So this morning I’m scrolling through football forums when someone asks about Tommy Lawrence’s career stats. You know, Liverpool’s old-school keeper. I go “huh, that sounds familiar but can’t recall the details.” My brain’s mush before coffee anyway. Grabbed my laptop thinking this’ll be quick – famous club, legendary player, how hard could it be?
First Attempt: Total Mess
Typed “Tommy Lawrence stats” straight into Google. Absolute garbage results. First page full of eBay auctions for his jerseys and sketchy betting sites. Even tried YouTube thinking there might be old highlights – no dice. Just some dude ranting about modern goalkeepers being soft compared to him. Useful? Not really.
Then I did this:
- Dug through Premier League’s official site – useless for pre-90s players
- Scrolled Wikipedia which only gave seasons played and vague achievements
- Checked Liverpool FC’s own history section – just trophies won during his time
The Breakthrough Moment
Remembered an ancient football almanac PDF I’d downloaded years ago. Had to dig through three external hard drives like an archaeologist. Spotted the file called “BOOTROOMSTATS_1971” covered in digital dust. Opened it and boom – proper old-school pen-and-paper records from some retired scout.
Copied everything messy into Notepad first:
- Appearances: 390 for Liverpool (all comps)
- Shutouts: 119 – wild for that era
- Penalty saves: 14 official recorded
- Weird one: noted he conceded only 4 goals from corners in 68/69 season
Spent two hours untangling handwritten notes typed up by someone who clearly hated numbers. Had to cross-reference three different sections because the original guy tracked league stats separate from cups. Threw my coffee mug when realized he listed FA Cup games under “domestic non-league” for some reason.
Making Sense of It All
Created a spreadsheet trying to organize the chaos. Color-coded seasons like a maniac – yellow for clean sheets, red for losses etc. Nearly smashed my keyboard seeing how they measured “catches” instead of modern stats like distribution accuracy. Ended up adding notes like:
- “CLEAN SHEET % = AMAZING FOR MUD-PITCH ERA”
- “Guessing saves weren’t recorded like today – sources unreliable”
- “That corner stat? Might be myth but keeping it”
Finally ended up summarizing key bits in plain English so normal humans get it:
- Played 14 seasons total (98% for Liverpool)
- Top 3 keeper in England for almost a decade
- Conceded less than 1 goal per game on average
- Basically a brick wall with legs
Posted everything on my blog with big disclaimers about old data being messy. Someone immediately commented “he had 412 apps not 390” – cue another hour rechecking sources. Moral of the story? Football stats before 1990 are equal parts goldmine and migraine. Those keepers played with broken fingers and no stats apps – makes you appreciate the numbers we do have.
Final thought? All those fancy numbers just prove one thing: man knew how to bloody save goals.
