Welcome to
my weekly blog “The Igor Bišćan Hall of Fame” every week I’ll be adding two new
additions, one will be a Liverpool Legend or fans favourite, the other a
Player, Manager or Club who have contributed to the world game we all love
(Gary Neville need not worry). Please comment below who you’d like to see make
the IBHoF, here are this weeks entries. YNWA
TERRY McDERMOTT
1974/75 -
1982/83
There were
suspicions during Terry McDermott's early days at Anfield that he was destined
to be a £170,000 misfit; he became instead a creative inspiration in one of the
Reds' most exhilarating combinations. At his irresistible best he was the free
spirit in a beautifully balanced midfield quartet led by anchor man Graeme
Souness with Jimmy Case on the right flank and Ray Kennedy on the left. Terry's
roving commission gave full rein to a potent cocktail of vision and stamina
which prised open many of the world's tightest defences.
It was not
always thus. Bob Paisley signed the Liverpool-born schemer from Newcastle in
November 1974 after he had impressed against his home-town club in that year's
FA Cup Final. Terry went straight into the side but failed to settle as the new
manager experimented in an attempt to emulate the success of the Shankly era.
When the trophies started rolling in, largely without Terry's assistance -
Bob's Reds won the Championship and UEFA Cup in 1975/76 - it seemed likely that
he would be written off as a mistake, albeit an expensive one, and unloaded.
But Paisley
kept faith with the wiry ex-Magpie and when, in the following campaign,
Liverpool were pushing for a squad-sapping treble, Terry began to blossom.
After vying for a place with Case - whose stern tackling he could never
remotely emulate - for most of the season, he became established in the spring
and played a memorable part in a tumultuous run-in which saw the title and the
European Cup end up at Anfield but the FA Cup slip away to Old Trafford. He was
especially dangerous when running from deep positions and was adept at arriving
late in the penalty area where his finishing, by turns powerful and subtle,
could be deadly.
Terry's
most valuable goal that term - and of his career, come to that - was the opener
against Borussia Mönchengladbach in Rome where the Reds lifted Europe's top
prize so gloriously. He ghosted, typically, down the inside-right channel to
take a pass from Steve Heighway before clinically curling the ball past the
German 'keeper. A month earlier there had been an even more mouth-watering piece
of opportunism when Terry had spotted Everton's David Lawson off his line and
chipped an exquisite goal in the FA Cup semi-final at Maine Road.
But the
McDermott zenith was not reached until the arrival of Souness in 1978. The
Scot's all-pervading influence on central midfield gave the newly-capped
England international the liberty he needed to express his talents fully. A
natural athlete, Terry made runs to all corners of the pitch, often acting as a
decoy and creating space for colleagues to exploit, and when he did gain
possession his instinctive control and incisive passing ability usually made
the most of it.
He remained
in his pomp for three years - in 1980 he was the first man to win awards from
the football writers and his fellow players in the same season - and two
incidents against Spurs during this period emphasise his dual value, as team
man and individual. In September 1978 at Anfield he started and finished a
flowing end-to-end move that capped a 7-0 annihilation, and 18 months later at
White Hart Lane he decided an FA Cup quarter-final with a spontaneous flighted
shot from near the corner flag.
Despite
winning title and Milk Cup medals in 1981/82, Terry seemed to lose impetus and
returned to Tyneside to help Kevin Keegan effect a Newcastle revival. That
particular renaissance proved to be of the short-term variety, but when the two
men were reunited at St James' Park a decade later - with Terry as assistant to
manager Kevin - they transformed the Magpies into one of the most entertaining
and dynamic sides of the nineties.
BORN:
Kirkby, Liverpool. 8.12.51. GAMES: 310 (12). GOALS: 75.
CLUBS: Bury
69/70-72/3 (90, 8); Newcastle United 72/3-74/5 (56, 6) and 82/3-83/4 (74, 12);
Cork City 84/5; Apoel, Cyprus.
HONOURS:
European Cup 76/7, 77/8, 80/1. League Championship 76/7, 78/9, 79/80, 81/2.
League Cup 80/1, 81/2.
INERNATIONAL
CAREER: 25 England caps (77-82).
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GERD MULLER
In 1964
Bayern Munich president Wilhelm Neudecker oversaw the signing of a promising
young striker from TSV Nördlingen by the name of Gerd Müller. But the Bayern
coach, Zlatko "Čik" Čajkovski, took one look at the new boy and
sniffed: 'I can't put that little elephant in among my string of
thoroughbreds.' Müller went on to spend almost sixteen years at Bayern, during
which time he scored 365 goals in 427 League matches, helped his team to four
Bundesliga titles and a hat-trick of European Cup successes. He also scored the
goal that won the World Cup for West Germany in 1974.
In fairness
to Čajkovski, Müller did not exactly look like someone who would turn into the
most feared penalty box predator of his day. He was short and heavy with thighs
that were as thick as tree trunks but his strength and low centre of gravity
made him a real handful in the box where he could wriggle and dart free from
his mountainous markers to find that precious yard of space so essential to all
great goalscorers. He could turn on a sixpence and his reflexes were razor
sharp with the result that 'Der Bomber', as he became known, rarely wasted an
opportunity within eighteen yards of goal. Like Jimmy Greaves, he rarely
bothered shooting from distance or picking the ball up in deep positions; all
his work was done where it mattered. Yet whilst the vast majority of his goals
were close range efforts, there was tremendous variety in his execution -
bicycle kicks, diving headers, thundering volleys or simple tap-ins. They all
came the same to Gerd Müller.
Although
raised in a small village that had no football ground, Müller was always
determined to make the grade and even as a youngster practised for hours on
end, sharpening the skills that would stand him in good stead in years to come.
These attributes brought him to the notice of Nördlingen who signed him in 1962
as a seventeen year-old. Two years later and he was off to Bayern where in 1966
he helped his new club secure the German Cup. He made his international debut
that year in a 2-0 win over Turkey, but it was the following season that he
really began to make a name for himself. His 28 goals made him top scorer in
the Bundesliga - a feat he was to repeat in 1968, 1970,1972,1973,1974 (jointly)
and 1978 - and he helped Bayern win the European Cup Winners' Cup with an
extra-time victory over Glasgow Rangers in Nuremberg. As a result he was voted
Germany's Footballer of the Year.
By the 1970
World Cup, the Germans had the luxury of two top-class but similar strikers in
Müller and the veteran Uwe Seeler. Rather than have them competing for the same
spot, the coach moved Seeler back into midfield. Both players scored in the
quarter-final victory over England, Müller going on to finish top scorer in the
tournament with ten goals, including a hat-trick against Bulgaria and two in
the heartbreaking semi-final defeat to Italy. Accordingly he was named European
Footballer of the Year-the first German to win the award. His stock increased
with a match-winning brace in the final of the 1972 European Championships
against the USSR and four more goals at the 1974 World Cup, among them a late
semi-final winner to see off Poland and then the dramatic strike that lifted
the trophy itself at the expense of Holland. His total of fourteen goals in
World Cup finals matches remains a record. But he wasn't finished yet and in
1976 netted against Czechoslovakia in the final of the European Championships
to become the first player to score in two finals of that competition. He
retired from playing in 1981 with a career total of 628 goals in first-class
football. Not bad for a 'little elephant'.
BORN:
Nördlingen, Germany. 3.11.45.
CLUBS:
1963–1964 1861 Nördlingen, 1964–1979 Bayern Munich, 1979–1981 Fort Lauderdale
Strikers.
INERNATIONAL
CAREER: West Germany 1966-1974, Caps 62, Goals 68.
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