Part 1 of Part 22! - A Quarter of a Century of Liverpool FC in the Premier League Era, 1992-2017

The Kop's Last Stand, and Klopp's Arrival

The final part of this series is so long we’ve split it into two parts.

The first looks at Kop and Klopp - the end of the standing Kop, and the early stirrings of the Klopp era.

This major series by TTT Subscriber Anthony Stanley was first 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.

Covering the period from the onset of the Premier League in 1992 to Klopp’s arrival in 2017, 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.

An unheralded Norwich City midfielder by the name of Jeremy Goss may be an odd place to start any conclusion of Liverpool’s journey in English football’s modern era, but in many ways the Welsh ‘Gossa’ perfectly illustrates the tectonic shift between the birth of the Premier League and the strange country we all find ourselves inhabiting now. Moreover, of course, it was the Welshman’s goal that was to prove to be the last one ever scored at the old Spion Kop in 1994.

A few months previously, Goss’s Canaries - who finished third in the inaugural Premier League campaign behind Manchester United and Aston Villa - travelled to Bayern Munich’s Olympiastadion and inflicted the Bavarian club’s only ever defeat by a British side on German soil. Goss scored a thundering opener, lashing home a volley in that UEFA Cup Second Round tie to help secure an historic 2-1 victory. Improbably to our eyes - weaned, as we have been, on a cavalcade of foreign talent - that Norwich City team contained just one non-British player: Ruel Fox, who had been born on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. Clearly the claws of money being relentlessly pumped into Sky Sports’ flagship had yet to truly sink in, but the English game was undergoing a violent metamorphosis. It would emerge from this shifting cocoon as more entertaining, as a thrilling, pulse-quickening creature and with stadiums that are infinitely safer and more welcoming. But domestic football did not emerge unscathed and a Mephistophelean deal was a by-product of the entire process. For Liverpool Football Club, conservative and family run, loathe to embrace modern values and in some ways with owners who fought against this evolutionary voyage, the birth pangs of the Premier League were troubling and turbulent indeed.

30th April 1994 will always be a date etched deep into the hearts and memories of every Liverpudlian. Mere weeks before Diana Ross would fail to find the net in a garish opening ceremony to the World Cup in the US - a ceremony that seemed to predict the direction football was travelling in - Goss scored the winner for Norwich City as the Reds fell to a 1-0 defeat in their last home game of the season. Anfield was about to be forever changed as, following the Taylor report, the first shoots of true modernity began to make their way through the football club: the stadium was to become an all-seater and the old standing Kop, perhaps the most famous terrace in the world, was about to be demolished.

It's easy to take for granted just how much the world - not just football - has changed since that day. That was the year that Kurt Cobain died and Four Weddings and a Funeral took the planet by storm, that Oasis’ Definitely Maybe and Blur’s Parklife helped start the Britpop phenomenon. Sony launched the original, seemingly miraculous PlayStation and Tarantino truly became the next hip director with Pulp Fiction. In 1994, there were around sixty seven mobile phones for every one thousand people in Britain. OJ Simpson was chased through Los Angeles live on TV, a strange precursor to a World Cup where Diego Maradona was sent home in disgrace, a newly unified Germany was beaten by a Yordan Letchkov header and the Colombian Andres Escobar was shot dead. The prospect of a World Wide Web started to really gather momentum as the relatively short lived Netscape Navigator was released. Also apparently gathering momentum were relations with Britain and the continent, as the Channel Tunnel was officially opened. By 2016, of course - and due to a plethora of complex factors - Brexit was a troubling reality as the British mindset appeared to come full circle.

But on that day in late spring, as Liverpool - holder of a record number of league titles and who had been champions just four years previously - were about to finish eighth in the second ever Premier League, only one thing mattered to a heaving Anfield. Writing in LFCHistory.net, author Sigfús Guttormsson took up the tale:

“A big festival took place before, during and after the game between Liverpool and Norwich City. The Kop was simply magnificent this sunny spring day. 44,339 filled Anfield on the day and there were probably about 16,000 on The Kop itself. The Canaries' boss John Deehan received an unusual request from the Reds before the game. He was asked to let the Reds attack the Kop in the second half. John had no problem with that! The players couldn't quite match the brilliance of the crowd and Liverpool lost 1-0. The Welshman, Jeremy Goss, scored the only goal and became the last player to score in front of The Kop.

The famous old terrace was a sight to behold. The flags, the banners, the colour and the singing. This was a highly emotional afternoon and there was more than a tear or two in the eyes of some old and young Kopites. The standing Kop was the man of the match! Not for the first time but the last!

The day after a big concert was held on The Kop. Many of Liverpool's most famous bands performed. At the end of the concert the standing Kop sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" for the last time. A few days later work started on taking the most famous terrace in the world down. A new stand, which holds 12,390 spectators, was built during the summer of 1994.”

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