For Liverpool fans of a certain vintage 22 February 1991 counts as one of the darkest days of their lives as football supporters. And with good reason. It is the day on which Kenny Dalglish seemed to have ended a glorious association with the club.
Just over a decade spent as a player - he officially hung up his boots on the eve of the 1990-91 campaign by allowing his registration to lapse rather than make an announcement - then a four and a half year spell as player/manager was brought to a close at a hastily arranged press conference.
There had been largely unfounded murmurings of discontent in the dressing room and letters had recently appeared in the local media about some team selections. However, there was no question of the manager’s position coming under pressure.
A few signings had been made over the previous month. It was expected journalists had been gathered to have another new recruit unveiled.
During a ring around newsdesks only a guarded comment from club secretary, Peter Robinson, to those who said they would pick up wire copy and photos that they may want to be there hinted at the gravity of matters.
Even then the opening statement by chairman Noel White rocked even seasoned hackss to the core.
His words were quickly relayed across Merseyside, the rest of the country and then the world. The impact was so big it could be likened to the day Bill Shankly retired in 1974.
There was a refusal to believe it from most fans when told.
Not even having reached his 40th birthday there was still an expectation of a long and successful reign. Twenty years as a minimum. Ideally more. But what no one appreciated at that time nor for many years later is that when King Kenny walked out the door his crown may have stayed in place but the Reds effectively lost their place at football’s top table.
Questions as to why Anfield has continued to wait since 1990 for a 19th league title have been posed almost since the trophy was not retained a few months after Dalglish's departure.
All roads lead back to that fateful day 20 years ago.
In terms of league position it’s irrefutable that a descent from the summit began when the Glaswegian left.
On the morning of his resignation the Reds were three points clear of Arsenal. Between that and the appointment of Graeme Souness in mid-April Ronnie Moran’s nine game tenure at the helm yielded just four wins and as many defeats.
Three of those reverses were suffered in the first trio of games under the caretaker and a 4-0 hammering of Crystal Palace on the same day as that short reign began allowed Arsenal to go top on goal difference. They beat Liverpool at Anfield to stretch further away and extended their advantage by maintaining that run as the defending champions floundered.
Liverpool enjoyed three wins while Arsenal could only gain a couple of stalemates, and, though a 7-1 rout at Derby County got the Reds back on top after the Gunners could only muster a goalless draw at Norwich the Easter period proved pivotal.
Defeat by a Les Ferdinand inspired Queens Park Rangers at Anfield and then Southampton finding the only goal of the game down at The Dell gave Arsenal a vital edge. A home draw with Coventry City yielded the ground made up.
Even after a topsy-turvy 5-4 win at Elland Road - Liverpool led 4-0 into the final quarter - Arsenal held a five point advantage and with George Graham’s side back in a confident stride there was little prospect of the lead being hauled back.
The penultimate game ended mathematical hopes. The champions had abdicated and their successors kicking off later in the day before the TV cameras celebrated with a 3-1 victory over Manchester United at Highbury. When the 38th and final fixture was played the gap had grown to seven points.
Souness, a former club captain, had an outstanding record during his five years with Rangers having not only arrested a slump at Ibrox but concluded his first term at the helm by ending a championship famine. He had since claimed a couple more and The Gers were well on their way to another triumph.
The sole battle of note Souness lost in Scotland was with St. Johnstone tea-lady Aggie Moffat over the state of the away dressing room at McDiramid Park after a Rangers visit.
They had already claimed the last of four Scottish League Cups won by the manager who had lifted the Old Firm side out of the doldrums and whose friendship with the club’s majority shareholder, David Murray, plus a rumoured financial stake in the club suggested he would be unlikely to leave.
That was until the Liverpool job unexpectedly came up for grabs and was offered to him. It was possibly the only post which could have tempted him away.
There was every expectation of normal service being resumed at Anfield following the appointment and albeit with a penalty shoot out against Division Two Portsmouth at the semi-final stage, then a win against more second tier opposition at Wembley the FA Cup had been lifted at the end of his first full season.
However, that masked a poor league campaign. Leeds United had taken Arsenal’s mantel with the Reds trailing sixth.
Liverpool fans could only experience vicarious joy with a defeat of runners-up Manchester United ensuring Old Trafford remained waiting for title glory under a manager who had bought time by winning a cup but couldn‘t quite seem to get things right in the league.
The title had not been absent from the Anfield trophy cabinet for more than two seasons since the early 1970s and despite a low finish Liverpool were expected to be would be challengers for the inaugural Premiership campaign.
Aside from the cup win there was no small measure of controversy about the Souness era’s beginnings.
