Roy Evans served Liverpool for almost 35 years in a number of different roles, starting as a youth team player in the sixties and finally becoming first team manager in the nineties.
Roy was signed by Bill Shankly in January 1964 when he was fifteen years old, on a ‘B Form’ which was the precursor to apprentice forms. This was a great year to be a Scouser as Liverpool led the way in the world of football and entertainment. ‘Merseybeat’ was topping the charts around the world led by The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers and in the mid sixties they had two great football teams too. Roy’s first season at Liverpool culminated with a first F.A Cup victory and was followed the next season by the First Division championship.
Roy was an accomplished player at left back and he was a regular in the England schoolboy teams. What a lot of people don’t know is that as a teenager, Roy was also an excellent cricketer. He was a bit of an all rounder and played regularly at local level for Bootle and at county level for Lancashire in their schoolboy sides. Roy was selected for a Lancashire summer cricket tour in 1965 but as it would have coincided with pre-season training, Shankly told Roy that he had to stop playing cricket if he wanted to make it in football. As much as he loved cricket there was no doubt in his mind what to do and that was the end of his career on the crease. As Roy later said, “If Shankly said something, you listened.”
Roy spent the vast majority of his playing career at Liverpool in the B team and the reserves. He made his first team debut in 1969 but his time in the first team was restricted to only eleven appearances in five seasons. The superb Alec Lindsay made the left back spot virtually his own which kept Roy out of the side. During this period he was a valued member of the reserve side helping them to five Central League titles between 1968 and 1974.
In 1973 Roy went over to America to spend the summer season playing for the Philadelphia Atoms in the NASL. Roy played nineteen games and scored two goals, helping Philadelphia to win the NASL championship. He was a popular player in America and even made the all star team. Roy was asked to go back for a second season in 1974 but he had to turn it down when Shankly named him in the squad for the F.A Cup Final against Newcastle.
When Bill Shankly retired in July 1974, the new manager Bob Paisley asked Roy to become the reserve team manager. He pondered the request for six weeks as he wasn’t sure if he was ready to hang up his boots at the age of 25. However Ronnie Moran and Tommy Smith worked on him and convinced him that he was still young enough to go back to playing if it didn’t work out. It’s strange to think what may have happened if Roy had been able to accept the offer to go to Philadelphia that summer because if he had he may not have been asked to join the coaching staff and join the ‘boot room boys’. John Smith, the Chairman at the time, predicted: "We have not made an appointment for the present but for the future. One day Roy Evans will be our manager."
Roy was a revelation as reserve team manager, leading them to seven Central League titles in nine seasons. In the sixteen seasons running from 1967/68 to 1982/83, Roy won twelve Central League titles, five as a player and seven as manager. At that time new players would be placed in the reserves until they were deemed ready for the first team and some of the players he nurtured as youngsters were amongst the greatest of all time. Players such as Ian Rush and Alan Hansen were helped by Roy as well as some other great players who went on to good careers at other clubs, such as Kevin Sheedy (Everton) and Steve Orgrizovic (Coventry City).
When Bob Paisley retired in 1983, Joe Fagan was promoted to become the new manager. In turn Roy was also promoted to join Ronnie Moran as a first team coach. His first season with the first team coincided with one of Liverpools greatest ever as they romped to the treble of First Division champions, European Cup winners and the Milk Cup, beating Everton in replay. The following season was not as successful unfortunately, as it was a rare trophy-less season for the reds with Everton taking the league title and the Heysel disaster sealing a tragic end to lovely Joe Fagans time in charge.
When King Kenny took over as player manager he kept Roy and Ronnie as coaches and Bob Paisley was brought back to the boot room in an advisory role to help out. The glory days continued for another five seasons as we won three league titles, two F.A Cups and a few lesser trophies like the Screen Sport Super Cup. This latter trophy was created by the F.A as a mini competition for teams who had finished the previous season in a European qualification place but were unable to play in European competitions due to the ban on English sides in place at the time.
