I was a failure at Liverpool - I could have joined Man Utd instead but my boss was out of order

I was a failure at Liverpool - I could have joined Man Utd instead but my boss was out of order

Stan Collymore reflects on his England record transfer to Liverpool, how close he was to joining Manchester United, and leaving the Reds after just two years in an exclusive interview with the ECHO's Theo Squires

Ex-player, now TV pundit Stan Collymore during the Premier League match between AFC Bournemouth and Arsenal FC at Vitality Stadium (Image: 2018 AFC Bournemouth )

Liverpool broke the English transfer record when they signed Stan Collymore from Nottingham Forest in an £8.5m deal in the summer of 1995. While he would retain the Reds’ mantle for a further five years, until the £11m capture of Emile Heskey from Leicester City in March 2000, Alan Shearer broke the Premier League record when signing for Newcastle United in a £15m swoop 12 months after the striker’s own Anfield arrival.

Such a figure admittedly looks rather paltry now, nearly 30 years on, when it comes to Liverpool’s most expensive signings. Darwin Nunez leads the way in a deal worth up to £85m from Benfica, after all.

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But Collymore’s switch remains the last time the Reds broke the overall English record.

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Yet that didn't stop him departing Liverpool after just two years, having fallen out of favour and failed to win a trophy.

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Looking back, his time at Anfield is perhaps remembered a little harshly. He still forged a prolific partnership with Robbie Fowler and returned 35 goals and 16 assists from 81 appearances.

But having been signed in an attempt to wrestle the Premier League title back from Manchester United and end Liverpool’s growing drought, Collymore is honest enough to acknowledge why his time with the Reds was seen as a failure.

“It’s weird because if you say to people that over two seasons that you either scored or assisted 50 goals in 80 games people would go, 'That's f**king really good',” he exclusively told the ECHO, courtesy of NewBettingSites.uk . “But it's Liverpool.

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“At Liverpool, if I had been involved in 25 goal involvements over two years, but we won the title, then that would have been a different frame.

“The thing was, if you remember, I came in and it was a British record transfer, which doesn't happen that often now. The money is so big that fans expect a big signing to come in and maybe two or three big signings to come in.

“So who gives a s**t whether it’s £100m. They don't really compute the figure. Back in those days, particularly in the early days of the Premier League when clubs were generating their own revenue, £8.5m now, somebody did the maths on it, it would now be I think £137m

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“That would raise eyebrows if somebody paid £137m for anybody now. And it was at Liverpool and it was one player. I know they brought in Jason McAteer, brought in one or two other players.

“But it was, ‘You are coming here to win us the title. Man United are our rivals and have won it the last couple of seasons. You're the man to wrestle it back’.

“And I think that in that context, you go, yeah, well, that's that's a failure. He was brought in to be the missing link to knock down the noisy neighbours down the East Lancs Road and to put us back up our perch after the difficult days of Souness.

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“But in the context of 50 goal involvements, a partnership with Fowler that over the two seasons, just between us, was 102 goals created and scored. That was remarkable, really.

“It was just the fact that we just missed the boat in the league, the Spice Boys thing, which I think was unfair. I know Robbie really hates this. Because of the white suits we were seen as party boys.

“We were no more or less party boys than any other club in the country. Man United’s lads were going out and having a beer and we weren't taking the p**s. We were just going out on days off.

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“And of course losing the FA Cup final, wearing those suits against Manchester United. So framed in that, you walk away and you go, ‘Well he’s left after two years, we lost the FA Cup final against the Mancs’.

“‘They wore the white suits, they’re a bit laddish, they didn’t take their game seriously’, which wasn't true. I don't think you could be involved in as many goals and being involved in that partnership and not take your football seriously.

“‘And he wasn't part of a team that won us a trophy’. And for Liverpool, that's the benchmark.

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“I speak often about it. If I had been involved in half the amount of goals that I was, 50 goal involvements in 80 games, but we’d have won the league, people would have gone, ‘Yeah, great, money well spent’.

“But yeah, I would go with it being, in the context of Liverpool Football Club, a failure. But I just think that that goes to show how high, rightly, Liverpool Football Club set the bar.”

Collymore has no regrets about his Liverpool career, despite what others might think. But he does remain disappointed in how it all ended.

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Demoted to the reserves at times, the former England striker considered himself a scapegoat. He would say as much to manager Roy Evans, who would disagree with such an assessment.

Ultimately sold to Aston Villa for £7m, he admits he would have liked to have to stayed at Anfield - even though he got a switch to his boyhood club.

“At the end, I think the disappointing thing for me was we get to the end of the season, the second season, I've been in and out of the team a little bit,” he recalled. “I was unhappy that I wasn't in the team at times and I felt a little bit scapegoated.

