During the 1980s, Liverpool Football Club dominated English soccer,
winning six league titles, two European Cups, two FA Cups, and four
League Cups. In Red Machine, Simon Hughes interviews some of the most
colorful characters to have played for the club during that period. The
resulting interviews, set against the historical backdrop of both the
club and the city, provide a vivid portrait of life at Liverpool during
an era when the club's unparalleled on-pitch success often went hand in
hand with a boozy social scene fraught with rows, fights, and wind-ups.
The players featured here include John Barnes, Bruce Grobbelaar, Howard
Gayle, Michael Robinson, John Wark, Kevin Sheedy, Nigel Spackman, Steve
Staunton, David Hodgson, and Craig Johnston, as well as first-team coach
Ronnie Moran. Their candid, ribald, and sometimes scathing recollections
provide an antidote to the media-coached, on-message interviews given by
today's players, and combine to offer a unique insight to this exciting
time in the club's history.