Liverpool legend Bruce Grobbelaar won 13 honours during an incredible 13 years with the club, but his most bizarre story may come years after his playing career ended!
The story goes like this, after lifting the league title in 1990, the club would have to wait 30 years to do so again – a torturous wait with a number of heartbreaking runner-up finishes.
Grobbelaar was in the squad that won the title in 1990, and he says a curse was placed on the club shortly after, one that could only be broken with pee – yes, you read the right.
Telling the tale on BT Sport in 2019, months before Jurgen Klopp‘s team were crowned Premier League champions, the eccentric Zimbabwean explained: “I had a testimonial in 1992, and I was sponsored by Zambezi lager, and they sent a witchdoctor with the lager.
“He went around on the posts and put his goat’s tail, put his water on the posts on both sides, got the microphone, and he said, ‘If you don’t have the jungle man Bruce Grobbelaar here, you won’t win the league again’.
“Of course, I went back to South Africa, went to Canada, came back. Remember when Stevie G slipped? One night game, I went down to the pitch and went to the Kop end, and I peed on the posts.
“That breaks the spell. I got thrown out. I didn’t do the Anfield Road, and we came second.”
The season he was, of course, referring to was 2013/14, when Liverpool had the title in their hands with only three games to go before that dreaded moment against Chelsea unravelled everything.
Klopp’s side would then finish second under Klopp in 2018/19 by a single point, but Grobbelaar made sure to put an end to the curse for 2019/20 – he was not going to be stopped.
He continued: “I fulfilled my task because last season (2018/19) I played for Hotel TIA in a corporate game. We were in the dressing room and the guy (who invited him) said, ‘You have to do the business today’.
“I said, ‘okay’. I took a water bottle, poured the water out, went to the toilet, peed in the bottle, came back.
“First-half at the Kop end, I splashed it all over the posts. Second-half, I came down to the Anfield Road end and splashed it all over the posts. Serious.”
Quite the unbelievable story, eh! And the curse was clearly broken as Liverpool went on to break the record for the earliest English top-flight title win, doing so in 31 games.
Thanks for your commitment to the cause, Bruce! Let’s just never bring a witch doctor back to Anfield anytime soon.