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“I made that known to the manager and he disagreed. So I came in and out of the team towards the end.

“Then there was just the natural progression of Michael Owen, a tour de force as a striker who came in. I remember playing with him, I was demoted to the reserves. We both scored a couple each, and then we played down at Wimbledon, at Selhurst Park, and he came on and scored and I was up front with him.

“It was obvious he was going to go on and do great things. So Fowler was still very young, Michael Owen was coming through, they wanted a steady head so Riedle came in as the experienced guy, so they could afford to let me go.

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“Is it disappointing to me? Yes, I would have liked to have stayed and had three, four, five years and win a couple of trophies. It was only a few seasons later that the treble was won.

“But those are the choices you make in football. Certainly no regrets playing for Liverpool. I mean, some of the great experiences that I've had, whether it be signing for the club, whether it be playing in Europe, whether it be that Newcastle game, are memories that I'll take to the grave.

“So I'm extraordinarily proud to have played for England's most successful club and one of the world's most successful clubs.

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“When you are a kid, aged eight, nine and ten and you can say, ‘What do you want to do when you're older? ‘I want to be a professional footballer’. Then you play for Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and Aston Villa, the three clubs that, when I was a kid, were most influential and won six successive European Cups between.

“The three biggest clubs effectively in that sort of early 80s period, I think most people would take that! It's been a real blessing.”

Collymore’s career could have turned out rather differently. While he would join Liverpool in a club-record deal, and was left regularly cursing Manchester United during his Anfield career, the Red Devils had actually wanted to sign the striker from Nottingham Forest themselves.

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They would end up signing Andy Cole from Newcastle United instead in January 1995, but Collymore believes Sir Alex Ferguson actually wanted him more. While United won two Premier League titles and the FA Cup during his two years at Liverpool, Collymore has no desire to rewrite history.

“It was close because I shared an agent with Andy Cole - Paul Stretford,” he recalled. “He is still Wayne Rooney's agent and he is a Manchester United fan.

“So when I was at Forest, scoring lots of goals, he would call me and say, Arsenal are interested, Liverpool are interested, Everton are interested, United are interested.

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“I said, ‘Look, I don't want all of this noise. I just want to get to the end of the season, score my goals and either renegotiate my contract with Forest or see who was in for me’.

“In that time, in the middle of the season, Forest went to Old Trafford. And United hadn’t lost in a year at home. It was Giggs, it was Cantona, Bruce, Pallister, Keane, Neville, Ince, etc etc.

“And I scored. - a worldie and we won 2-1. First game they've lost in the year and everybody made a big fuss about it. Match of the Day asked me after the game, ‘Do you want to stay? Do you want to go?’

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“I was like, ‘I just want to play football here. I'm not answering these questions’. But then Frank Clark, the manager, went on and he said, ‘Well, if somebody comes and pays £10m for him, he can go.

“I thought, ‘F**king hell, that’s a bit out of order’. And then that started to get an idea around clubs that were interested of what the ballpark figure was.

“Cut a long story short. Sir Alex Ferguson tells a very famous story. So Kevin Keegan, the then manager of Newcastle, called up Sir Alex Ferguson and asked him about Keith Gillespie. ‘Can we have Keith Gillespie?’

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“Sir Alex Ferguson in his book says. ‘I want Collymore but Frank Clark wasn't answering the calls. So I basically said to him, cheekily, ‘What about Andy Cole?’ Thinking I wasn’t going to get anywhere’.

“Andy Cole was banging in goals with Peter Beardsley, there was just no chance Andy Cole was leaving Newcastle at that point. And Ferguson said in his book that there was a pause on the end of the phone.

“And Fergie knew he got him. Because if he’s thought about it, then there's a price. If there's a price, we will pay it. And that’s how it happened.

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“Basically, my agent, Paul Stretford, was also Andy Cole's agent. And I was calling him, trying to figure out what was going on because I hadn’t heard anything. And basically the deal was done with Cole to go to Man United.

“Paul Stretford then rung me up after the deal was done and he said, ‘Nothing to worry about, Liverpool are interested’. And I said, ‘Well, I'm not worried. This is not a sort of a first or second choice. I just want to play football, but I want to be kept informed in what's happening’. And he didn't.

“So we got to the end of the season. Scored my last goal for Forest in the last game against Man City, I think. I went on holiday to Cyprus. And it was with Jamie Redknapp, Phil Babb and Jason McAteer, because I'd met them out and about.

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“So really, my mind was made up. Everton had made the same bid, £8.5m, Arsenal also made a lower bid, Liverpool's Roy Evans flew back from holiday from Barbados, literally for three hours, to talk the deal through. And it was all done and dusted.

“I was absolutely made up that I was signing for what was then and what still is England's most successful football club.”

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