Club Legend – Ronnie Moran

Ronnie Moran

Normally in order to become a Liverpool legend you have to have been a league or European Cup winning manager or to have been one of the club’s most successful ever players. Neither of those things applies to Ronnie Moran, but there is no question that the man who became known as ‘Mr Liverpool’ is deserving of the title.

He did also have a spell in charge of the club as the caretaker manager following Kenny Dalglish’s shock resignation and the appointment of Graeme Souness. Whilst Liverpool didn’t win a trophy during his period in charge, it is still important to acknowledge.

In some ways, Moran is one of the greatest representatives of modern day Liverpool. A firebrand personality, he was part of the boot room that saw the Reds win every trophy that there was to win, working alongside the likes of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett to engineer the success.

By the time he left the club in 1998, he did so as the longest-serving employee of Liverpool Football Club. He also sat alongside Bob Paisley has having carried out every role imaginable at the club, being kit man and coach, physio and manager.

The Early Years

Born Ronald Moran on the 28th of February in 1934 in Crosby, Merseyside, he was an apprentice electrician when he was younger. At the time time, Moran joined his boyhood club on a part-time basis in 1949. He was just 15 at the time and had been recommended to the club by his postman, who used to deliver the post to the club Chairman.

Within three years he had signed a professional contract, earning the princely sum of £14 a week during the season and £11 per week in the off-season. His debut came in a 3-2 defeat to Derby County on the 22nd of November 1952 when he was 18-years-old.


It took another few years for the local lad to establish himself in the first-team, which happened in the 1955-1956 campaign. He made himself Liverpool’s first-choice number three, rarely being beaten for pace on the wing and being a good marker. He was a consistent performer and strong penalty taker and between 1955 and 1959 he missed just six matches.

Liverpool had been languishing in the middle of the Second Division when Moran was promoted to the first team, but they continued to improve and he was given the captaincy at the end of the 1950s. He suffered something of an injury setback in the 1961-1962 season, but played 16 times as he helped Liverpool get back into the top-flight.

Moving into Coaching

Having seen Liverpool get back into the top-flight, Moran then played all but seven games two seasons later as the club won the First Division title. He was struggling with injuries by that stage in his career, however, and Gerry Byrne replaced him as the left-back for the 1965 FA Cup final, in which Liverpool defeated Leeds United to win the competition for the first time.

He made it into the team for Liverpool’s win over Internazionale in the European Cup three days later, as well as in the controversial second-leg that the Reds lost thanks to incredibly suspect refereeing decisions.

In 1966, Bill Shankly decided to invite Moran onto the Liverpool coaching staff, although he continued to play during the same period. In fact, he carried on as a player for Joe Fagan’s reserves for another two years, helping to set the standards that were expected of the players.

He eventually retired as a player on a formal basis during the 1968-1969 season, which allowed him to join the coaching staff full-time. He started to work with Paisley, Fagan and Reuben Bennett in the boot room, helping Shankly understand how to get the best out of his team and come up with winning tactics.

A Vital Part of Liverpool’s Success

In 1971, Ronnie Moran was given the role of reserve team coach, leading the second string to the Central League Championship at the end of the 1972-1973 campaign. He had become known as Bugsy to the players, with his knowledge of football allowing him to get the most out of his players.

He was a loyal servant to the club, working with Shankly, Paisley and Fagan during their periods in charge of the club. As with the rest of the boot room boys, he never looked to promote himself above any of his colleagues and was someone who actively tried to avoid the spotlight.

Whilst he might have been keen to avoid being too much in the public eye, that didn’t mean that he was a shrinking violet. In fact, the opposite is probably true and his loud voice and shouted instructions to the players could be heard at the back of a packed Kop. He had a no-nonsense approach that commanded respect, resulting in manager after manager keeping him on board as part of the backroom staff.

Kenny Dalglish said of him, “The contribution and help he gave me was enormous and I’ll be eternally grateful for that – both as a player and a manager”.

Moran was the ‘sergeant-major of Melwood’, keeping strict discipline at the club and causing Tommy Smith to say that he could ‘moan for England’. Robbie Fowler recalled a story of Moran ensuring he kept his feet on the ground.

He said, “After playing against Fulham and scoring five goals I was feeling well pleased with myself when Ronnie came in the dressing room and said: ‘I don’t know what you`re looking so smug about. You should have scored seven.'”.

He was the ‘relentless driving force’ of Liverpool, setting the standards that others had to do their best to meet.

Arguably the most famous story about Moran came about when Liverpool won the title and he placed a box of medals down in the middle of the dressing room, informing the players that they should take one ‘if they felt they deserved it’. It was part of the reason why the desire to win the next title or trophy was so over-whelming, spurring the Reds on to a period of success that was unprecedented.

