Free My Liverpool Home by Kenny Dalglish Page A

captain. Emlyn was always good to me, helping me settle in when I was his room-mate. My admiration grew when I realised what an accomplished defender he was – two-footed, unbelievably enthusiastic, strong, pacey and a brilliant reader of the game. Not many attackers got the better of Emlyn. He loved a goal as well. When Emlyn scored, the whole place lit up because his face was a picture. Banter came easily to Emlyn. When Scotland played England in a Home International at Hampden Park in 1978, we’d qualified for the World Cup but, much to my delight, Emlyn and the English boys were staying at home. Scotland were doing badly in the Home Internationals and Emlyn was determined to rub it in, particularly when England won in Glasgow.
    ‘Hey, wee man, you only got one point,’ Emlyn shouted as we walked off the pitch.
    ‘Emlyn, just think, if you’d got one more point, you’d be going where we’re going. Argentina. World Cup. Brilliant.’
    ‘Piss off!’
    ‘I’ll send you a postcard, Emlyn.’
    Liverpool had another top centre-half not going to Argentina after England’s embarrassing failure. Long before I arrived at Anfield, Phil Thompson had come to my attention on Football Focus . The BBC profiled this rising young talent from Kirkby, filming Tommo with his pride and joy, a new Ford Capri. The cameras followed him into his house for some more filming. I’m sure they got some decent footage inside but it was pure TV gold when Tommo came back outside. His Capri was up on bricks. Somebody had nicked the wheels.
    Tommo was a great character, a good leader as well as a fantastic defender. The uneducated looked at the stick-thin Tommo and wondered, ‘How can he play?’ He was wiry, more a sapling than an oak like Smithy. Shanks famously remarked that Tommo looked like he’d ‘tossed with a sparrow for a pair of legs and lost’ but he turned tackling into an art form, sliding in to nick the ball at a time when many centre-halves piled in blindly, taking man and ball. When Scotland faced England, I knew the difficulties in store. Tommo was as stealthy as a pickpocket, the king of anticipation, but if the game got dirty, he’d have a kick. Nobody bossed Tommo around. He loved playing the Scots. Sitting next to him on the coach to Jock Stein’s testimonial at Celtic Park, I laughed at Tommo’s running commentary on all the fans outside.
    ‘Look at that daft Jock there,’ Tommo said, pointing out one supporter. ‘He’ll be butting a bus in a minute.’ Tommo was convinced all Scots spent their waking hours head-butting vehicles. ‘It’s butt-a-bus time,’ Tommo shouted whenever we travelled to Scotland.
    Noisy and irrepressible, Tommo was steeped in the passion of the Kop. Having stood on the terrace as a kid, he brought the hunger of a Liverpool supporter to his every thought and movement. I soon understood how profoundly Tommo hated the idea of his Liverpool, his friends’ Liverpool, his family’s club, ever losing. He gave everything for Liverpool, including four cartilages. Few players touched the ‘This Is Anfield’ sign with such tenderness. Rising up those final steps on to the pitch, Tommo charged straight to the Kop, waving to his brother Owen, standing where Tommo himself once stood. That showed the bond between terrace and dressing room, fans and players belonging to the same family, fighting for the same cause. Tommo was a Kirkby boy through and through and even at his height with Liverpool, he’d help out with the pub team at The Falcon. He even took the European Cup in to the bar there one night.
    Like Tommo, Joey Jones was another diehard Liverpool fan. He used to run towards the Kop, shaking his forearm to show off his Liverpool tattoo. Joey was tough and unyielding, a real defender. A lot of defenders don’t actually enjoy their duties but Joey took great pride in forcing opponents back, protecting Liverpool’s goalmouth with all the commitment of a guard dog. This suited Emlyn, who