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Trailing first to Man United and then Everton in the
1985/86 title race, a home defeat to the Toffees mid-
season brought about another rallying cry between
players and staff and saw the Reds – whom now-skipper
Alan Hansen called “the worst Liverpool team I’ve ever
played in” – hit their stride to win 11 of their remaining 12
league games with Dalglish scoring the only goal of the
game at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea. And they won
the FA Cup for a first-ever league and cup Double.
If Hansen had doubts about that team, there were no
complaints about the side two years on, sweeping up the
1987/88 title with an enthralling forward-line.
With Dalglish playing fewer and fewer matches and
Ian Rush briefly departing to Juventus, the new-look strike-force of John Aldridge, Peter Beardsley and John Barnes
clicked from day one and would have topped the table
from the off only for Anfield fixtures to be postponed due
to a sewer collapsing under the Kop.
Spurs were the opposition for the third time that decade
when the Reds sealed the championship. Beardsley’s first-
half goal had Anfield celebrating a 17th league title and
there were still four games to play. There was a nine-point
gap to Man United after the 40 games were played with
another nine between them and Forest in third.
The 18th title came in 1989/90 – who could have
imagined it’d be the last for so long? Again the title was
won by nine points but this time Villa were runners-up.
Anfield once more took in the title-clincher and it was
another come-from-behind victory as Rush and Barnes
cancelled out Queens Park Rangers’ early advantage,
while an Aston Villa draw against Norwich City meant
they couldn’t catch the Reds who had a game-in-hand
and three games to go.
Thirty years on, after a few near-misses, the current
Reds are somehow outdoing each and every one of these
previous title-winning campaigns with records that would
astound even the greatest names from our history.
Definitely worth the wait!THE 1989/90 TITLE WAS
CLINCHED WITH A COME-
FROM-BEHIND VICTORY
OVER QPR AS THE REDS
EVENTUALLY CLAIMED
THE CHAMPIONSHIP
BY NINE POINTS
Stamford Bridge , 1986: the
goalscoring King celebrates1990...who’d have thunk?