to tee off, but this niggling voice in my head wouldn’t let me relax: ‘Play back your voicemail!’ it insisted. ‘Robert, I repeat, play that message!’ So I did, and it was the unmistakable voice of Rafa Benítez asking me if I’d come in for a chat – well, that was the golf done with for the day.
I found myself shaking with excitement and trying to temper my expectations, but no matter what I told myself, I just couldn’t imagine that Rafa wanted me to come in for an idle natter about football. Maybe he wanted my advice on some investments? What was for sure was that, as much I was hoping that this was The Call, I jumped back in my car and tried to keep my mind occupied with anything other than Playing For Liverpool Again. The irony is that I can jog from my house to Rafa’s in about five minutes yet there I was, belting back through the tunnel for a meeting which might – just might – be about to deliver all my dreams, all at once.
I went into his office and he just came out with it: nice goal yesterday, Robbie – how do you feel about coming back here and maybe scoring a few more for Liverpool? We have Crouch, Morientes and Cissé, but we feel we need a different sort of option. It might be that you don’t start every week, but we’d love to have you back here. Would you be interested?
What? Yes! The answer is yes!
Rick Parry came in, a big smile on his face. He wanted to know whether he should call my agent George, fax him the offer, talk over the details of the contract and so on. All I was bothered about was signing that contract, getting my medical done and getting changed into that red shirt before anyone changed their mind!
Liverpool, in common with all football hotbeds, is rife with transfer gossip, rumours and speculation to the point where it has almost become a cottage industry. The rule of thumb is that unless and until your photo appears on the back page of the Liverpool Echo with a big daft grin on your kite, your arm around the manager and a scarf above your head, a signing hasn’t happened. I wanted to get to that moment as quickly as possible – so much so that I didn’t bother reading the terms they placed in front of me. All I could think was: Where do I sign? How quickly can we get this done?
I didn’t even know how much money I was going to be on – I honestly would have walked from Manchester to Liverpool and played for nothing. As it turned out, the deal was only until the end of the season, but I was determined to savour every minute of it. In the press conference to announce the signing, Rafa said:
We have signed a player with so much passion for this football club that it can only rub off on everybody else. This is a boost for the team, a boost for the supporters and of course, a boost for Robbie himself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player so happy at joining a club before!
And he was right: I was beyond elated. Sitting in my car after it was all done was like a religious epiphany. The transformation in my fortunes, from the despair of being sat in the City of Manchester Stadium car park on the verge of a breakdown to this unbelievable high, it was almost too much to take on board. I felt this overpowering emotion surge through me, as though what had just happened was of huge spiritual significance.
The Liverpool fans certainly seemed to think so. I was given the Number 11 shirt – Djibril Cissé was 9 – but, in all truth, I would have worn Number 109 just to play for Liverpool again! I signed my contract on 27th January and five days later I was warming up, ready to pick up where I’d left off. Talk about unfinished business – when I came on as a substitute on the hour mark against Birmingham City, the Anfield crowd gave me the most thunderous standing ovation. All four sides of the ground rose to their feet to cheer me onto the pitch again. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and I honestly didn’t know how to respond.
There was a flag on The Kop that read:
FOWLER, GOD – 11
WELCOME BACK TO HEAVEN