“Jan was simply the best foreign player ever to come to England”, Ian Rush.
“Jan was a very, very talented player, with a great knowledge and appreciation of how to play football”, Kenny Dalglish.
High praise from two of Anfield greatest ever players and for a lot of us who saw Jan Molby in action it’s hard to disagree with their words.
Jan started his football career in Denmark with his hometown club, Kolding in 1981. After just one season he moved to the great Dutch side Ajax where he played alongside the legendary Johan Cruyff and future greats such as Frank Rijkard and Marco Van Basten. Cruyff spent time on the training ground with Jan teaching him the art of passing and it was at this stage of his development when he started to become what he later became, the best passer of the ball in the business.
In the summer of 1984 Liverpool were still celebrating the treble from the previous season of the League Cup, First Division Title and the European Cup. Team captain Graeme Souness was lured by the Lira and moved onto Italian Serie A side Sampdoria. Liverpool manager Joe Fagan then spent £225,000 on bringing the 21 year old Jan Molby to Liverpool as Souey’s replacement.
Jan became a firm favourite on Merseyside very quickly after his arrival at Liverpool. Off the pitch he shared a similar sense of humour with the Scouser’s and he immediately settled into life on Merseyside. He also developed a distinctive Scouse accent and has been seen as an honorary Scouser ever since.
Jan’s first season at Liverpool was a rare one without winning any silverware for Liverpool as Everton swept to the First Division title. It was during his second season that he really made his name on the pitch. The double winning season of 1985/86 was undoubtedly Jan’s finest in a Red shirt. He scored eighteen goals that season and many of them were classics. In November 1985 Man Utd came to Anfield for a League cup match. It was during this game that Jan scored what many of those present regard as the greatest goal they’ve ever seen. He took the ball from Norman Whiteside in the Liverpool half and then went on a run beating three or four players before unleashing a rocket shot from twenty yards that flew into the top corner. Gary Bailey, the Man Utd keeper at the time, still insists it’s the hardest shot he ever faced. Unfortunately at the time there was a television dispute and no football games were being recorded for television. Therefore there is no video record of this amazing goal.
It was also during this season that Jan became the official penalty taker, replacing Phil Neal who moved to Bolton near the start of the season. Jan Molby scored sixty goals for Liverpool of which forty-two were penalties. In twelve years he only missed two penalties and that is an incredible record and I doubt there has ever been a better penalty taker. He scored some very important penalties including a very late equaliser in the FA Cup quarter final against Watford on the way to the final in 1986. In November 1986 he wrote his name into the record books by scoring a hat-trick of penalties in a League Cup game against Coventry City.
Jan’s finest moment for Liverpool came in the first ‘all Merseyside’ FA Cup Final in 1986. He ran the second half setting up the first and second goals and then having an important hand in the third goal too with a sublime blind pass to Ronnie Whelan who chipped it over the defence to Ian Rush. He almost scored himself when he went one on one with the Everton keeper Bobby Mimms, but unfortunately he hit his shot straight at Mimms.
Unfortunately he was never able to hit these heights on a regular basis again and he was never able to maintain a regular place in the first team. He was beset by a number of problems and every time it seemed that Jan was about to go on a run back in the side he would be struck down by injury and somebody would come in and take his place. Jan freely admits that while he was out injured he would eat too much and not keep himself as fit as he should have done. This would cause him problems when he was free from injury as he was often overweight when he was put back in the side. Regardless of how much he weighed, Jan was still always able to completely dominate the midfield and his passing was always sublime. There is a quote from Alan Hansen that sums this up perfectly.
“Right up to the day that he left Anfield, you knew that whenever he was on the ball it was going to a red shirt, no matter what his weight was. He’s probably the only player who was sixteen stone (224 lbs) but could play so well. The problem was he couldn’t get up and down, so he’d stand in the middle of the park and be given the ball. Then he’d play. If he’d been playing at fourteen stone, or something, then I think we’d have been talking about the best of the best.”
