A Quarter of a Century of Liverpool FC in the Premier League Era, 1992-2017, Part 7

Here We Go Gathering Cups in May (and February)

In this instalment of this major series on Dynasty, Anthony Stanley looks at Houllier’s treble cup season of 2000/2001.

Originally a series of articles covering the period 1992 to Klopp’s arrival in 2017, it was written by TTT Subscriber Anthony Stanley, serialised on The Tomkins Times and then published by TTT as a book called A BANQUET WITHOUT WINE - A Quarter-Century of Liverpool FC in the Premier League Era.

The book is available from https://www.amazon.co.uk/Banquet-Without-Wine-Quarter-Century-Liverpool/dp/1521850674. It remains a definitive matter of record of Liverpool FC during the period in question.

The 2000/01 season was one in which Liverpool announced they were back; a breathless, joyful campaign full of twists and turns, of memorable football and last gasp goals, of celebrating wildly with scarcely imagined incredulity.

It was so special because no one – absolutely no one – saw it coming. The naysayers were silenced in a frenzied cacophony of blistering and magical memories; a practical lifetime of them in the space of a few months. Gérard Houllier became a messiah, the most popular manager in a generation, as Reds everywhere – weaned for over a decade on the envy that only those who once had it all and now find themselves cast out can understand – bobbed to the tune of Baha Men’s ‘Who let the dogs out?’. It was McAllister from forty yards and his manager’s beaming, disbelieving and infectious smile; it was winning twice against United and deliriously casting off their hex over us; it was Michael Owen and a brace in Rome; it was Robbie – struggling under the authoritarian nature of the regime – still able to conjure a stupendous twenty yard volley in the first of our Cardiff visits; it was keeping out Rivaldo and company in Barcelona and completing the job at Anfield (can anyone remember the rhythm of our heart beats in those final few moments as an away goal would spell elimination?); it was practical larceny against Arsenal in the FA Cup final when Owen, like a tartrazine-addled toddler on Christmas morning, all manic eyes and disbelieving smile, tried to summersault after planting past David Seaman with his left foot; it was a deluge of goals, one of them golden, in Dortmund; it was that man Robbie again, somehow scooping an overhead kick into the Charlton goal in the final league game of the season. It was all this and more; a crystallisation of heady joy as the results just kept coming. Sixty three games in four competitions. One hundred and twenty seven goals, three trophies and a return to the promised land of the Champions League.

There’ve been worse seasons to be a Liverpool supporter.

The rest of this article is for Dynasty Subscribers only.