Michael Robinson: "So I asked Ronnie Moran why my training kit was dirty..."

Michael Robinson joined Liverpool as a fresh-faced 24-year-old from Brighton in 1983. However, the day-to-day work at Melwood, with the recently-crowned league champions wasn't quite how the young forward had envisaged it would be, as he told AS this week.

“We had to train every day, apart from Mondays in a dirty kit. I joined during the pre-season when the team was on tour. And when we got back to Liverpool, in my second training session, I took one look at my training kit and thought: ‘Hang on a minute, my socks are hard, my shorts aren’t washed – my kit’s dirty…’. I got to the training ground early, Bruce Grobbelaar, Phil Neal and myself were always the first to arrive. Anyway, I looked over to the assistant coach, Ronnie Moran and at first, I thought it might be a dressing room prank - seeing as I was the new boy. So I said to Ronnie Moran: ‘My kit’s dirty’ and he retorted: ‘And it will be tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that…’ I asked: ‘Don’t we have a washing machine?’ and Ronnie replied: ‘Yes, we do have a washing machine but when this club started winning things, in 1958, we didn’t. Mrs Jones in Kemlyn Road used to do the washing for us once a week. What’s the problem? Can’t you win a football match in a dirty kit?’”