Joe Fagan: Relunctant Champion, The Authorised Biography

On 30th May 1984 Joe Fagan made football history – he became the first English manager to win the Treble. It was an unprecedented triumph, the culmination of a twenty-seven year career at the very heart of the Liverpool machine, and the end of a golden age. Never one to court publicity, Joe’s pivotal role in Liverpool’s domination of the game in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties is little known outside the walls of Anfield. A Scouser born and bred, he joined the coaching staff in 1958, after a playing career at Manchester City and years learning his craft in the lower leagues. At the time Liverpool were in the stranglehold of Second Division mediocrity – but then, a year later, Bill Shankly arrived, and everything changed. With a knack for nurturing the talents of precocious youngsters, Joe quickly became part of Shankly’s trusted inner circle. Indeed, not only was he one of the original members of the fabled Bootroom, he is widely credited with its creation. Under Bob Paisley he was appointed second-in-command and when Paisley stepped down, the reluctant Joe was the obvious and only choice to succeed him – what followed surpassed the dreams of even the most success-spoiled Kopites. However, just one year after Liverpool’s European triumph in Rome, the death of 39 fans at Heysel Stadium in Brussels saw the club’s glittering record tarnished by tragedy, and English football exiled from Europe. With news of his retirement leaked just hours before, a shattered Joe stepped back into the anonymity he craved. Now, drawing for the first time on Joe Fagan’s own diaries, as well as a raft of new interviews with players, colleagues and contemporaries, this biography celebrates the record of one of football’s least celebrated greats, and reveals the inner workings of Liverpool’s golden age.