Jan seriously injured his foot during pre-season training and ended up missing almost the entire 1987-88 season. It was during this layoff in February 1988 when he was arrested for reckless driving after outrunning a police car chasing him from a nightclub. He had quite a record of speeding fines and when the case came to court six months later, Jan was sentenced to six weeks in prison. The headlines in the media were urging the club to sack Molby for bringing football and the club into disgrace. However with the backing of manager Kenny Dalglish, the club decided to forgive him and within weeks of his release from prison, Jan was back in the first team.
He wasn’t in the side for the FA Cup semi final at Hillsborough in April 1989 but he was in the stands as part of the travelling party. Jan witnessed the chaos in the Leppings Lane end before being taken into the dressing room with the rest of the players when the game was abandoned. Merseyside holds a special place in Jan’s heart and he was deeply affected by the Hillsborough tragedy. Along with the rest of the players he attended many funerals and devoted a great many hours of his time to speaking with and comforting the grieving families of the ninety-six who lost their lives.
Jan was back to full fitness at the start of the 1989/90 season and was in and out of the side as we won our eighteenth league title. Jan was uncomfortable with the way Kenny Dalglish was rotating the side, this was very unusual back then in the days before continental managers began introducing this system into the English game. It was during this season that he almost joined Barcelona. The Barcelona sweeper Ronald Koeman got seriously injured and the manager, Jan’s former team-mate Johann Cruyff, got in touch with Liverpool as Molby was his first choice. Jan sold his car, gave up his house and signed release forms and was all set to sign for the Spanish side when he received a phone call from Kenny Dalglish telling him the deal was off. Apparently Liverpool wanted a fee for Jan but Barcelona wanted to take him on loan instead.
After Kenny Dalglish resigned Jan fell out of favour with new boss Graeme Souness, the man he had been bought to replace seven years earlier. Souness dropped him for the first half of the 1991/92 season and Jan came close to signing for Everton. Then just as he was about to move across Stanley Park, Souness put him back in the starting line-up and the move never happened. Molby was superb for the remainder of the season and was instrumental in the FA cup victory against Sunderland in 1992. It was a shame that he was denied the chance to score in the final when Liverpool were wrongly denied a blatant penalty in the first half for a foul on Steve McManaman.
Souness never really got along with the senior players who resented him changing things too quickly and bringing in expensive players who just weren’t good enough. He also sold some fantastic players such as Beardsley, Gillespie and Saunders without buying adequate replacements. After almost three poor seasons Souness resigned in early 1994 and was replaced by long time coach Roy Evans.
It was under Evans that Jan played out his final two seasons at Liverpool. He was never a regular in the side due to more niggling injuries and he also spent loan spells at Barnsley and Norwich City. After being overlooked by Roy Evans for a European game because Roy simply forgot about him, Jan decided his future lay elsewhere and it was time to call an end to his time at Anfield.
In 1996 he moved to Swansea City where he became the player manager. At the time Swansea were struggling at the bottom of Division Two (now Division One) and despite his best efforts they were relegated. In his first full season as a player manager, Jan came within a minute of taking Swansea back into Division Two when they lost the playoff final at Wembley to Northampton Town with the last kick of the game. After a bad start to the next season, and turmoil in the boardroom Jan was sacked as manager. He then began a career in the media with various newspaper columns and his own nightly show on the Manchester based radio station Century FM. He had two more spells in management with Kidderminster Harriers and Hull City from 1999 to 2004 and now currently works back in the media. He can often be heard commentating on Liverpool games for the BBC Radio Five Live and he regularly plays for the successful Liverpool senior side along with Ian Rush and others in the indoor six-a-side tournaments held around the world.
Despite struggling with injuries, weight gain and off the field indiscretions, Molby still managed to make a massive impact in his twelve years with Liverpool. His 16th placing in the ‘100 Players Who Shook the Kop’ series is proof of just how highly he is still regarded by Liverpool fans.
Ste Speed
Ste Speed
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