When Defeats Aren't the End of the World

They Say the Darkest Hour is Right Before The Dawn

Villa Park, Birmingham, the night of 15^th December, 1976.

I and many thousands of other Liverpool supporters are standing on the then-roofless Witton Lane End terrace, to watch league leaders Liverpool take on 4th placed Aston Villa.

Just over half an hour after kick off, we are 4-0 down. The Villa front 3 of Andy Gray, Brian Little and John Deehan are proving unstoppable for our defence.

Then Ray Kennedy got one back, only for Andy Gray to get his second of the match just before half-time. We go in 1-5 down. As some of our fans sit down with their backs to goal in the second half, playing cards, our team are getting slaughtered for a second time during the break. As Liverpool’s left-back Joey Jones said:

"When we trooped off at half-time, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans were waiting and each delivered his rollicking in his own particular way. Joe lost his cool, to say the least, and when he did that we all sat up. Then Bob, Ronnie and Roy gave their verdicts. Now matter how big the name, we all caught it in the neck. I had never known anything like it."

Things improved, in that we got a goalless draw in the second half!

Incidentally, we lost our next league game too, 0-2 at West Ham.

Gloating Villa fans bathed in that match for decades. But here’s the thing; ask a gloating Brummie if they remember who won the league that season. Or the European Cup, for that matter. We reached the FA Cup final too., as well as featuring in one of the all-time epic Anfield occasions against St-Etienne. It was to become one of the memorably exciting and successful seasons in our history. I wrote about it in the Seasons to Remember series on Dynasty. https://dynastythetomkinstimes.substack.com/p/a-season-to-remember-19767.

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