'It was like The Kop was frozen in time': The day Gordon Strachan broke Liverpool hearts

With a 3-1 lead and the visitors down to 10-men following two yellow cards for Colin Gibson, United produced a stunning comeback

What’s it like honing in goal at Anfield? ‘Every eye on The Kop is staring at you,’ says Gordon Strachan. Picture: David Cannon/Allsport/Getty

Long before Alex Ferguson talked about knocking Liverpool off their perch, he fumed about leaving Anfield 'choking on his vomit' because of the way referees were provoked and intimidated.

It was April 1988 and Manchester United headed to Merseyside in the midst of what the master of the modern Old Trafford would later describe as “squeaky bum time”.

United were second, albeit 11 points adrift of leaders Liverpool who were on the cusp of regaining the title they had lost to Everton the previous season.

With a 3-1 lead and the visitors down to 10-men following two yellow cards for Colin Gibson – the source of Ferguson’s ire – United produced a stunning comeback following the introduction of Norman Whiteside.

First Bryan Robson struck a deflected effort beyond Bruce Grobbelaar before Peter Davenport split open the Liverpool defence for the rampaging Gordon Strachan to bear down on goal in front of The Kop.

“That’s when the problem starts, when the ball gets to you,” Strachan laughs. “You say ‘pass me the ball, pass me the ball’. Then it comes and it’s ‘oh Jesus, he’s given me it. Now I have 45 yards to run’.” 

That sunny day is 33 years in the past but the pristine pitch and feelings of dread with the ball at his feet are vivid.

“The pitch at Anfield was always the best in those days. It went all quiet when I went through so I thought I was offside. I just thought ‘I’ll keep running’. I felt like the only person in Britain playing football in that moment. Then Bruce was there. I’m thinking ‘somebody might catch me here so be ready for this’. And what happens when I get near the goalie? ‘Right, I’ll have to take it around him cause he’s such a good stopper with his feet and things like that’.” 

Strachan keeps chuckling to himself as he recalls the inner monologue running through his head with the whites of a thousand Scouse eyes – and a pair from Zimbabwe – focused on him.

“When’s Bruce coming, when is he coming? Is he coming? Erm, Is he coming? No. He’s not coming, he’s, he’s not gonna come. He’s not coming. He’s just standing still and he’s looking at me. This is horrible, I’ll just keep going, he’s going to come out. He’s got to come out. No, he’s not coming out, he’s standing there. Somebody has to catch me by now.

“All of these things were going through my head,” Strachan continues.

Every eye on The Kop is staring at you. And it wasn’t like it was abuse, it was like The Kop was frozen in time.

"Then I got there, nobody had caught me so Bruce just stood looking. Fortunately I kept my nerve and side-footed it past him. It was a strange day, a strange goal.” 

United had delayed Liverpool’s title party and the headlines in various newspapers which followed reflected the occasion, with Ferguson’s outburst stealing the limelight from Strachan.

“You make me sick!” 

“You make me vomit” 

“Title torture” 

“Kop stung by United curse” 

“Ferguson outburst in parrot fashion”

“I can now understand why a lot of managers leave here choking on their own sick, afraid to tell the truth because they’ve been beaten,” the United manager raged.

“The referees here are forced into making decisions that are not correct. These are facts. I’ve been here a few times and seen it.” 

This was at the end of Ferguson’s first full season in charge of United, only his second league game in charge at Anfield, having also taken his Aberdeen side there in the European Cup at the start of the decade.

Kenny Dalglish held his baby daughter in his arms and retorted that the media would get more sense from her than his fellow Scot.

Pageantry

It wasn’t just Strachan’s goal that caught the eye that day, his celebration – strutting in front of the Kop and pretending to smoke a cigar – was all part of the pageantry and remains one of the great moments in this historic fixture.

“It may well have blown up in my face because it wasn’t as if we were still comfortable in the game,” he laughs.

“It was a bit cheeky. Nowadays I might have offended the non-smoking brigade. They might have been tweeting me. 

"But it was long ago so there was a bit of sense of humour about the place and you could laugh at yourself.

“You’ve got to remind each other that it’s an entertainment business, we’re also meant to entertain, enjoy it, laugh at it and have fun with teammates, and with the people you’re playing against.

It was fun and it could be brutal. There was a beauty in the in the power, strength and brutality of those games, because you also had to play good football alongside it. And Liverpool was always the biggest game for United in those days.

That remains the case now, never more so than on Sunday when United, led by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, head to the home of champions Liverpool three points clear at the top.

And Strachan is bemused by the negativity that persists around United players, and the work the Norwegian has done since replacing Jose Mourinho following a 3-1 defeat an Anfield in December 2018.

“You know what, meeting the actual fans can be a wonderful thing. They’re real when you speak to them. Some players, because they only live in a Twitter world, they get upset by a few nuggets, but if you go out in the real world and hear people say ‘well done, keep it going, keep your head up’, it’s an incredible experience.

“That’s reality, it’s totally different altogether from the Twitter world. That’s not the real world.”