Red Machine (Liverpool FC in the '80s: The Players' Stories)

During the 1980s, Liverpool Football Club dominated English soccer, winning six league titles, two European Cups, two FA Cups, and four League Cups. In Red Machine, Simon Hughes interviews some of the most colorful characters to have played for the club during that period. The resulting interviews, set against the historical backdrop of both the club and the city, provide a vivid portrait of life at Liverpool during an era when the club’s unparalleled on-pitch success often went hand in hand with a boozy social scene fraught with rows, fights, and wind-ups. The players featured here include John Barnes, Bruce Grobbelaar, Howard Gayle, Michael Robinson, John Wark, Kevin Sheedy, Nigel Spackman, Steve Staunton, David Hodgson, and Craig Johnston, as well as first-team coach Ronnie Moran. Their candid, ribald, and sometimes scathing recollections provide an antidote to the media-coached, on-message interviews given by today’s players, and combine to offer a unique insight to this exciting time in the club’s history.