“The born Red”.
Roy Evans career began at Liverpool at the age of 16 although he was a talented footballer, (representing England school boys at left back), he wasn’t able to sustain a regular starting place playing only 11 times in 4 years. At the age of 25 seeing that his playing career was not moving forward he was offered a coaching position. “The recognition of Evans' coaching potential was a brilliantly inspired piece of insight, credited largely to Shankly, but undoubtedly the brainchild of new manager Paisley.”
The chairman at that time stated with the appointment of Evans, “We have appointed someone who will one day be a manager of this club", said chairman John Smith.” He was appointed coach of the reserve team and in the 9 seasons (1975-1983) he won 7 league titles.
Time went on, with the retirement of Shankly and Paisley, Joe Fagan (one of the bootroom boys) took the position of the manager role and appointed Evans has first team coach. Fagans Managerial career with Liverpool was although successful (winning English footballs first treble), but was short lived due to the terrible Heysel disaster which seen 39 Juventus supporters dying after been crushed by a collapsing wall in the 1985 European Cup Final. That seen Liverpool appoint Kenny Dalglish as player/manager. His managerial career also successful ended due to the pain, anguish of the Hillsborough tragedy. That was the start of the slow decline of Liverpool FC. Midfield legend Graeme Souness took on the managerial role at the club where he enjoyed so much success as a player. His reign as manager was not a successful one and the once almighty Liverpool started to decline.
This is when Roy Evans, ‘The Manager’ story starts and also when my devotion and understanding of Liverpool and football in general started to take effect. I supported Liverpool since I was 7 years old 1987 to be exact but at that time I didn’t understand much about what was going on all I knew was Liverpool the players and they used to win that’s it. It was only in the early 90’s when I really started to understand football during the Souness era, I even have my football cards from 1992 with Grobbelaar, Mark wright, Steve Nicol, Ronnie Whelan, Ray Houghton, Jan Molby, John Barnes, Ian Rush and the rest of the team, the time when Vinny Samways was still allowed to play
Peter Beardsley was an Everton man and Gordan Strachan was still player. Those were the times when I really started to watch Football.
Enough of me rambling on back to the Evans story. Evans took over the managerial role from Graeme Souness in the 1994-1995, season, and boy did he have some work to do. So he decided, "Well I decided we had to return to getting the simple things right.” The main thing Evans had to sort out was the defense which was really ‘leaky’. He brought in Phill Babb and John Scales to sort that out, but didn’t really work.
“Strenuous efforts were made to improve the team's consistency but as Evans points out, it's not simply a case of deciding who you want to buy and then picking them up at the supermarket. Back in the days when you had to finish as champions or perhaps 2nd place to gain a Champions League slot it was obviously harder to entice top European players to the club if you were outside of those places. There may be all sorts of reasons why you can't sign someone. We were in for Marcel Desailly and it looked like we'd got him, then at the last minute Chelsea showed an interest and he went there - he preferred going to London over Liverpool. His quality would have been ideal at the back for us. I also went to watch Lillian Thuram a few times when it looked like we might be able to get him but for various reasons the deal never materialised." Liverpool were also now been called the ‘Spice Boys’, supposedly more interested in modeling contracts, flash cars etc then football. “This was a team that oozes talent and class, McManam, Fowler, Redknapp, Collymore and the experience of Barnes and Rush. When they were good they were very good, but when they were bad they were awful.” Evans reign with Liverpool as a manager was not as successful as his reign of the reserves in his previous years, having won only the league cup (Worthington cup) in 94/95, runners up in the F A cup to Manchester (spit) Utd in 95/96 and finishing 4th, 3rd, 4th, 3rd in his four full seasons as manager.
In his Final full season at Liverpool seen his team play great attacking football, but bad defense and inconsistency seen Liverpool bring in Frenchman Gerard Houllier as joint manager alongside Evans, this partnership didn’t seem to be working as Evans and Houllier had very different ideas causing confusion between players and Evans knowing that the board were not going to sack Houllier having just brought him in, decided to resign. So ended his 34year love affair with Liverpool. In his time at Liverpool he has seen an experienced all the success, all the disappointment and all the pain as a Supporter first then a player, then coach, assistant manager and eventually Manager of Liverpool FC. Evans and Liverpool on the whole is a love story, fairytale and thrilling drama rolled into one, with success, heartbreak, happiness and pain, joy and tragedy.
There is a lot of discussion as to why Evans never actually went on to manage other teams, he had short spells at fulham helping out Riedle as care-take manager for a few weeks and director of football at Swindon for 6 months. Some might even say that he would not go anywhere else because it was not Liverpool. This is what he had to say, "You never say never in football but there's a perception about me that because I'm Liverpool through and through I couldn't work anywhere else. That's not true of course."
"The only regret I have is that we didn't win the title in 1996. I felt that side was good enough but in the end we just fell short." Maybe we might see Evans in a managers position or maybe the first part is true, that if it is not Liverpool then no thanks. If it is the first part then such devotion to one club should be applauded as it is a loss to other football clubs all over.
I do however think, and this is just my opinion so don’t bite my head off, that Evans would be a great manager in this time with the ability to sign Multimillion pound players, and with playing in Europe being able to attract players from all over the world. Knowing that he has an eye for players having wanted to sign Desailly and Thuram, using what he had learned from the masters Shankly and Paisley, in modern football he could create a whole new revolution. He is the one of the only ones left who has experienced Shankly’s philosophy of “pass and move”. Many people have theories on how football should be played, Evans team were very attacking, flamboyant and entertaining to watch even for the neutral supporter but with hardly any success, while Houlliers team are more tactical, and organized trying to give nothing away losing alittle in the creativity department but winning alittle more in the trophies department. Which is better? I have my opinion and you have your opinion and that’s that.
On that note we say Good Bye and God bless to the last of the ‘Boot Room Boys’ and the man “Born to be Red”.
Hope you enjoyed the read.
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