I get asked the same question regularly: âWhat was the secret of Liverpoolâs success?â
Many of Liverpoolâs players will answer similarly and talk about the simple intensity of the coaching, the training and the instructions: the degree of trust. All of that is true. Underlying everything, though, was the culture of one-upmanship.
The importance of this cannot be underestimated. If a player could not deal with the mental challenges posed by all the characters at Melwood, he would fail and end up moving elsewhere.
The intensity was fierce. The theory stated that if you could deal with the intensity of training against the best players in the country, day in, day out, matches would be easy. Likewise, if you could deal with the intensity of teasing that existed at Liverpool, no other team or individual was going to be able to take the piss during games.
As the first black player, my situation was unique. I had to show a greater mental resilience to survive and succeed.
There were black footballers after me who enjoyed a more successful time at Liverpool. After I left, John Barnes became the first black player to be signed by Liverpool from another club. He quickly earned the nickname of âDiggerâ, after Digger Barnes in the Dallas television series. Personally, I wouldnât have accepted that because of its closeness to the âNâ word.
Yet John and I had very different upbringings. While I was brought up in white Norris Green where there were very few black families and racism was a part of life, John lived in Jamaica around other black people. His family were reasonably wealthy and well respected in Kingston. John Barnes did not have to confront racism on a daily basis. For me, racism was the norm â the routine.
I do not intend for my story to sound like one laced with self-pity. But I cannot ignore the reality. I had challenged all hostility towards me throughout my life. In Norris Green, I couldnât afford to accept grey areas: the type of grey areas that existed in the humour at Melwood.
Phil Thompson had a big nose so people took the piss out of him for that. David Fairclough had bright red hair, so he became a target. Me? I was black. I wasnât accustomed to this type of humour. It was difficult to tell whether some of it was humour or whether it was really intended to offend. What is unacceptable language when it is passed off as banter?
The culture at Liverpool dictated that I was expected to just allow it to go over my head and not take things so seriously. But it wasnât in my make-up to let certain words get used without responding forcefully. So I came back at them. It contributed towards me getting the reputation as someone who had an attitude problem: someone who was reluctant to fit in.
Attitudes towards me were mixed. The majority did not have a problem with a young black male entering an absolutely white environment. But I could sense my presence made some uncomfortable. This presented another problem. Some comments were made by those who I liked, those who did not mean any real harm. But even if I let those comments ride, would it create the impression for those with more entrenched views that it was OK to follow suit?
I first became aware of intolerant attitudes at Melwood through people who didnât realise I was close by and within earshot. Unacceptable phrases were used. It would happen in the canteen at Anfield. It would happen on the bus en route to training or games. Such language was delivered in jest. But I was not laughing.
The racism was easier to take from the terraces because you reasoned it was down to your performance; you liked to think you were doing something right. Maybe thatâs naĂŻve: I was abused frequently, whether I played well or badly. When it comes from the people that you work with, though, it hurts. Because you donât tolerate it and because you snap, the management perceives that as a weakness. How could they trust you to keep your calm in a pressure situation?
Banter is an overused term in football â a term which can be used to disguise the way things really are. Iâd barely said a word to anyone in my first few months at Liverpool when the first Christmas party came around.
As part of my initiation to the group, it was arranged for a strippagram to perform a dance in front of me with the rest of the squad watching. The stripper covered herself in talcum powder and when she decided to bury my head between her breasts, my face was covered in white. Roy Chubby Brown was the compere at the party. When he said, âTry and walk through Toxteth now,â his comment was met with raucous laughter. I felt uneasy with it. But in the spirit of the night, where everyone else was having the piss taken out of them by the comedian on the stage, I was able to laugh along with the joke.
Tommy Smith presented my biggest problem at Liverpool. Tommy had been Liverpoolâs captain and was known as the âAnfield Ironâ. He had a fearsome reputation, playing nearly 650 games for Liverpool during 16 years at the club. Heâd won four league titles and two FA Cups.
The season before my arrival, he scored in the European Cup final victory over Borussia Monchengladbach, a goal Iâd celebrated wildly like all Liverpool supporters. Tommy had been one of my heroes.
