English leagues of the 80s: First Division 1983 1984 Season review

Liverpool became only the third club in League history, after Huddersfield in the 1920s and Arsenal in the 1930s, to achieve a hat-trick of championships when they tied 0-0 with Notts County on May 12.

Their latest triumph underscores that careful planning and continuity of management are essential requirements for consistent success in modern league football. While other clubs have changed managers with unpalatable and costly frequency, Liverpool has quietly kept things in the family, promoting Bob Paisley when Bill Shankly retired, and appointing Joe Fagan 12 months ago to maintain that line of succession. And Mr. Pagan has quietly gone about his business, loo, with two major honors under his belt

already and The European Cup final coining up at the end of the month.Typical of the way the club operates is the purchase of men like John Wark, shrewdly signed from Ipswich a few months ago when the Anfield tnidfield unit was beginning to show occasional signs of weakness. Wark, who has only missed a handful of games due to injury in the past 10 years and rarely scores in bad performances, provided the extra touch needed in the agonizing final weeks. Players like him – and Lee, Hansen, Neal and Kennedy – provide vital support to the more talented soccer of Souiiess, Lawrenson. Dalglish, Rush and Whelan. For anyone who has lost count, this was Liverpool’s 15th championship.

The English are crazy about statistics.

The programs that are issued before each match are models in their own right, and those done in honor of Liverpool do not escape scrutiny. For forty pence (about five francs) the public is informed. First of all, a record of the club’s achievements, and immediately striking is the fact that since 1976 The Liverpool Reds have been English champions six times and European champions three times. Then, for twenty-four pages, there are the coach’s point of view, a detailed analysis of all the matches with the club received that day, news from English soccer, a microscopic presentation of the visitors, a gloss on a Liverpool player, photos from the last match, news from European soccer, a summary of all the matches played this season, rankings of all kinds, echoes of fan clubs without publishing the presentation of the teams of the day and the calendar of the day in all divisions.

A model of its kind!

At a glance, done, you know everything about Liverpool 1983-1984. As you may already know, the Liverpool Reds have given themselves a new coach, or rather a new manager: Joe Pagan has succeeded Bob Paisley. Joe Pagan, who was Bob Paisley’s assistant for almost ten years. In Liverpool, we have a sense of continuity. All the more reason to keep the squad as small as possible from one season to the next.

Three arrivals for a sum of one billion cents. Yes, you read well: the billion cents. The price to pay for a replacement goalkeeper (Bob Boder, from Sheffield Wednesday), a central defender (Gaby Gillepsie, from Coventry) and a striker (Michael Robinson, from Brighton). And when you know that only the latter is a title holder, you will probably think that it is a bit expensive. But in England, despite the crisis, transfer prices continue to soar. And as they don’t give to the rich, they had to loosen the purse strings to increase the number of substitutes. Liverpool was the favorite in the English league at the beginning of the season and was still in the running at the end of February, ahead of a trio of Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and West Ham. But clouds in the Mersey delta (the river that waters the city): in the sixteenth final of the FA Cup, Brighton (Robinson’s ex-club), “Brighton and Holve Albion”, relegated to Division 2, had the luxury to eliminate the champions last month.