Having set the scene in the last blog (https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/12/fergusonian-trauma-lfc-emdr-blog-1-of-3.html) in outlining the basic principles of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy as applied to helping Liverpool fans deal with traumatic memories (i.e. LFC-EMDR), I will now move on to cover the first half dozen traumatic memories of the past three decades, with all traumatic memories accentuated in terms of their potency by virtue of the key roles of Manchester United and/or Alex Ferguson in each of them.
Trauma
number 1: Liverpool losing the 1977 treble
This first trauma actually has its origins from more than three decades ago, but it came to fruition (if that's the correct term for traumas) in 1999. It is therefore something of a retro-retrospective trauma. I am not old enough to remember the 1977 FA Cup final when Manchester United beat Liverpool. Liverpool had just won the league and went on a few days later to win their first European Cup. However, in losing the FA Cup final to United, Liverpool lost out on winning a historic treble, something that United would famously achieve themselves under the management of Alex Ferguson in 1999.
Trauma
number 2: 1996 and the ‘double double’
Alot has been spoken and written about the ‘Spice Boys’ image of Liverpool during the mid-1990s. The Spice Boys jibe is usually summed up with an image of the Liverpool team walking the pitch at Wembley before the 1996 FA Cup final, dressed in cream Armani suits. They would go on to lose that FA Cup final, to Manchester United. And Manchester United would thus become the first club to win the league and FA Cup double on two occasions, having already achieved it in the 1993-1994 season. To add to the misery, that grim ‘double double’ FA Cup final day was also Ian Rush’s last game for Liverpool, a decade after his heroics in the FA Cup final of 1986 (see link to earlier blog: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/05/may-10th-1986.html )
Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and Jamie Redknapp of Liverpool walking the pitch at Wembley before the 1996 FA Cup final, a match they would lose 1-0 to Manchester United, thus handing them an unprecedented league and FA Cup 'double double' (i.e. 1993-1994 and 1995-1996)
Eric Cantona scores the 86th minute winner for United in that FA Cup final - the ball cannoning off Ian Rush on its way goal bound. A decade after his heroics in the first all Merseyside FA Cup final (see link: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/05/may-10th-1986.html), this was Rush's final game for Liverpool.
'Double double toil and trouble', chant the three horrific witches from Shakespeare's MacBeth - Liverpool fans endured their own horrific Manchester United 'double double' in 1996...
Trauma
number 3: 1999
Three years after that ‘double
double’ season, United would go on to win another league and FA Cup double and
then turn it into a unique and never replicated treble, by winning the
Champions League. And just as United had a hand in preventing Liverpool’s 1977
treble, Liverpool had a hand in helping United to their one in 1999.
The date was January 24th
1999 and the setting was Old Trafford, with Liverpool taking on Manchester
United in the 4th round of the FA Cup. Michael Owen (more about him
later) put Liverpool ahead in the third minute of the tie. I remember watching
the game with my brother, also a Liverpool fan. With only a few minutes to go
and Liverpool still 1-0 up but United pressure building, he asked me ‘If United
equalise, will there be a replay or extra-time?’ As if to answer his question,
in two heart-breaking minutes Dwight Yorke (on 88 minutes) and Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer (on 90 minutes) snatched the game from Liverpool – there would be no
need for either extra time or a replay.
Not only was this a vital
game for United in their quest for the treble, but the very same scoring
pattern would be replicated in the Champions League final in May of that year, with United going behind to an early Bayern Munich opener and then winning the game
in injury time with goals from Teddy Sheringham and, of course, Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer.
Current Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with a 90th minute winner over Liverpool in the 4th round of the FA Cup in January 1999. United would go on to win the league/FA Cup/Champions League treble and their late brace of goals in this FA Cup tie set the template for their Champions League victory over Bayern Munich in May 1999.
Yes it's that man - and that club - again. Solskjaer with his
late late winner in the 1999 Champions League final.
1999 by Prince - great song and album,
but what a truly terrible year for Liverpool fans...
Trauma
number 4: Supporting Arsenal
If your enemy’s enemy is your friend, then Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal was surely a friend to Liverpool at different stages of Alex Ferguson’s reign in charge of Manchester United. Arsenal were the most successful United rival during Ferguson’s reign, managing four top flight league titles after Liverpool’s 1990 success, five FA Cups and two league and FA Cup doubles of their own, along with a UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup and a League Cup. And I must admit that I frequently went out to watch some of those United versus Arsenal humdingers in the late 1990s, urging on Arsenal with almost the same fervour as which I would urge on Liverpool themselves. In a blog from earlier this year, I have described this particularly unsettling phenomenon as ‘transfandom’ (see link: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/02/liverpool-v-west-ham-jan-24th-2020-is.html ).
And what
a terrible, false and disloyal feeling that Arsenal transfandom period was, and
it constitutes yet another traumatic memory.
Trauma
number 5: ABU
I think it was Irish sports
journalist Des Cahill (a West Ham fan) who, perhaps forgetting the full name of
his own club, coined the phrase ‘Anyone But United’ in the late 1990s, in an
effort to capture the feeling of the time that everyone was either a fan of
Manchester United or a hater of them. Of course I was initially delighted to
hear the phrase and immediately identified as the most hardcore ABU fan
imaginable. But then I started to realise that the ABU term was really yet
another acknowledgement of just how dominant United had become – it was them
against everyone else, and they kept beating everyone else.
Trauma
number 6: Denis Irwin and Roy Keane
Irwin and Keane will go down in
history as two of the most decorated Irishmen in the history of English club football.
And while it was a joy for many to see Irish players doing so well at the very top of
the English game, there was the double edged sword for Liverpool fans of knowing that their
success was Manchester United’s success.
Corkonian Denis Irwin won seven Premier league titles, two FA Cups, one League Cup, one Champions League, one Cup Winners' Cup, one European Super Cup and one Intercontinental Cup during an outstanding career as left back for, unfortunately, Manchester United.
So the LFC-EMDR therapy is now starting to hurt, and we've only got as far as 1999. But I know it will be worth it in the end.
Next blog: another half dozen (at least) Manchester United induced traumas for Liverpool fans.
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