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Ronny Rosenthal (left to right), Ian Rush, Ronnie Whelan and Alan Hansen pose with the league championship trophy in 1990 - Getty Images/Paul Popper
The tranquil hum around Anfield was more akin to the first days of summer at Lord’s than the climax of a title race.
Liverpool were 2-1 up against Queens Park Rangers as title rivals Aston Villa protected a comfortable two-goal lead over Norwich City, with the outcome of the championship seemingly destined to roll on to the penultimate match of the season.
Spectators were nervously listening to bulky transistor radios when Liverpool’s Ronny Rosenthal missed a sitter, smashing over from six yards, but the win over QPR was all but secured.
Then, 30 seconds later, Anfield exploded as if the striker had found the top corner as word spread that, following a Derek Mountfield own goal, an equaliser from Norwich’s Robert Rosario had changed everything at Villa Park. Suddenly, Liverpool were three minutes from their 18th title.
As full-time approached, the vibrant atmosphere led to a crescendo as the final whistle blew. They thought it was all over.
Not yet.
Four minutes of added time in Birmingham were ongoing as Liverpool’s players enjoyed their swift lap of honour. It would have been embarrassing had Graham Taylor’s Villa found a winner. Even so, the Liverpool team’s acknowledgement of victory was more businesslike than euphoric before they disappeared down the players’ tunnel (watch full match below).
Within seven minutes of the end of the game, the pitch was empty save for a few stewards, and spectators began leaving blissfully unaware how consequential the club’s 10th championship title in 15 seasons was.
Had they known it would be 2025 before Liverpool could next celebrate becoming English champions in front of supporters, more time would have been taken to absorb the magnitude of another championship.
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Liverpool had to celebrate their 2020 Premier League title inside an empty stadium because of the Covid pandemic - EPA/Laurence Griffiths
“What you have to remember is we were expected to win the league then,” says Ian Rush, who scored Liverpool’s equaliser that day before a disputed John Barnes penalty sealed the deal.
“When I look back at that game, it is obvious we should have celebrated much more than we did. But it was not in our make-up as a club in that era to do that. If we over-celebrated we were put in our place. In those days the message was drilled into us to keep our feet on the ground.
“The first time I ever won the league, the medals were put on a chair in the dressing room and Ronnie Moran said:‘If anyone thinks they deserve one, there they are.’ Only Graeme Souness and Kenny Dalglish would immediately stand up and go and get one. As the younger players in the squad, me and Ronnie Whelan would s--- ourselves before moving until Ronnie [Moran] said he was joking.
“Ronnie [Moran] used to tell us the easiest thing was winning the league and the hardest thing was retaining it, so when we won the message was: ‘Enjoy yourself today, but from tomorrow we are looking at next year.’ That was drilled into every player since Bill Shankly’s time and it was no different in 1990, but I think even Ronnie would have softened up if he’d known it was 30 years before the next one.”
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Steve Staunton (left to right), David Burrows, Jan Molby, Ronny Rosenthal, Barry Venison, Glenn Hysen, Gary Gillespie, Bruce Grobbelaar, Gary Ablett and Ray Houghton celebrate on the pitch in 1990 - Getty Images/Steve Hale
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Liverpool’s victorious players pose with the First Division trophies, the historic one and the sponsor’s - Getty Images
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John Barnes (left) and Peter Beardsley celebrate in the dressing room with the league championship trophy - Getty Images/Dan Smith
Liverpool did not realise that they, like the rest of English football, were on the threshold of a revolution. Italia 90 was on the horizon, clandestine discussions about the creation of a new Premier League were gathering pace, and the years of razzmatazz to accompany trophy lifts were a few years away. This was an era when even one of the club’s greatest-ever seasons in 1984 was accompanied by a level of self-criticism which seems retrospectively brutal.
“Maybe by our standards we didn’t deserve to win the league this time, but by everybody else’s standards we did,” captain Graeme Souness said in the immediate aftermath of that treble.
“Souey was spot-on with that quote,” says Rush. “The expectations were so high we were always being compared with league title winners from the previous year, or two years previous, or five years ago. That was the same every time we won the league. It was our job to win it every year, so when we did it we just reacted as if it was a job well done and thought about how we would do it better next time.