His dealings with a newspaper reviled on Merseyside lowered his esteem for many and as had been the case north of the border there was plenty of discord between the man at the helm and his players.
Some who had been the bedrock of the championship winning sides of the late 1980s were deemed past their prime and sold. Others came close to leaving at various times over the immediate future. Fees were agreed with clubs and in at least one instance personal terms had also been established. Only a last minute change of heart by the long serving player in question scuppered a deal.
Since the 1960s Liverpool had slotted players into their system. It restricted the amount of major surgery required to teams and kept things ticking over nicely as well as maintaining a dynasty of supremacy which endured. Shankly was forced to take an axe rather than a scalpel to his squad on one occasion which contributed to seven trophyless campaigns.
It was a harsh lesson but far from being maintained under someone who prospered under the tradition it was scrapped. Souness decided that different times called for different methods and highly influenced by his time in Italy the new brush decided to sweep clean establishing a more continental approach to fitness and regimes away from the pitch or training. He maintained professional athletes could no longer thrive in the culture he had played in.
Though the lieutenants trusted since the ‘Bootroom Tradition’ was established remained the institution itself withered. The most symbolic feature - the actual Bootroom - demolished to improve facilities for members of the press.
Though planned by the directors before Souness took over many felt an aloof nature to the wise counsel that would have gathered in there and desire to make his own decisions was a weakness rather than strength.
Despite the talent still available following the cull too much mediocrity signed for inflated fees and players who saw pulling on a Liverpool jersey plus banking the cheque which came with it were signed.
There were only one or two success stories.
Silverware wasn’t the measure this new breed of professional gauged success against. It came down to more material matters as a game which was doing well for itself in any case prospered further due to a commercial independence from the traditional authorities of the Football League - which shared its pie 92 ways even if that was in very unequal slices - but also the Football Association which distributed amounts down to the grassroots.
A change was not only clamoured for by a growing number it was required but David Moores couldn’t bring himself to act standing by the manager until results descended so low that Souness’s position became untenable.
The decline was hastened by Manchester United’s ascendancy who suffered only a year’s delay on their quarter of a century wait for that seemingly elusive title. By luck and some degree of business acumen the Old Trafford club found itself with a model of operation suited the new order while in some regards the Liverpool Way stood in the Reds’ way of halting a very obvious not to say alarming decline.
At that time only three years had passed since Liverpool ended the season top dogs but events meant that spell as a sleeping giant may as well have been doubled if not trebled as the club, playing squad and the increasing profitability Premiership football brought were not fully capitalised on.
League placings were so low that European football a staple of Anfield diets from the mid-1960s until the ban which followed Heysel were missed out on. The 1993-94 season during which Souness resigned was a strictly domestic one.
Roy Evans attempting to fight back from a severely retrenched position though backed with funds which would have turned many of his peers green didn’t have sufficient to bridge the gap quickly enough. There was one opportunity to land the top prize in 1996-97 season which even then was taking on the lustre of a holy grail.
Liverpool led at New Year but were reeled back by a Manchester United side who not only believed they were on a roll but knew they had the experience of closing out a season from that point.
There were still lingering hopes in the first flushes of April but a vital home game against Coventry was lost in the closing minutes which gave Manchester United who surprisingly lost to Derby County a reprieve.
It could have all been so different but the next home match - against the Red Devils - also ended in defeat.
Going top may have seen Liverpool gain confidence about staying there which could have helped find the win against their challengers. Any tenuous hopes which remained buoyed by a win in the final home game against Spurs were finally killed off on the road by defeat to Wimbledon. A 1-1 draw at Sheffield Wednesday capped it all as Liverpool finished fourth in what seemed a two horsed race due to the slump.
Evans too eventually paid with his job initially with the always ill-fated joint managerial endeavour with Gerard Houllier. By that time the best part of a decade had passed.
Boards tend to lurch from one extreme to the next in a quest to find the right man.
The autocratic Souness was replaced by the more avuncular Evans. In turn he was deemed too player friendly and not the man to control young professionals under his charge who if not already millionaires were likely to achieve that status soon.
Alex Ferguson’s famed hairdryer treatment kept his players the right side of the line. Houllier whose reputation as a technically minded coach came as a result of leading Paris St Germain to a title and being technical director of the 1998 French World Cup winning side marked another huge departure.
He had dropped mercurial and popular David Ginola from the national side when manager after an error stopped France reaching the World Cup finals in 1994 and wielded the axe at PSG and RC Lens.
Other than a spell spent watching Liverpool during the 1969-70 season while on a placement at a city comprehensive school during his degree course he was an outsider to the club. The first appointed since Bill Shankly arrived.
