No matter how effective a club are in the transfer market, there are always players who slip through the net to leave supporters dreaming wistfully of what might have been.
Liverpool fans don’t have cast their minds back too far to recall the Reds supposedly closing on in top talents like Teddy Sheringham, Marcel Desailly, Dani Alvez and Alexis Sanchez to name but a handful, only to see them end up elsewhere and often come back to haunt.
Very occasionally though a player finally makes it to Anfield and delivers after years of speculation that he could one day become a Liverpool player and there are few finer examples than the veteran midfielder who raised serious eyebrows when being brought to the club on a free transfer at the ripe old age of 35 but played a hugely influential role in one of the club’s most exhilarating seasons and provided one of the Merseyside derby’s most iconic moments.
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Gary McAllister first came to the attention of the Anfield faithful when one of his trademark free-kicks set Kenny Dalglish’s Double winners on the path to the first defeat of their title defence when the champions travelled to Leicester City in September 1986. The 22-year-old Scot had arrived in England a year earlier after making his professional breakthrough with his hometown club Motherwell and, although he wasn’t able to help them stave off relegation that season, soon established himself as an all-action midfielder with an eye for goal destined for greater things, twice being selected for in the PFA Second Division Team of the Season and becoming a full Scotland international in April 1990 while still playing in the second tier.
A £1.15m move to one of the country’s leading clubs of the time Nottingham Forest was in the pipeline with Liverpool also said to be in the running but McAllister stunned Brian Clough by rejecting a move to the City Ground and signing for newly-promoted Leeds United after reportedly failing to be impressed by the two-time European Cup winning manager, who had asked a series of pointed questions about the Scot’s private life after his prospective new midfielder turned up for their meeting wearing cowboy boots, McAllister later admitting to FourFourTwo, “It was bad timing. Looking back, I’d have loved to play under Clough in his pomp, but I had options and just felt Leeds were a better fit. Brian wasn’t impressed when I said I was going to Leeds. ‘Leeds?!’ he said, then the phone went down quite abruptly.”
McAllister arrived at Elland Road with the Yorkshire club having just ended their eight-year exile from the top flight after winning the Second Division and would go on to play a major role in a formidable midfield alongside Gordon Strachan, Gary Speed and David Batty as Howard Wilkinson’s side revived the club’s glory days from the late 1960s and 70s by winning the final First Division championship before the advent of the Premier League in only their second season after promotion in 1992.
With Liverpool slipping into a period of significant decline at the same time, McAllister’s dynamism and ability to provide crucial strikes from midfield - he scored another stunner against the Reds when the newly-crowned champions met the FA Cup winners at Elland Road weeks after their Wembley Charity Shield meeting - drew envious glances from Anfield, the Scot graduating to captain both club and country for whom famously he missed a penalty against England at Wembley during the Euro 96 tournament. He had also led Leeds out at the national stadium that year where they reached the League Cup final only to lose to Aston Villa but his six seasons at Elland Road - where he played 294 games, scoring 45 goals in the process - was drawing to a close as was Wilkinson’s reign in charge and that summer at the age of 31 he moved to Coventry City for £3m in what appeared likely to be the final segment of an impressive but perhaps slightly dwindling playing career.
The Scot’s four years at Highfield Road were mostly spent successfully helping the perennially-struggling Midlands club preserve Premier League status, with Anfield getting another painful reminder of what they had missed out on in April 1997 when two expert McAllister set-piece deliveries bamboozled hapless Liverpool goalkeeper David James as the relegation-threatened Sky Blues fought back from a goal behind to win late on as Roy Evans’s talented but brittle team passed up the opportunity to go top of the league with just six games left in a two-horse title race in which the Reds ultimately managed to finish fourth. Even as his time with Coventry drew to a close with McAllister having long since turned 35, he was still displaying his unerring knack of poaching important goals from midfield with a late winner against Everton in March 2000 catching the attention of Gérard Houllier.