Tommy Smith was brought up in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool which runs towards the city centre. Home to most of Liverpoolâs migrant communities, âScottyâ was almost a city within a city. It had four main migrant communities â Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italian â as well as the native Lancastrian community and pockets of German and Polish.
By the start of the twentieth century, Scotland Road became the centre of sectarian divisions, but with the demolition of slums after the end of the Second World War, families were rehoused to new council properties in areas like Kirkby, Huyton, Croxteth and, indeed, Norris Green, where I grew up. It left Scotland Road in steady decline. Those families that remained were predominantly white; attitudes towards those of ethnicity were hardened.
Tommy Smith was a living legend. Liverpoolâs supporters loved him and I was one of them. Yet quickly, I realised that there was a difference between the legend and the person.
Tommy seemed bitter that his career was coming to an end. He seemed bitter that the captaincy had been taken away from him a couple of years before. He was replaced by Emlyn Hughes, who was a great Liverpool captain and one of the characters inside Liverpoolâs dressing room whom I trusted.
He was a difficult person to be around. He was irritable. I donât think he had many friends inside the dressing room. I was young, I had an edge, I was different: I was black. Tommy never said that he didnât like me. But that was my impression.
During my first six months as a Liverpool player, Iâd train mainly with the reserves, but I trained with the first team too. Tommy chipped away at me with comments. At first, I wondered whether he was testing me.
Tommy went to play in the North American Soccer League in the summer of 1978 and, when he returned, signed for Swansea City. He didnât want to move to Swansea, though. He lived in Crosby and continued to train at Melwood, travelling down to Wales at weekends to play games.
Tommy lingered around like a bad smell. He was constantly trying to prove himself as the player he was before, even though his knees had gone. This must have frustrated him.
I tried really hard in training. Tommy seemed a bit intimidated by that. One-on-one, I had the better of him: pushing the ball past him and chasing, like Bill Shankly had told me to do. Tommy tried to distract me by making nasty comments related to the colour of my skin. For a while, I somehow managed to restrain myself.
I appreciated Tommy was a former Liverpool captain and a living legend. Here was me, a nothing. But my upbringing taught me that if you let something go once, everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
What Tommy did affected me. For a period, I didnât enjoy going to Melwood and my morale was really low. I told my brothers and they told me theyâd accompany me to the training ground and fight him. Obviously I didnât want that to happen, so I had to sort it out myself.
Eventually, something was going to happen between us.
On a cold November morning, Iâd had enough. Some of the junior professionals, including myself, were invited to play at âWembleyâ, the best patch of grass at Melwood, where the staff hosted matches at the end of training sessions. The younger players involved were expected to do all of the running for the older staff members.
I received the ball, controlled it, and lashed a shot towards goal. Tommy Smith was on the other team and it hit him on the leg. It clearly stung and some of the other players started laughing. I had a smile on my face as well. I saw it as karma. Tommy responded with a tirade of abuse. It was âblack this, black thatâ.
The place went quiet. Everybody could hear it, including the staff. He was a legend. I was a nothing. Nobody said a word.
Iâd had enough of him: this bitter old man. So I went over and squared up: nose to nose. I looked at him dead in the eye. âYou know what, Tommy; one night youâll be taking a piss at home and Iâll be there waiting for you with a baseball bat,â I said, calmly. âAnd then weâll see what youâve got to say.â I wanted to start a fight with him. And then he walked away.
I look back now and remember this moment as a real low point. Iâd grown up loving Tommy Smith. He was a hero of Bill Shanklyâs team. But you only see the player, the legend: the hero. You donât know the person. From then on, he was no hero of mine. As a human being, Tommy Smith was a disappointment, a complete let-down.
Graeme Souness was the only one that came over in the immediate aftermath. âWell done, Howard,â he said. âTommy deserved thatâ. Graeme was a true leader.
For weeks after the flashpoint with Tommy Smith, I waited for him to come back at me. Instead, he never spoke to me using racist language again. We have barely spoken since.
The episode between us set the benchmark. Little comments may have been said behind my back but never directly to my face. Other people at Liverpool knew that I wasnât afraid â that Iâd take on anyone if I thought it was necessary.