Liverpool followed a treble cup winning season with a sustained charge for the Premiership crown in 2001-02. They only denied by the excellence of Arsenal. The points tally of 80 was relatively low for a title win but had been enough on many occasions during the 1990s. A whisker away from reaching the Champions League semi-finals there seemed grounds for optimism and the achievement was made in spite of the manager being admitted to hospital for heart surgery in October and spending almost half the season away from the dugout.
After a dozen matches unbeaten and a run featuring nine wins in the season which followed it seemed the Houllier era may reach its zenith. The 13th game - a defeat at Middlesbrough - proved if not the nadir then certainly its start.
Another three points could not be found for nine weeks. This type of run had not been seen since Liverpool were relegated from the top flight in the early 1950s and encompassed 11 games. With 33 points up for grabs the field pulled away while the Reds limped along.
Signings made the previous summer amidst a fanfare which seemed justified in one particular case by the 2002 World Cup not only failed to deliver they looked less than ordinary. And the football on show was not just occasionally but regularly dire.
Due to limitations behind the top three - Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle - there was still a chance of Champions League qualification in the final league game but defeat at Stamford Bridge in a head to head for a seat on the gravy train yielded only a place in the UEFA Cup.
That competition may have proved a useful springboard three years previously but the landscape and expectation was totally different now. It took another lurch when it became clear Chelsea‘s win not only saved them from certain administration but was the factor which brought Roman Abramovich‘s riches to Stamford Bridge and skewed the balance of spending power.
A year later stumbling into the fourth and final qualifying berth for the Champions League proved insufficient.
More players bought for significant amounts failed to make the impact expected of them. Failings on the field and in the transfer market convinced even David Moores, who had stood stoically by every manager employed during his chairmanship always giving more time than was necessary, it was time to pull the trigger.
In football all empires eventually crumble. Just how long a team spends in the doldrums depends in no small measure on outside factors but mostly on decisions made and reactions to them.
Kenny Dalglish’s resignation came during a hard fought and ultimately unsuccessful FA Cup encounter with Everton. Liverpool were challenging for a 19th title at the time and had all but seen a useful lead disappear.
Like statistics circumstances can be used to prove points or even hide a number of sins.
One undeniable statement is that Kenny Dalglish had roughly the same amount of time at the helm as Rafael Benitez had enjoyed as manager of Liverpool as the 2008-09 campaign fizzled towards a gripping yet ultimately unsuccessful climax.
The club was still trying to catch up for some errors made two decades ago which were compounded by a lack of decision in the 1990s as others took advantage of the new era.
There were some more contemporary mistakes. Selling the family silver to George Gillett and Tom Hicks was supposed to equip Liverpool in a Premier League arms race which had changed complexion due Chelsea's quickly found wealth and that accumulated by Manchester United over more than a decade and a half prior to the Glazer family taking root at Old Trafford.
Getting back to the point where Liverpool are regarded as genuine hopefuls was a hard slog and one more about being competitive enough to provide a title challenge worthy of the name.
For varyaing reasons Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez made noises but their best efforts were isolated high points.
Each had teams which appeared useful works in progress but which for various reasons never reached the status of finished article. Consequently matters regressed on all fronts. The Reds' championship charges have proved an exception rather than an expectation.
Even if the game and Liverpool Football Club are different to their early 1990s contemporaries Kenny Dalglish has so far suggested he has no problem rehabilitating to life as a top flight manager over ten years since he last held the reigns at that level.
Though categorised as a man from a old era who perhaps wouldn't respond let alone contrast favourably in the modern era Dalglish has done more than bring matters back to a very basic level that sufficed during his first stint at the helm. Nor does he just survive on the vapours of sentiment plus good wishes.
He may not have been in a managerial hotseat for some time but his instinct and ability to analyse a game not to mention players has not waned over his time away.
Vitally Kenny has continued to watch football and maintain an involvement rather than turn his back on the game.
An unsurpassed knowledge of the reserve and increasingly impressive youth ranks is another powerful tool in his armoury. Pass and move is still as effective as it was almost half a century ago. Goals - including key ones - have come from crafting moves from defencsive positions. Attacking with options to the man in possession continues to demonstrate its potency.
But these old fashioned values are mixed with very modern views on tactics and systems.
That in itself may suggest Dalglish's 'second coming' will last longer than the May deadline previously set.
No matter how long this reign lasts it may not bring another league title. Progress to that goal is expected to remain slow but built on firm foundations that will allow any success acheived to be lasting rather than fleeting.
As both a player and manager in his first reign Dalglish profited from that diligent approach. It seems fitting that he should be given the chance to at least begin rebuilding work.