Liverpool’s French manager was still in the early stages of his Anfield revolution and, after his first full campaign at the helm petered out badly with a winless and goalless final five games seeing Champions League qualification slip through the Reds' grasp, McAllister arrived on a free transfer less than six months short of his 36th birthday to the shock of many within the game and even within the Anfield dressing room. Legendary former European Cup-winning captain Phil Thompson, who had returned to Anfield as Houllier’s assistant when the Frenchman took sole charge as the brief joint-manager experiment alongside Roy Evans following his decorated playing career with the Reds and coaching stints under Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness, warned against bringing the veteran Scot at the time but later had to admit it was a masterstroke.
“I told Gerard that it may send the wrong message to the fans,” Thompson said. “We were meant to be building a team around our talented set of youngsters so it didn’t feel right to bring in someone of Gary’s age. He was a top-quality player, of good footballing stock, but he was at the end of his career. I didn’t see the logic in bringing him in. It proved to be a masterstroke though. Gary cost nothing and within a season had became a Liverpool legend. It’s hard to think of another player making such an impact in such a short space of time.”
Houllier himself later would label McAllister his most inspirational signing but it was not just Thompson within the Anfield inner sanctum who needed convincing. Few benefited more from the Scot’s experience and example than Steven Gerrard, the 21-year-old homegrown midfielder still in the fledgling stages of his stellar career and having just made his international debut for England in that summer’s European Championships, with the Huyton-born midfielder revealing in his 2006 autobiography that he too could not initially understand why Houllier had brought the veteran Scot to Anfield.
"He seemed an odd buy”, Gerrard wrote. "OK, he was once a terrific midfielder for Leeds United and Scotland, but McAllister was now thirty-five, his best days surely behind him … I rang my agent, Struan Marshall, who knew McAllister well. 'Stru, what's all this about?' I asked. 'Don't worry, Stevie,' replied Struan, 'Gary Mac will be brilliant for Liverpool, and for you as well. Listen to him. Learn from him.' 'Sod off, Stru' I said. 'McAllister can learn off me!' How wrong I was."
Even McAllister himself could not quite believe the opportunity that was being presented to him so late in his career, despite having observed how fellow Scot Gordon Strachan’s professionalism had aided his longevity during the former Aberdeen and Manchester United’s own ‘Indian summer’ at Leeds a decade earlier.
“When I got the phone call from my agent I thought it was a wind up”, he admitted to Graham Hunter on the ‘The Big Interview’. “He said that Gerard wanted to shake off the Spice Boys image at Liverpool. I never really bought into that image – they were a good team, a team that should’ve done better – but the Spice Boys thing hung around them and Gerard wanted a senior player who could bring something a wee bit different from a Monday to a Friday and lead by example with the way you train. From minute one of training, I wanted to prove to the players that I could still play, despite being 35 or 36. I wanted to be up in the top two or three players during pre-season. I embraced Liverpool’s history and achievements. Also over the years, Liverpool always had a Scotsman around their big victories right back to Bill Shankly and Ian St John. There were former players like Dalglish, Souness, Hansen and Nicol who I felt I couldn’t let down. The other thing was that I always felt that, even at 35, the fear of failing was there. I have always been inspired by that. I think it worked, and I got the respect that was needed.”
McAllister was one of a number of new arrivals that summer as Houllier - having brought in six new players during his first close-season in charge - added another half-dozen to his squad engineering process, German defender Markus Babbel also joining on a free from Bayern Munich while compatriot Christian Ziege arrived for £5.5m from Middlesbrough, Nick Barmby crossed Stanley Park in a controversial £6m move from Everton, with French World Cup winner Bernard Diomede and goalkeeper Pegguy Arphexad further bolstering the ranks. It helped ensure there was not too much spotlight on the veteran midfielder as this new unexpected chapter began and McAllister delighted the rain-soaked Anfield crowd by scoring in a 5-0 pre-season friendly over Italian side Parma the week before the season began but his Liverpool career did not get off to the most auspicious of beginnings.
