by Ciggy » Sat Jan 28, 2006 1:24 pm
What a lovely article from Oliver Kay.
The Times January 28, 2006
Anfield gets ready to cry Fowler once more
By Oliver Kay
IN COMMON with many inside the Ataturk Stadium on May 25, Robbie Fowler wept as he saw Liverpool’s players, including fellow Scousers such as Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, cavorting around with the European Cup. He told himself that he should have been among them. One of his old team-mates agreed. “If it hadn’t been for Gérard Houllier, you’d have been out there too,” he told him and Fowler nodded appreciatively, his eyes welling up.
It was as if one of the most famous parables was being retold with a nasty twist, that the prodigal son was left on the outside looking in as his family celebrated without him, but eight months later, he is back among them, doubtless to the apprehension of any fattened calves that happen to be grazing in the Anfield area.
The story of Fowler’s return to Liverpool is remarkable, and one that will have many wondering whether Rafael Benítez has taken leave of his senses and for once allowed emotion to infiltrate his judgment.
But whether he leaves with a whimper at the end of his six-month contract or spends the coming years inscribing his name deeper into Merseyside folklore, it is a truly astonishing change of fortune for a man whose memories from Istanbul sounded rather like Yosser Hughes in Boys from the Blackstuff, telling a nonplussed Graeme Souness that “I could’ve been a footballer . . . but I had a paper round”.
This season, Fowler has played only 61 minutes of football in the Barclays Premiership for Manchester City, his only full appearance coming in the FA Cup against Scunthorpe United, when he rolled back the years with a hat-trick. At the time it felt like a last hurrah at City, with Coca-Cola Championship clubs, including Ipswich Town, Millwall and Wolverhampton Wanderers, sniffing around him. Everton and Wigan Athletic made inquiries, but the offer he was waiting for, in his wildest dreams at least, came yesterday.
Fowler has always maintained he had unfinished business at Anfield. He said as much in his autobiography, in which he blames Houllier, Benítez’s predecessor, for hounding him out of the club he loved. Some of his grievances with the Frenchman are justified, others not, but he feels that the manner of his departure was summed up by the fact that, on what proved his final appearance before joining Leeds United, he was substituted at half-time against Sunderland as Houllier made a tactical adjustment once Dietmar Hamann was sent off. “It was horrible not being able to say goodbye to the fans,” he said. “If there was one thing I could change, it would be that.”
The fans, though, never forgot him. Whereas Michael Owen was jeered by some on his return with Newcastle United, Fowler has always been revered. They love him for every one of his 171 goals for the club, but they also love him because he is one of them, a daft scally who could be seen winning Fifa fair-play commendations, earning the wrath of Uefa by wearing a T-shirt supporting the sacked Liverpool dockers and snorting the goalline in an ill-advised celebration in a Merseyside derby.
And he loves them back. A boyhood Evertonian he may have been, but, even after his late goal for City against Manchester United recently, he made a point of lifting five fingers to the away supporters, one for every European Cup Liverpool have won.
Now he has the opportunity to rekindle the love affair. Missed opportunities have been a story of Liverpool’s season. Fowler, who had to hold back the tears as he wore the red shirt in front of the Kop for a charity match last March, was never going to pass up this one.
There is no-one anywhere in the world at any stage who is any bigger or any better than this football club.
Kenny Dalglish 1/2/2011
REST IN PEACE PHIL, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.