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Liverpool had an unspoken rule that nobody took anybody else’s place. Before Bob took his place at the tactics board, I’d enact the first stage of my pre-match schedule. I’d always bring packets of biscuits from Anfield, and open the milk chocolate packet. One superstition that began under Joe Fagan was that Steve McMahon had the solemn honour of opening the plain. Of all the plain openers, ‘Macca’ had the best technique, so good the players once pleaded with him to drive into Melwood when he was absent injured simply to perform his biscuit duties.
    I’d conceal three packets of biscuits down my tracksuit top, although hiding them was unnecessary because Bob or Joe would never dream of pulling us up for eating biscuits. Such astute readers of footballers’ minds knew what the biscuits meant to our ritual. Holding a cup of tea in my left hand, I’d slip my right into my tracksuit and extract the biscuits one by one. The rotation of the biscuits was carefully orchestrated. If I’d eaten two milk chocolates followed by a plain the week before and Liverpool had won, it was obviously the same order again: milk, milk, plain. If we lost, the sequence would obviously change. Rotation was a staple of Liverpool life long before Rafa Benitez.
    As the hours ticked down to kick-off, the routine intensified. If the game was a Saturday one at Anfield, I’d have the same dinner on the Friday night: tomato soup, steak pie with boiled potatoes and peas followed by apple pie and custard, a menu that never deviated.
    ‘Never change a winning menu!’ I told Marina. Alan Hansen would come over and eat with us. If Marina was away, I’d cook dinner and Al would still visit. I always felt this was brave of Al, and a sign of our strong friendship, because I’m a liability in the kitchen. Fortunately, we had a tin-opener for the soup and peas and an oven for the pie, so we got by. Just. For a drink, I’d pour myself a glass of American cream soda. Al and I often debated whether the stuff sold in Merseyside was different from the version we grew up with in Scotland.
    ‘It can’t be the same,’ I insisted. ‘For a start, it’s green instead of white, and it doesn’t taste the same.’ One day, I mentioned my concerns over American cream soda to John Keith, one of football’s most respected writers, and he wrote about this great puzzle in the Daily Express . Shortly afterwards, I received a call from Barr’s, the manufacturers, inviting me to visit their factory situated between Liverpool and Manchester.
    ‘How do you get green cream soda?’, I asked the people at Barr’s. ‘I’ve never seen it in my life before.’ Having dressed me in overalls, the Barr’s people took me around the plant and explained that the English prefer their cream soda green.
    ‘But it doesn’t taste as good,’ I replied. ‘The white cream soda is far better.’ I knew I was right, and Big Al backed me up, but Barr’s replied that it was the way the English liked it. Bizarre. After extensive research, I concluded it was to do with the water. Al and I noticed Irn Bru tasted different down here as well. On my visits north, I always made sure I returned with the Scottish originals, but otherwise I put up with the English cream soda and Irn Bru.
    Dinner over, we’d drive to the Cherry Tree Hotel in Kirkby where we’d be picked up by the coach, which took the team to our pre-match base, the Lord Daresbury Hotel near Warrington. Al and I took it in turns driving to the Cherry Tree from Southport. One day, Al was rolling along the M57 with me and defender Richard Money when a terrible racket erupted.
    ‘Al,’ I said. ‘Can’t you hear that?’
    ‘What?’ replied Al.
    ‘You’ve got a puncture. Pull over.’ So Al parked up on the hard shoulder and the three of us got out to take a look.
    ‘Have you got a spare wheel?’ I asked Al.
    ‘Don’t know,’ he replied. It was fair to say that Big Hansen was not known as the practical