Having been left on the bench for the opening day home victory over Bradford City, the Scot was handed his first start two days later when the Reds traveled to Highbury to take on Arsenal only to be sent off shortly before half time for a challenge on Patrick Vieira as Houllier’s men slumped to a 2-0 defeat in which Vieira and Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann also received their marching orders from referee Graham Poll. More significantly, that same month McAllister’s wife Denise was diagnosed with cancer while seven months pregnant with the couple’s second child and the Reds midfielder took a break from playing to support his family as his wife refused treatment until after the baby was born.
He returned to the Liverpool side in mid-October for the 4-0 win away to Derby County which was the start of six successive Premier League starts that also saw him score his first Reds goal when crashing home the opener against his former club Coventry at Anfield, and continued to make regular substitute appearances interspersed with occasional starting spots as Houllier’s side ensured their League and UEFA Cup campaigns would continue into the new year, McAllister coming off the bench in the wins over Manchester United and Arsenal during the week before Christmas which served notice that this Liverpool team were gradually growing into a force capable of challenging the top sides.
He was back in the starting line up as the Reds hammered Crystal Palace at Anfield 5-0 to overturn a first-leg deficit and reach their first final of the season in the League Cup, making another important contribution soon afterwards when winning a late penalty at Sunderland which earned an important point in the race for Champions League qualification and starting both legs against Roma as his experience and calm head helped Liverpool knock the Italian league leaders out of the UEFA Cup to reach the quarter-finals. The savvy Scot also won a late penalty to help Houllier’s men seal a tight FA Cup quarter-final away at giant-killers Tranmere Rovers (who had already knocked out Everton and Southampton) and started the semi-final against Wycombe Wanderers at Villa Park as a second cup final of the season was reached but, at the start of the crucial Easter programme, was unable to prevent one of his former club Leeds United striking what seemed to be decisive blow in the race for the third spot and a return to the European Cup after coming on as a second half substitute when David O’Leary’s men won 2-1 at Anfield on Good Friday in a match which saw Gerrard’s protege Steven Gerrard sent off.
It opened up a six point gap between Liverpool in fifth and Leeds in third and, while the Reds did have two games in hand, with the fixtures coming thick and fast in a marathon campaign which would see Houllier’s men ultimately play 63 matches in all competitions, the next of them away to Everton on Easter Monday in the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park had very much the feel of a do-or-die encounter for the club’s hopes of a first ever qualification for the Champions League. With the Toffees not yet safe from relegation fears and soon-to-be-named PFA Young Footballer of the Year Gerrard suspended after his red card against Leeds, McAllister was named in the starting line as Houllier’s men crossed Stanley Park for the Bank Holiday teatime clash and it was to be the start - eventually - of a five-game winning and scoring run which would cement McAllister’s place in Liverpool folklore forever.
The 164th Merseyside derby proved to be one of the most eventful and incident-packed of any to have come before or since. Liverpool’s task of gaining the three points they needed to get their Champions League hopes back on track were not helped by the fact they had gone 11 matches and over a decade since their last victory at the home of their oldest rivals but they got the perfect start after only four minutes, referee Jeff Winter - whose performance would gain almost as many column inches as McAllister’s - ignoring a handball shout against Jamie Carragher before Dietmar Hamann played in Emile Heskey who rifled home the opener beneath Blues keeper Paul Gerrard for his 21st goal of the season.
Everton drew level through Duncan Ferguson before the break but Markus Babbel finished a classic counter-attack to restore the Reds’ lead and Robbie Fowler had the chance soon afterwards to give the visitors some daylight from the penalty spot but could only hit the post, which looked a costly miss when Igor Bišćan received a second yellow card - one of a dozen referee Winter would dish out that evening - and David Unsworth levelled matters from 12 yards after Sami Hyypia was adjudged to have fouled Ferguson. Down to ten men with seven minutes remaining, Liverpool chances of getting one point let alone the three they desperately craved looked in peril but McAllister came close to helping Houllier’s men take the lead for a third time in the closing stages when his free-kick into the penalty area was met with a powerful Hyypia header which Paul Gerrard had to claw to safety before, four minutes into stoppage time, producing an ingenious and devastating improvised set-piece that will be remembered and celebrated for as long as the Merseyside derby is contested.