A stretch in which the club went unbeaten would be declared meaningless by Moran if the next match saw the levels drop. He was a man who knew how to motivate others.

Becoming Caretaker Manager

In 1991, Kenny Dalglish issued a shock resignation as Liverpool manager. In retrospect, we know that he was suffering the post traumatic stress of being in charge when the Hillsborough Disaster happened and taking on the upset of the families of the victims. He should have been offered time to recover and get help, but instead the club accepted his resignation, albeit reluctantly, and a decision was taken to offer Ronnie Moran the role of caretaker manager as a permanent replacement was sought. The main himself made clear that he didn’t want the role on a full-time basis.

He said, “I Innocently answered the phone at home in the early spring of 1991. It was Kenny Dalglish. Me and the wife were just on our way out and I asked him what he wanted. ‘I’ve packed in,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough.’ I thought he was joking, as he was a great practical joker and I told him to stop messing around. He must have filled up because he put the phone down and the line went dead”.

The next call was from the then-Liverpool Chairman Noel White, who asked Moran to become manager as a permanent successor was looked for. Knowing the club inside out, he accepted.

His first match in charge saw Liverpool slump to a 3-1 defeat to Luton Town at Kenilworth Road, thanks in no small part to the gloom that was felt around Anfield and Melwood in the wake of Dalglish’s resignation. There followed an FA Cup replay at Goodison Park that Liverpool also lost, as well as a league fixture against the club’s title rivals Arsenal, which was settled thanks to a goal by Paul Merson in the second-half.

Ever the motivator, though, Moran worked to get his team back on track and managed just that, seeing Liverpool thumb Derby County 7-1 at the Baseball Ground.

With Arsenal having failed to win against Norwich City, it meant that Liverpool were back at the top of the table. Sadly the Reds then lost to Queens Park Rangers and Southampton, putting the Gunners back in control. Moran had to take charge for two more matches, with the first of them being a 1-1 draw with Coventry City and a game against Leeds United that would go down as an all-time classic.

Liverpool raced into a 4-0 lead, only to be pegged back and then eventually winning the game 5-4. For Moran, the arrival of Graeme Souness as the new manager couldn’t come quickly enough.

Having appointed Souness to the manager’s role, it seemed as if Moran’s time in charge had come to an end. The Scot ended up having a triple heart by-pass in 1992, however, requiring Moran to take over once more. He was the manager for the final seven league games of the season, as well as for the FA Cup semi-final replay against Portsmouth.

It was a match that the Reds won, seeing us make it to Wembley for a game against Sunderland. Souness was back in the dugout for it, being watched closely by a doctor, whilst Moran led the team out ahead of a 2-0 win.

Mr Liverpool

ronnie moran and roy evans

When Souness returned on a full-time basis, Moran went back to his role as a coach. It was a role that he also fulfilled when Souness was sacked and Roy Evans was offered the manager’s position in his place.

When his fellow Scouser took over at the club in 1994, he became the ninth different manager that Moran had served under in one form or another. The list of managers who had used Moran’s service in some capacity runs as follows:

By the time Moran decided to retire in 1998, he did so having carried out pretty much every single role that there was for him to do. He had been a kit man, a physiotherapist, a coach, a trainer and the manager, having begun his life at Liverpool as a player. It was something that only he and Bob Paisley could claim to have done.

In March of 2017, just a few months before his death, a book about his time at the football club entitled Mr Liverpool was released. It explained what a brilliant servant he had been and how he has forever left an imprint on the country’s most successful club.

Moran’s Death

In 2014, a flag bearing Ronnie Moran’s image began flying on the Kop. That is arguably the best sign of admiration for someone that Liverpool fans know how to offer, with Bugsy having spent 49 years serving Liverpool in numerous different capacities.

Towards the end of his life, he was diagnosed with vascular dementia and his family made the difficult decision to put him into a care home in order to ensure that he got all of the support that he needed.

Having enjoyed his 83rd birthday on February 28th 2017, the day that Mr Liverpool came out, he was taken ill on March 11th.

He was rushed to hospital, with doctors saying he had between 24 and 48 hours left. Ever the fighter, though, Moran lasted 11 days before finally succumbing to his illness. What followed were tributes from across football. Peter Reid, for example, recalled a derby in which Liverpool won and as Reid left the pitch, Moran said, “Hey lad, you played well”. Reid responded with a tirade of abuse.

When Everton beat Liverpool at Anfield the following year, Reid deliberately looked for Moran and said, “Unlucky, you played well”, only to receive the same level of abuse back as he’d given a year earlier.

Ronnie Moran’s Honours List

Though Moran didn’t win anything as Liverpool manager as he never had the role in anything other than a caretaker capacity, he did win two big trophies as a player:

  • Football League First Division: 1963-1964
  • Football League Second Division: 1961-1962

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