Robert Fordham on Liverpool's chairman
Looks like: Keyboard player with a rock group that had a couple of hits in the mid 70s and still play them to big audiences in Kuala Lumpur, Harare and Auckland. Product of an expensive private education, David has reinvented himself as Super Scally. He may have learned the accent phonetically but it seems to have stuck. More recently, he has started to look like a prospective father who turns up at the hospital only to find out it might be a phantom pregnancy – Roy Evans’ continued specialization in almost-but-not-quites is starting to take its toll. Also known as Freddie Boswell.
Habitat: Right now, he cuts an unconvincing figure in the boardroom; in spite of the reinvention, he was probably more at home on the Kop. Certainly he’s taken defeat in a less dignified manager than is normal in the carpeted bits of grounds. Only his name – and the 5% of the Littlewoods Empire and incalculable wealth that comes with it – enabled him to take the top seat at the club. The Moores family own roughly 40% of LFC.
Who remembers his birthday? Graeme Souness – Liverpool were still paying his salary two years after he left the club. It was David Moores who brought Souness to the club as manner in early 1991, giving him a five-year contract; David Moores who didn’t take the opportunity to retire him on grounds of ill health after the Sun incident a year later; and David Moores who kept him on, against all the odds, at the end of the catastrophic 1992-93 season.
Which international celebrity would he be most likely to get on with? Probably good mates with every second division pre-punk rock band, if they count. Otherwise, lottery millionaires.
Quote unquote: “I am pleased to announce that Graeme Souness will be remaining as manager for the three years of his contract.” May 1993. Ouch.
Any other offences to be taken into consideration: Destruction of the Boot Room; handling the demolition of the old Kop badly, especially for someone who used to stand on it; and building the McDonalds in the new stand.
From WSC 122 April 1997. What was happening this month