Substitute left back Gregory Vignal charged forward to win a free kick not far into the Everton half, on almost the exact the same spot McAllister had floated the ball in for Hyypia just a few minutes earlier. The canny Scot stole a few extra yards and, with the whole ground and particularly the Blues defence and goalkeeper expecting a similarly lofted effort into the box towards the big men amassed towards the back post, McAllister instead fooled everyone by whipping a low, bouncing effort towards Gerrard’s near post which skipped off the turf and accelerated into the net from fully 44 yards beyond the anguished Toffees goalkeeper’s desperate dive. The Scot raced away in ecstasy, chased by delirious team-mates towards the bench where Gérard Houllier and coach Sammy Lee led wild celebrations with Liverpudlians all round the ground and beyond feeling the new infusion of belief and momentum McAllister’s sensational late winner had provided to their season while being in awe at his ability to execute such an impudent strike at such a crucial and tense juncture. It was arguably the seminal moment of what would become an unforgettable season and breathed new life and belief into a campaign which looked like it might be running out of steam at the most important time.
"Is it instinct?”, he wondered years later during an interview with Liverpoolfc.com. "I don't think it's anything you're ever taught. You just feel in the moment and take your chance. Obviously you'd look pretty ridiculous if it doesn't hit the target, but fortunately the surface was nice and slick and it was just a case of getting it over that wall. My feeling was that it'd skip up into the net because the goalie had just made that fatal error of making a step to his left. Jamie Carragher could see I was twitching to have a go. I was more afraid of what Carra would say if I missed. The Everton goalkeeper was moving to his left and leaving a gap. 'Don’t you f****** dare, Gary,' he whispered. On my run-up, the keeper moved again and so I thought: ‘Just go for it’. That was a nice moment."
“Thank God referees didn’t have their sprays back then because Gary moved that free-kick forward by at least five yards!”, Phil Thompson later recalled. “Gary showed his experience and intelligence, and just how crafty he could be, because he saw the goalkeeper also move towards the back post and decided to give him the eyes. Normally you give the keeper the eyes from 10 yards, Gary did it from closer to 40.”
Three days later, McAllister was the hero again after keeping his nerve from the penalty spot to score the only goal of the tie as the Reds won their knife-edge UEFA Cup semi final second leg against Barcelona to secure the club’s first European final in 16 years, strikes in the next three league matches against Tottenham, Bradford and Coventry helping him become immortalised in a song to the tune of French Canadian folk tune ‘Alouette’ which is still belted out with gusto by those fans able to remember all its component parts and which pays tribute to the Scot’s ‘baldy head’ as well as his unforgettable contributions to Liverpool’s Treble cup triumphs.
McAllister left his mark on both finals in the heady month of May 2001, coming off the bench at Cardiff to float in the free kick which led to Michael Owen’s 83rd minute equaliser and then starting the UEFA Cup final in Dortmund against Alaves, assisting Markus Babbel’s minute opener and Robbie Fowler’s second half strike as well as slamming home a 41st minute penalty himself and swinging in the 117th minute free kick which brought Delphi Geli’s golden own goal that secured the trophy. It won him the man of the match award and was a moment of immense pride at the end of the such of a momentous first year on Merseyside, with his wife Denise now in remission and watching from the stands in Germany (she would tragically pass away in 2006 at the age of only 38 after cancer returned). McAllister donated his UEFA Cup final prize money to cancer charities and spoke at the time of how his wife’s illness had affected him.
“It was a dream life until Denise's illness was diagnosed. You get to travel the world, make money and meet loads of interesting people. But basically you're pampered and spoiled as an individual, until you undergo a life-changing experience such as the fear of losing your wife. I'd only ever been used to football-related problems, so I didn't know how to cope with something serious in my own home. Denise would say: 'What's happened has happened and we must just get on with it'."
