392: Steve McMahon, England, Panini Italia ’90 World Cup

Our second post to celebrate our fourth anniversary comes from Richard Allinson and takes a look at one of his boyhood heroes who he might have only just worked out why he idolised. You’d like to think it was his commitment to the game which saw him admit he’d “kick (his) own brother if necessary... it's what being a professional footballer is all about.” Rich, however, might have other ideas.

Growing up, I had two childhood heroes. In truth I had more than that but a post on Super Ted or the Ultimate Warrior wouldn’t fit within the scope of this blog. No, my childhood heroes were Dave Beasant and Steve McMahon. I’m nowt if not glamorous. My idolisation of Beasant I can pinpoint to the exact moment he saved a penalty in the 1988 FA Cup final. I have spent the thick end of four decades trying to work out why I held McMahon in such high esteem and haven’t got there previously. Let’s try again.


He was part of the all-conquering Liverpool side of the late eighties, but I didn’t support Liverpool. Even if I did, he wasn’t the most obvious choice in a side that contained Beardsley, Barnes, Rush, Aldridge et al. He appeared for England in the greatest football tournament of all time, but it was David Platt’s overhead kick against Belgium that I was trying to emulate in the school playground, not Steve McMahon’s substitute appearance against Ireland. So, really, I have no idea why I liked him so much.

Starting out at Everton in 1979, he made 100 appearances for the Toffees, earning the club’s supporter’s player of the year in the 1980/81 season. After two seasons at Aston Villa he signed for Liverpool, a spell in which he won three league titles and two FA Cups. 

He was King Kenny’s first signing at Anfield, brought in to replace Graeme Souness, which speaks volumes about his ability. I mentioned the 1988 FA Cup final earlier, a match which Liverpool fans would largely want to forget, but McMahon’s importance in the Culture Club side was emphasised when fellow hard man Vinnie Jones said that if he could stop McMahon, then Wimbledon could stop Liverpool. Jones recounted in his biography that when he fouled McMahon early on in the game he did so because he wanted to "take out their top man". I’m starting to finally piece together why I thought so much of him as a child. The next paragraph brings things into even sharper focus…

Liverpool’s FA Cup final song for 1988 was the infamous Anfield Rap. As one of the only two Scousers in the team, he was the Dr Dre to John Aldridge’s Snoop Dogg: 

“Alright Aldo Sound as a pound/I’m cushty la but there’s nothing down/The rest of the lads ain’t got it sussed/We’ll have to learn ’em to talk like us”  

<Bruce Grobbelaar bit> 

“Alright Ace, we’re great me and you/But the other lads don’t talk like we do/No they don’t talk like we do, do they do la/We’ll have to learn ’em to talk propah”. 

There we have it. I now know why I loved Steve McMahon so much! He played in the 1988 FA Cup final, he played at Italia 90, and he appeared on the Anfield Rap. Of course I bloody loved him, how could I not?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

N/A: Chris Kamara, Sheffield United, Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer, Midas Games

Image
In November 1972 the arcade game Pong made its debut and the gaming industry was born. While not the first attempt to make some computer pixels do not very much for the amusement of the masses it was by far the most commercially successful and, by the end of the decade, the first ever football game was unleashed on the world in the form of NASL Soccer. Judging by the YouTube footage it seemed to involve lots of brightly coloured stick men over hitting through balls and running in the opposite direction to oncoming forwards which may well be what the likes of Trevor Francis , Johan Cruyff and Gerd Muller were getting up to over in the US at the time. Throughout the 1980s the games became more realistic and a host of star players and managers put their names on products of variable quality. Peter Shilton’s Handball Maradona (not that he is anyway bitter about being out jumped by a midget) gave youngsters the opportunity to fulfil their goalkeeping fantasies in a range of scenarios with r
Read more

269: Trifon Ivanov, Bulgaria, USA ’94 World Cup, UK and Eire Edition

Image
The 1994 FIFA World Cup in the USA was my introduction to football and, nearly thirty years later, probably the international tournament I remember most fondly despite the fact that I realistically don’t remember too much about it. I can attest to having witnessed Ray Houghton’s wonder goal/flukey lob in the Republic of Ireland’s shock victory over Italy as it was the centrepiece of a First Holy Communion celebration my family was attending. The joy and shock experienced by the predominantly Irish and Italian guests crowded around what seemed like the world’s biggest telly spilled over into the garden for all of us kids present and led to an inevitable kickabout. A few weeks later the quarter finals coincided with a primary school barbecue which, again, saw lots of people crowded around a telly watching Italy take on Spain . I remember very little about the game as my primary focus was the kickabout in the school playground and trying to digest ropey veggie burgers but one parent said
Read more

138: Gennaro Gattuso, Italy, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, England Collector Binder

Image
We are finally responding to a request from the excellent Anglo Italian Pod for a post on a member of Italy’s victorious 2006 World Cup squad. Mat Jolin-Beech may have already covered Francesco Totti and missed out on the opportunity to cover Alessandro Del Piero or Marco Materazzi but there were a host of exceptional footballers he could have chosen from their inspirational captain Fabio Cannavaro to the impossibly handsome Mauro Camoranesi. This blog being what it is though Mat has decided to focus on a loveable shithouse and his time in Scotland. We hope this does the trick lads. This is the first that may end up being a series of pieces from me with the theme “I forgot they played there” and the opening salvo in this possible theme is Gennaro Gattuso. The midfield hardman is synonymous with AC Milan where, in no particular order, he claimed two Champions League titles, the Coppa Italia, two Serie A winner’s medals, two Italian Super Cups, two UEFA Super Cups, and a FIFA Club
Read more