Liverpool's Unforgettable 1983-84 Season

I Don't Know What It Is But I Love It

I Don't Know What It Is But I Love It by Tony Evans - Liverpool and the most unlikely success story in football 
 
'Evans tells the story with gusto . . . the anecdotes are apt, and the blood on the streets and the boots on the field are as dramatic and black-humoured as on a battleground' The Times 
 
Dalglish. Souness. Rush. Hansen. And, of course, Grobelaar. They rank with the very greatest players in one of the greatest teams of all time. 
 
But the heroes of 1984 were an unlikely group to make history. 
 
Led by a 63-year old first-time manager and a captain show-off better known for his moves on the dancefloor, Liverpool's greatest season was a booze-fuelled journey to three trophies: the first division title, the League Cup and the European Cup, won on a remarkable night in Rome. The team's theme song was even a much-derided Chris Rea hit. 
 
Eye-watering, hilarious, and utterly unbelievable, this is the story of how they did it, and how their season was the last year of innocence in English football. This book is essential reading for fans of Red or Dead, 43 Years With The Same Bird: A Liverpudlian Love Affair and the memoirs of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Kenny Dalglish. 
 
'Superbly paced...full of riveting anecdotes' Mirror (Book of the Month) 
 
Tony Evans has been football editor of The Times for five years and was born a Liverpool fan. He writes a weekly column for The Game, The Times' weekly football supplement.

Evans tells the story with gusto . . . the anecdotes are apt, and the blood on the streets and the boots on the field are as dramatic and black-humoured as on a battleground

Superbly paced...full of riveting anecdotes

Tony Evans has been football editor of The Times for five years and was born a Liverpool fan. He writes a weekly column for The Game, The Times' weekly football supplement.

Led by a 63-year old first-time manager and a captain show-off better known for his moves on the dancefloor, Liverpool's greatest season was a booze-fuelled journey to three trophies: the first division title, the League Cup and the European Cup, won on a remarkable night in Rome. The team's theme song was even the much-derided Chris Rea hit. 
 
Eye-watering, hilarious, and utterly unbelievable, this is the story of how they did it, and how their season was the last year of innocence in English football.

Tony Evans

The power of Tony Evans’s writing emerges from the juxtaposition of football passion and political insight. A writer who understands that the meaning and beauty of football emerges not from mere tactics and line-ups but from the social context.

Matthew Syed, author of Black Box Thinking

Politically charged, and flashing between scenes of gallows humour and improbable sporting achievement, Two Tribes is an uncompromising portrayal. Tony Evans brilliantly captures a city under fire through its rival footballers.

Simon Hughes, author of Ring of Fire and Men in White Suits

Highly recommended– not just on Merseyside, but for all who remember that season fondly and for those who wish to recall or understand an era when English football and society existed on a knife-edge.

Tony Evans is a brilliant writer who knows these teams, this subject, this era, this culture, these themes and this city better than anybody, and this enthralling book makes that so clear.

Thatcher, tumult, tunes. This is more than just a football book.

A great read. As a Liverpool fan there is obvious interest. But to me the book goes a lot deeper than that, covering Liverpool City’s political climate in the ‘80s, the growth of football television coverage, etc. Lots of fun.

Not just a funny and forensic account of the year the city of Liverpool was the undisputed capital of British football, but a proud and unapologetic tribute to how that city stood up, in all its radical beauty, to a brutal Thatcherite pounding. Two Tribes is social history of football writing at its finest.

‘Two Tribes perfectly illustrates the relationship between football and society in Thatcher’s Britain with as many twists and turns off the pitch as on it…The sheer beauty of this book is its ability to take you from the stinking alleyways and crumbling terraces that were the norm for football supporters at that time… Two Tribes is not a Liverpool book. It’s not an Everton book either. It’s a snapshot of a time when watching football was often a matter of survival. And that’s what makes it so good.’

A coruscating snapshot of football and life on Merseyside during Thatcher’s Britain.

The Observer - Best Sports Books of 2018

Liverpool, Everton and a City on the Brink

Cup Final Day, 1986, and the eyes of the world are on Liverpool and Everton. The two best teams in Europe are about to engage in a gladiatorial battle at Wembley. But this no ordinary cup final. On this warm May day, the future of English football – and a city’s reputation – is on the line. 
 
A year before this momentous final, Liverpool fans had been involved in the Heysel disaster – a tragedy which cast a long, dark shadow over the sport. With English clubs banned from Continental competition, football reached its lowest point. 
 
Set against a backdrop of social and political turmoil and the burgeoning anti-establishment vibe on the streets, Tony Evans’s Two Tribes vividly recalls the tumultuous 1985-86 season and the titanic struggle for supremacy between two great Merseyside clubs. Giving voice to players, managers, politicians and musicians, it follows the remarkable twists and turns of an exceptional era. It is also the story of Liverpool’s renaissance and Everton’s private agony, masked by a show of solidarity and communal spirit on the day, and how a season which began in shame ended in pride.

Tony Evans

Praise for Two Tribes

The power of Tony Evans’s writing emerges from the juxtaposition of football passion and political insight. A writer who understands that the meaning and beauty of football emerges not from mere tactics and line-ups ...

Politically charged, and flashing between scenes of gallows humour and improbable sporting achievement, Two Tribes is an uncompromising portrayal. Tony Evans brilliantly captures a city under fire through its ...

Highly recommended– not just on Merseyside, but for all who remember that season fondly and for those who wish to recall or understand an era when English football and society existed on a knife-edge.

The power of Tony Evans’s writing emerges from the juxtaposition of football passion and political insight. A writer who understands that the meaning and beauty of football emerges not from mere tactics and line-ups ...

Politically charged, and flashing between scenes of gallows humour and improbable sporting achievement, Two Tribes is an uncompromising portrayal. Tony Evans brilliantly captures a city under fire through its ...

Highly recommended– not just on Merseyside, but for all who remember that season fondly and for those who wish to recall or understand an era when English football and society existed on a knife-edge.

The power of Tony Evans’s writing emerges from the juxtaposition of football passion and political insight. A writer who understands that the meaning and beauty of football emerges not from mere tactics and line-ups ...

Politically charged, and flashing between scenes of gallows humour and improbable sporting achievement, Two Tribes is an uncompromising portrayal. Tony Evans brilliantly captures a city under fire through its ...

Highly recommended– not just on Merseyside, but for all who remember that season fondly and for those who wish to recall or understand an era when English football and society existed on a knife-edge.

Books by Tony Evans

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