Anfield, it has to be said, is one of my favourite grounds. When the scarves are waving and the ground heaving,  the Kop is surely one of the most uplifting sights in English football. In their 8-0 slaughter of Turkish side Besiktas, Liverpool tore into the Turks with cold-hearted callousness.

Israeli midfield imp Yossi Benayoun scored a fabulously fashioned hat-trick. But for those who remember Liverpool during the 1970s this was not quite the Anfield of old. The stadium has lost that electric ambience that so many visiting teams feared. It’s almost as if somebody had turned down the volume on the stereo system, and then switched on the iPod.

Thirty years ago Liverpool won the European Cup with a 1-0 victory against FC Bruges. The great Kenny Dalglish held off his defender squeezing home the winner with an angled shot.

'Only when the eighth goal went in did the Merseyside male voice choir finally erupt'


In those days Liverpool produced players off the conveyor belt. There was the tenacious Terry McDermott, the noble Ray Kennedy and the blood-thirsty Graham Souness. The Reds were unbeatable, a destructive machine who very rarely malfunctioned.

Although Liverpool were at their most stylish and streamlined against Besiktas, the Kop were never at their most deafeningly vocal. Only when the eighth goal went in did the Merseyside male voice choir finally erupt.

Somehow though the wags had gone, the comics had left their humour in the pub and Anfield was almost as quiet as the local library. Sadly this was rather like a symphony orchestra without the violins.

Since the introduction of all-seater stadiums in the early 1990s, football is no longer the spiritual experience it used to be. What happened to those silly songs and moving chants? Liverpool supporters are now politely herded into the Kop and then told to behave themselves.

In the old days the Champions League was the European Cup, a programme was 10p and the Bay City Rollers were mobbed at airports.

The Champions League is an entirely different animal. It is all about group stages, big money TV showdowns and cut throat European ties. Gabriel Hanot, the French inventor of the European Cup would have held his head in horror.

Were the old Anfield European Cup nights better? Post a comment below or submit an article to Sportingo.