“We didn’t go out together after 1990. Very rarely ever did that. We had a drink in the players’ lounge and then everyone went their own way. The biggest celebrations were after winning a cup final. That was the only time anyone organised a trophy parade for us, not for winning the league. We’ve never had any kind of reunion dinners for those title-winning teams. It’s only when the years go by you realise how big those achievements were.”
Contemporary reports of the 1990 success were cold, remarking upon a thrill-less familiarity, while making observations about the ‘champagne being flatter this year’ due to Liverpool’s growing vulnerabilities exposed in a 4-3 FA Cup semi-final defeat by Crystal Palace a few weeks earlier.
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Reports suggested Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Crystal Palace in 1990 had exposed the team’s growing vulnerabilities - Sporting Pictures (UK) Ltd
One highly respected national newspaper reporter remarked: “You have to wonder about the overall strength of a First Division which is so consistently dominated by one club.” A year after Michael Thomas’s last-minute Anfield decider for Arsenal, and with Merseyside still mourning after the Hillsborough disaster, such churlishness bordered on the myopic.
“People have been criticising us since we were beaten by Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-final, but we have only lost one league game since November. That is championship form,” Alan Hansen told The Telegraph’s Anfield reporter that afternoon in 1990, the esteemed and more complimentary Colin Gibson.
“I was reminded the other day that we only lost one of our last 23 games in 1990. That’s some record for a title win that isn’t as highly rated as some others,” says Rush. “I think it has been too often forgotten what the club overcame to win that year and how much it meant. You have the fact of how we lost to Arsenal in 1989, but bigger than that was the club was still dealing with the impact of Hillsborough.”
‘By 1990 the fans were a bit blasé about winning titles’
The trophy presentation would take place before the final home fixture against Derby County three days after the QPR win, captain Hansen receiving the prize rather like it was player or manager-of-the-month trophy. No fireworks. No ticker tape. No children accompanying their fathers on a prolonged lap of honour.
Since 1974, Liverpool had not gone more than a year without a major trophy. This felt more like a party meandering towards last orders.
And yet for all that – contradicting memories of the night – the newspaper reports describe a carnival atmosphere, especially as 39-year-old player-manager Dalglish introduced himself for the final 19 minutes. It was his first appearance of the season and last in a Liverpool shirt to inspire a 1-0 victory.
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Steve McMahon (left) and Kenny Dalglish celebrate winning the First Division title in 1990 - Getty Images/Dan Smith
Gary Gillespie struck the winner that night and maintains the view that the evening was more contented than euphoric.
“My memory of the night we got the trophy was of it all being a bit flat until Kenny came on, and then all the headlines were dominated by Kenny’s farewell match,” says Gillespie.
“You have to remember football was much different then. There was none of the glitz and glamour of today. When we won the league in 1988, there was no open top bus. We celebrated that title in Alan’s [Hansen’s] testimonial against a Bobby Robson England XI instead, two days after losing to Wimbledon.
“We definitely didn’t talk about a parade in 1990. You don’t want to sound arrogant about this, but we had won so much in such a short period that by 1990 the fans were a bit blasé about it.
“I signed in 1983 and in the eight years I was at the club we never finished below second, and there was never a season we were not at Wembley in some capacity, either in the cup or Charity Shield. Winning the league was expected. What I remember about 1990 was the determination we all had coming back for pre-season after losing to Arsenal in 1989.”
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Liverpool also won the Charity Shield in 1990 - Getty Images/David Cannon
Wherever Liverpool win it this time, the scenes of jubilation will make for a vivid contrast as fans descend upon Anfield, while a parade through the city will attract 750,000, making up for what was missed when the pandemic meant the stadium and streets were no-go zones.
“This year will be massive for obvious reasons, it will feel much bigger than it did in 1990 and allow the fans to savour what they missed in 2020,” says Gillespie.
Rush’s advice to players and fans is to soak up every second.
“There is a younger generation who are not so accustomed to seeing Liverpool win the league, so it’s right they make a bigger event out of it,” says Rush. “If Liverpool win the league this season, I will most probably celebrate more as a supporter than I ever did as a player.”
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