Always makes me sad that GH is not on the kop flag of great Liverpool managers. I know he didn’t win a league title or champions league, but the role he played in modernising the club and making us a force again was massive.
Dunno why, but I’ve been reminiscing about Rafa and GH recently. Great Liverpool men … don’t get mentioned enough. Hope we get to see Rafa on LFC media one of these days … we never saw enough of GH. We should enjoy our legends whilst they are still alive
Yes, great post and I agree.
Houllier single handedly modernised the club. Not to the extent of Arsene Wenger but his hands were also tied by an incompetent boardroom. Where Wenger had the forward thinking David Devin, we had the chump Rick Parry (who is quick to reiterate he has absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for selling to Hicks and Gillett. Absolutely none whatsoever, despite it being his bloody job to have done due diligence on them. Oh and he also throws Rafa under the bus for the facts ‘rant’, utterly shameless man).
So with such clowns above him, it’s all the more remarkable Houllier achieved what he did. He made best use of the talented youth and, until the last couple of years, was a dab hand in transfers. If a fish rots from the head (I.e. the board), Houllier certainly stymied that. And heck, we had a lot of fun too. I was always quite sad that he felt the need to emphasise his significance in winning in Istanbul, not because it was egotistical but because he thought he needed to legitimise himself in the eyes of some. Ged needn’t worry, he has his own unique and special place in the Liverpool legend alongside fellow legends, and for people like me who were kids at the time of his management, he was the architect of such wonderful and innocent memories, feelings of which firmly root me to the support of Liverpool today.
A fantastic manager, a fantastic man and a fantastic servant for the club.
