| ROBBIE FOWLER PROFILE
by Paul Natton Date of Birth - 09/4/75
Nationality - English
Position - Striker
Games - 369
Goals - 183
Cost -
Club Hons (Lpool) - League Cup 1995, 2001: FA Cup 2001: UEFA Cup 2001: European Super Cup 2001:
Intnl Hons - England Caps
Other Clubs - Leeds, Man City, Cardiff |
Arguably the most naturally gifted player to ever wear the Red shirt, Robbie Fowler is assured of legendary status at Liverpool despite the fact that his career has unquestionably been one of underachievement. He was the original boy wonder of the Premiership years, with an outrageous talent that was matched by an infectious enthusiasm for the game generally, and a breath-taking propensity to score great goals for Liverpool specifically.
Famously opening his first team scoring account as a teenager with a debut strike at Fulham before following it up with a five goal haul in the return leg at Anfield, Fowler went on to astonish and enrapture in equal measure as the goals flew in over the first few spectacular years of his Liverpool career.
He played with some top striking partners, including Rush, Owen and Collymore, but eclipsed them all with the audacity of a talent so brilliantly allied to a sheer volume of goals. A back-to-back brace of 30+ seasons saw him universally acclaimed as a goal-scoring genius; indeed his nickname of “God”, and the Dalglish-esque chant with which the fans rewarded him, do not overstate the talent he initially harnessed for Liverpool.
Clearly, however, a huge “What if…?” hovers over any assessment of Robbie’s career, as controversy and injury have dogged him from his early twenties onwards. Whether it be assaults in town, lad mag interviews, homophobic (yet still amusing) on-field taunts or inadvised responses to bitter chants about alleged (and almost certainly unfounded) drug problems, he has played with a cloud over his head for too long.
His recent autobiography had a ring of “methinks he doth protest too much” about it, as he seemed to intersperse tales of being out on the piss with the boys with pleas that he’d been unfairly labelled as unprofessional for the way he conducted himself.
Regardless of the reality of the drinking, however, he has suffered inordinately with a succession of injuries that ultimately robbed the club of what should have been his greatest years. Gerard Houllier apparently felt that Robbie’s attitude was culpable and, depending upon your point of view, either deviously engineered his dismissal to Leeds or pulled off one of our greatest ever outward transfer coups in collecting £11m for a player whose career was all but finished.
Whatever the truth of that saga, the reality is that it left Robbie feeling very bitter and nursing a sense of unfinished business at Liverpool.
He showed a few brief flashes of the old brilliance at Leeds, and then later (and less so) at Manchester City, but the real Robbie – in demeanour, if not action – was only truly seen again when Rafa brought him home, in a deal that reflected the nature of his career, to be our fourth choice striker.
The words “I’d play for free if I had to” have tripped far easily - and without conviction - from many a player’s lips over the years, but when Robbie uttered similar sentiments, they carried a passionate ring of truth.
His return has, unsurprisingly in the context of his fitness, been something of a damp squib. But it would be a cold-hearted Red indeed who could deny they hadn’t felt a shiver of magic upon seeing him in that magnificent Red shirt at Anfield one more time.
Despite all the problems, controversies and injuries, the fact remains that Robbie Fowler embodies the spirit of the fans like no other player, bar Dalglish. The word genius is bandied around all too lightly in today’s hyperbolic climate of Sky punditry, but Fowler undoubtedly had it. His touch, passing, heading, vision and, above all, eye for goal – from anywhere – all bore the hallmarks of the game’s greatest ever players.
In spite of the clear lack of fulfilment of his phenomenal talent, he has still managed (to date) an exact one in two ratio of goals to games for Liverpool; an achievement denied to many of the biggest names in football. Furthermore, he has a clutch of medals to show for his time here; albeit missing the two big ones, but deeply cherished none the less.
In summary, one can easily sit back and contemplate what might have been, for both player and club, if he’d maintained peak form and fitness for the whole of his career. However, as he sits on the cusp of leaving the footballing love of his life for the second and final time, it remains impossible to think of him with anything but awe and affection. There is, quite simply, only one Robbie Fowler.