Liverpool still had one more hurdle to overcome after securing their unprecedented hat-trick of cup trophies with victory in the final Premier League game of the season away to Charlton needed to guarantee the previous August's initial objective of qualification for the Champions League and it was inevitably McAllister who provided the corner early in the second half which led to Robbie Fowler’s opener and an eventually comfortable 4-0 victory. The following day the Scot and his team-mates embarked on an open-top bus tour in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring Liverpudlians to put the seal on one of the club’s most memorable and unexpectedly successful campaigns and he later revealed the UEFA Cup triumph was the highlight of his career.
“There hasn’t been a better night for me in football than Alaves. I was involved in goals, scored a goal, was given Man of the Match and was presented with the award by Johan Cruyff. It doesn’t get much better than that, does it? When we went 2-0 up I thought we were going to win by five or six, and then Gerard made us protect what we had rather than being cavalier. It’s the one little thing against him, and the reason I think we didn’t win the league at Liverpool. We were cruising, but Alaves were suddenly back in it because of that. We were rocking. After the golden goal four or five of our boys, including Sami Hyypia, Markus Babbel and Didi Hamann, ran back to the centre circle because they thought the game was still playing, but I knew we’d won. We couldn’t celebrate because we had a vital game at The Valley against Charlton, in which winning would see us qualify for the Champions League, but it was a good trip back from The Valley!”
The Scot featured in 49 of Liverpool’s 63 games that season and, even if his influence wasn’t quite as prominent the following campaign when he was involved in 38 matches, he still played an important and calming role particularly behind the scenes when the Reds were rocked by Gerard Houllier’s life-threatening heart problem before eventually finishing a creditable second behind Double winners Arsenal and reaching the Champions League quarter-finals. McAllister returned to Coventry at the end of his two year contract in the summer of 2002 with the thanks and admiration of all at Anfield - which resounded to ironic cries of ‘What a waste of money’ as he bade farewell following his final game against Ipswich - for his unforgettable contribution to a memorable period in the club’s history and one which had coincided with a traumatic time in his own personal life.
The legacy of his two years at Liverpool could be seen in the careers and tributes paid by two of the Reds’ young upcoming stars during his period with the club who made it very clear just how much they had absorbed and learned from the canny Scot, which had always been Gerard Houllier’s intention and why he had ignored the concerns raised to him ahead of the veteran’s arrival. McAllister’s impact and influence on the young Steven Gerrard was so enduring that he brought him as an assistant coach at both Rangers and Aston Villa at the beginning of his managerial career, and wrote in his 2006 autobiography, “On away trips I timed my run to the bus so I could sit next to McAllister, absorbing advice. Every journey was like a lesson, with me an awestruck pupil. Gary Mac definitely helped me, particularly with my passing. He was such a clever man in possession himself. Just watching Gary in training improved me. He was a master-class on legs.”
His fellow Scouser Jamie Carragher, only 22 when McAllister arrived at Anfield in the summer of 2000, went even further by suggesting the Scot was born to play for Liverpool and lamented the fact - as had many Reds fans who had admired the Scot throughout his career - he had not been brought to Anfield sooner.
“There couldn’t have been a finer role model for any young player,” Carragher wrote in his own autobiography. “Some older heads when they offer advice can sound preachy and make you want to switch off. Gary Mac wasn’t like that. When he had something to tell you, it always made sense. I’m sure the two years many of us spent working with him had a huge influence on our careers. If ever a player was born to play for Liverpool it was him. He fitted the bill as someone the fans could relate to, classy and cultured on the off the pitch and reminding the club of the working-class Scottish heritage that has been so influential in our history. No player has been at a club for such a short period but made such a lasting impression. It’s a tragedy for Liverpool they didn’t sign him 10 years earlier. The club would have won a lot more trophies during that time.”