When Kenny shockingly resigned in February 1991 there was a lot of speculation as to who the new manager would be. Ex players John Toshack, Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness were the bookies favourites with Roy and Ronnie Moran also in the frame after Ronnie took over as interim caretaker manager. It was soon announced that the new boss would be Souey who had been a huge success north of the border with Rangers. I’ve written a number of times in these pages about what a disaster Souness’s reign was (1992 F.A Cup aside) so I don’t need to explain how bad the next few years were for Liverpool F.C.
In 1994 Souness was finally gone after a home defeat in the F.A Cup by lower league side Bristol City. Souness knew it was all over when the night before the Bristol City game he coincidentally happened to be in a hotel room next door to where the Bristol team were being given a team talk. He overheard the team talk and heard Bristol manager Russell Osman tear apart the Liverpool side pointing out individual weaknesses. His main point was that if Liverpool were put under heavy pressure they would quickly throw in the towel and surrender, which is almost exactly what happened. Souness was terribly shocked and upset with this and under extreme pressure he had to resign before he was publically sacked.
Pretty quickly a new manager was announced and it was now time for our man Roy to make good on the prediction that Peter Robinson made twenty years earlier. Roy brought in former Reds midfielder Doug Livermore as his assistant and a new era had begun. This was the era of exciting young players like Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and Jamie Redknapp playing some of the most creative and exciting attacking football I have ever seen. Unfortunately it was also the era of terrible defending and dodgy goals conceded costing us the league title on more than one occasion. Two players most often blamed were David ‘Calamity’ James and Phil Babb, both were absolutely awful on a number of occasions. Although to be fair to Roy, Babb did look like a real bargain when we first bought him after he’d just had a fantastic World Cup for Ireland in USA 94.
I will always wonder how well Roy would have done if he’d been given the chance when Kenny resigned. I think he would have carried on where Dalglish had left off and not made some of the mistakes that Souness made, especially with getting rid of the senior players far too quickly and replacing them with garbage. Roy’s first full season was 1994/95 which finished with a respectable 4th place in the league (considering the finish in 8th the year before) and a victory in the Coca Cola Cup Final (League Cup) against Bolton Wanderers. Steve McManaman scored two fantastic goals to win Roy his first (and only) trophy as manager. Unfortunately the League Cup victory probably built up too much anticipation from the fans and we were expecting big things the following season, especially when Roy smashed the Liverpool transfer record to sign Stan Collymore for 8.5 million pounds. Whilst Roy’s transfers weren’t always successful there is no denying that he certainly knows how to mould youngsters into world class talents. Fowler, McManaman, Jamie Carragher and Michael Owen are all standout examples of this. Although to be fair Roy was also denied cash in his quest to sign certain players that definitely would have helped us move to the next level. Jari Litmanen in his prime, Teddy Sheringham and Marcus Dessailly are three players that Roy wanted to sign but was denied the funds by the board. Litmanen eventually joined a few years later when injuries had spoilt him, I shudder to think how good it would have been to have him playing with Fowler with both in their prime before injuries.
The one word that I would use to describe Roy’s time in charge is inconsistent, we would be absolutely brilliant one week then bloody awful the next. For example; there was the amazing ‘game of the decade’ in 1996 when we beat title rivals Newcastle United 4 – 3 and then followed it up by losing to lowly Coventry City 1 - 0 just days later. We should have won the league that season, but there were too many losses in games we should have won and the defeat to Man Utd after two horrendous clangers from David James basically cost us the title.
However as inconsistent as we were in the league we did reach Wembley for the second cup final in two years to meet Man Utd in the F.A Cup Final. The game was completely unmemorable and is only remembered for two things, the winning goal from Cantona (another James error) and those white Armani suits. The latter contributed to the media dubbing the young and handsome players ‘the Spice Boys’. A victory in the F.A Cup final could have been a platform to take the club onto great things but unfortunately it just wasn’t to be. Another two inconsistent seasons led to us finishing fourth and third respectively.
