Imagine captaining Liverpool to the European Cup. Imagine winning seven league titles with them. Imagine growing up supporting the club and eventually becoming the man who lifted its biggest trophy.
That was Phil Thompson.
Thompson grew up in Kirkby as a Liverpool supporter and joined the club as a youngster before signing professional forms on 22 January 1971, the day after his 17th birthday.
Ten years later, on 27 May 1981, he walked up the steps at the Parc des Princes in Paris and lifted the European Cup as Liverpool captain after a 1–0 victory over Real Madrid. He later took the trophy back to Kirkby and celebrated with it at The Falcon, his local pub.
That is the life every Liverpool supporter imagines.
And yet Thompson rarely seems to be talked about in the same way as some of the great Liverpool players he shared a dressing room with. Even among the defenders from that era, Alan Hansen tends to dominate the conversation.
Thompson's first-team career had begun at Old Trafford on 3 April 1972. Bill Shankly sent him on as a substitute for John Toshack during Liverpool's 3–0 First Division win against Manchester United. He established himself first as a midfielder and then in central defence, eventually making 477 appearances for Liverpool and scoring 13 goals.
By April 1979, Bob Paisley had made him captain. Two years later Thompson became the first Liverpool captain to lift the League Cup, before captaining the side to European Cup victory in Paris a few weeks afterwards.
The captaincy did not last much longer.
After Liverpool lost 3–1 at home to Manchester City on Boxing Day 1981, Paisley decided to give the armband to Graeme Souness. Thompson later discussed the episode on Jeff Stelling's Football's Greatest podcast, describing the loss of the Liverpool captaincy as one of the lowest moments of his career.
Thompson recalled Paisley presenting the change as something they would try for a few weeks and see how it went, and said he and Souness barely spoke for several weeks afterwards.
Years later, Thompson accepted that Paisley had been right. His recollection was that he had begun taking too much responsibility as captain and that the burden was affecting his own performances.
It is easy to look at the medal list and assume his career simply carried on as before.
It did not.
Thompson made 34 appearances in 1982/83 as Liverpool won another league title. The following season he appeared only once, in the Charity Shield against Manchester United on 20 August 1983, which proved to be his final Liverpool appearance. He did not make an appearance in the league, League Cup or European Cup as Liverpool went on to win all three competitions in 1983/84, although he was an unused substitute for the European Cup semi-final second leg against Dinamo Bucharest.
Mark Lawrenson had become Alan Hansen's regular partner in central defence and Souness had the captaincy. Thompson was still only 29 when he made that final appearance.
After spending several months on loan with Sheffield United during 1984/85, he completed a permanent move there in March 1985.
His Liverpool playing record was extraordinary: 477 appearances, 13 goals and seven league championships, along with the 1974 FA Cup, two UEFA Cups, two League Cups and the 1977 European Super Cup. He also won 42 caps for England.
There is one awkward discrepancy in the record of his European Cups. Liverpool's current player profile credits Thompson with three — 1977, 1978 and 1981 — while LFChistory lists two, 1978 and 1981, noting that Thompson missed the 1977 final because of a cartilage operation. What is beyond dispute is that he played in the 1978 final victory at Wembley and captained Liverpool to the trophy in 1981.
His relationship with Liverpool did not end when he stopped playing.
Thompson returned to the club in 1986 as reserve-team coach. Robbie Fowler later remembered him as an extremely demanding coach of Liverpool's young players, while Thompson himself linked that approach to the standards he had experienced under Ronnie Moran.
The relationship with the club broke down during Graeme Souness's time as manager. Contemporary reporting shows Thompson was dismissed from his reserve-team coaching position in June 1992 and subsequently took Liverpool to an industrial tribunal alleging unfair dismissal. The dispute was later settled out of court.
Souness later claimed Thompson had undermined him while he was recovering from heart surgery, including criticising his management in the Boot Room after a match against Manchester United. That was Souness's account of the dispute rather than an independently established finding.
Six years later Thompson was back at Liverpool, this time as Gérard Houllier's assistant.
In October 2001 Houllier underwent emergency open-heart surgery after suffering an acute dissection of the aorta, and Liverpool placed Thompson in charge of the first team during his recovery. The club's board told Thompson he had full authority while Houllier was away.
Liverpool ultimately finished second in the Premier League in 2001/02 with 80 points, behind Arsenal's 87. For supporters of my generation, that period is probably how Thompson first became familiar: not as the European Cup-winning captain from the old photographs, but as the intense figure standing alongside Houllier on the touchline.
Then there was Soccer Saturday.
Thompson became one of the programme's best-known pundits and remained part of the Sky Sports panel until August 2020, when Sky announced that he, Matt Le Tissier and Charlie Nicholas were leaving the programme.
For years, that television role probably made Thompson more recognisable to younger supporters as a pundit than as one of Liverpool's most decorated players.
Which is strange when you look at the career.
A Liverpool supporter from Kirkby joined the club as a teenager. He became a first-team player under Bill Shankly, a league champion, an England international and eventually Liverpool captain. In Paris in 1981, he lifted the European Cup.
Very few Liverpool supporters have ever lived the dream more completely than Phil Thompson.