For March 16th I'm going back 36 years to 1985 and Liverpool's league game against Tottenham Hotspur.
Now let's be clear about this. Liverpool almost ruined football for me before I'd really got started. I first attended a match in 1977 and this was right when Liverpool started a long period of total domination of English football. They won 9 First Division titles, 4 European Cups, 2 FA Cups and 4 League Cups in the 14 seasons between 1977 and 1990. It got boring. Very boring. And I started wanting anybody other than Liverpool (and Arsenal of course) to win the next trophy unless they were playing one of those teams of "foreign johnnies". It was impossible to imagine Liverpool going 30 years without a league title. It felt like every Tottenham visit to Anfield arrived just as Liverpool were parading yet another trophy before the Kop. Jealous? You bet!
The annual crusade to Anfield was always one of those trips where you travelled more in hope than expectation. 1985 was no exception. There was a hoodoo you see. Spurs hadn't won at Anfield since the Titanic sank. Since 1912! Not for 73 years. However Spurs were challenging for the title themselves in this particular season and so there was a little more optimism than usual. And they had former Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence in their ranks and he always played well at Anfield didn't he? Well he did on this occasion. At times it was like the Alamo. Stupendous saves. Headers off the line. Inexplicable misses by Ian Rush. Spurs had their chances too. In the second half Micky Hazard, right in front of the Kop, had a shot parried out by Bruce Grobbelaar to the feet of Garth Crooks who smashed it home. The majority of the attendance of 43,852 went home disappointed but cue delirium in the away end.
I had travelled up to Liverpool Lime Street on the Supporters Club train from London and such was the historic nature of this win that all travelling supporters were subsequently presented with a special pennant marking the achievement of "First Win at Anfield for 73 Years". I still have it of course! It's treasured! The win left Spurs in second place behind Everton with just 13 games remaining, 9 of which were at White Hart Lane. What could possibly go wrong?
CRB Match No. 361
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