Roy’s record in terms of end of season success was pretty consistent, winning one trophy, reaching another final and never finishing below fourth place in the league. For many clubs other than Liverpool this record would probably have been deemed a huge success. In fact if the top four had been enough for Champions League qualification as it is now, Roy may have been given more money to spend and he may have been able to take us onto the next level. Unfortunately back then it was only the top two teams that qualified for the Champions League so we were never able to see how we could have done.
After the 1998 World Cup in France the French F.A’s technical director Gerard Houllier was brought into the club to form a bizarre joint manager role with Roy. Houllier was a bit of a Liverpool fan after having spent time in the city teaching French and attending some big games in the early seventies. Roy now says that at the time when he was asked about it, he’d just returned from a holiday and wasn’t thinking straight. If he had been thinking straight he would never have agreed to the partnership with Houllier. The joint manager role didn’t go well and it seemed like Roy’s nose was being pushed out. Whenever the team did badly Roy would be blamed and when we won Houllier would take the credit. The image being portrayed at the time was that Roy’s ideas and boot room methods were outdated while Houllier was bringing fresh new ideas from the continent. One of the big problems with the joint managers was that the players never knew who the actual boss was. Houllier is well known for avoiding confrontation so Roy (as was Phil Thompson later on) was often made to look the bad guy delivering bad news to players on his own. Houllier and Roy would agree to give players being dropped the bad news together but when the time came Houllier was often nowhere to be found leaving Roy to be the bad guy.
Things came to a head after an away game at Valencia in the UEFA Cup. McManaman, Paul Ince and Valencia’s Carboni were all sent off after a brawl on the touchline. Roy was furious with his players and the officials and was steaming mad at full time after we’d managed to scrape through on away goals. Houllier refused to close ranks with Roy in the dressing room and instead seemed more interested in handing out shirts as gifts to the officials. On the flight home Roy realised fully that the partnership would never work and one of them had to go. Realising that Houllier wasn’t going anywhere, Roy made the ultimate sacrifice for the club he loves so much and resigned a week later in November 1998.
I was never a big fan of Houllier (although the treble season had me fooled briefly) and a lot of the reason for this stems from the way he behaved in the aftermath of Roy’s departure. Houllier showed a great deal of disrespect to Roy and he was very vocal in describing Liverpool as a shambles when he took over and continually spoke about the huge job he had on his hands making Liverpool successful. Liverpool were in third place in the Premiership when Houllier took over sole charge, hardly a team in crisis and the side was in a far healthier position when Roy left than they were when he replaced Souness four years earlier. Roy himself says that while he remains a die hard Liverpool supporter, it took him a number of years to get over the snub he felt from the club after 34 years of loyal service. Roy was never given a proper farewell from the club, he received no proper public thank you or a dinner to commemorate his efforts which was the custom with previous departing club servants. This is something I think they should be ashamed about and really need to correct before too long.
After he left Liverpool Roy took a break from the game, except for a brief stint helping out Karl-Heinze Riedle, one of his former signings, at Fulham. In 2001 Roy became the director of football at Swindon Town although for all extents and purposes he was the manager of the team. After the team became a complete mess behind the scenes with the directors, Roy decided to leave the club when money he was promised for players was unavailable. In December 2004 he joined ex Red John Toshack with the Wales national side and became assistant manager. He currently combines this role with coaching at Wrexham in League Two.
When we talk about Liverpool’s greatest ever servants, Roy Evans belongs right up there with all the great names like Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. His record as a coach is up there with the best of all time and his managerial record is more than respectable. In the nineties he was easily the most successful English born manager in the Premiership and his legacy as a Liverpool legend will never be in doubt.
Liverpool FC | Supporters Club | Vancouver, BC, Canada
