Some Player

[First published long-form piece, originally written around 2007]

It is the second leg of the 1981 European Cup semi-final. The place, Munich’s imposing Olympic Stadium. With just seven minutes of a bruising contest remaining neither Liverpool nor Bayern have been able to construct the moment of magic that such occasions demand, the stroke of genius that catapults its creator into immortality and cements a legacy that any opportunistic politician could only dream of. 

The reality is that Bayern look the most likely winners if, as seems inevitable, the match is to go to extra time. Already missing half of their regular back four, Liverpool have been forced to endure the early loss of talismanic genius Kenny Dalglish, kicked out of the tie within the first ten minutes, and have seen his replacement, rookie winger Howard Gayle, run himself into the ground before being similarly replaced. Add to this the fact that Graeme Souness and David Johnson are carrying injuries that have reduced them to little more than passenger status and you can perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the pre-match taunts of Bayern general Paul Breitner are about to be borne out. 

With a sense of desperation growing amongst the travelling Red army, a heavily-limping Johnson collects the ball on the right touchline and surveys his options. A low cross aimed roughly in the area of the penalty spot seems speculative at best, until a burly white-shirted figure appears, unnoticed by all, defenders and onlookers alike. With an air of casualness that belies the importance of the occasion, the ball is chested down and unerringly dispatched, right-footed, into the corner of the Bayern net. Despite the inconvenience of a last-gasp German equaliser it’s enough to send Liverpool into their third European Cup Final. It’s as if the scorer felt the urgent hand of destiny pressing on his shoulder, shook it warmly and took it to his local for a pint of mild and a bag of dry roasted.

That, my friends, was typical of Ray Kennedy.

It’s a sobering thought that, unless you’re well into your 30’s, you probably won’t have witnessed Ray Kennedy perform in a Liverpool shirt.  I’m reminded of my Dad, constantly drilling into me the fact that Billy Liddell was the greatest player he’d ever seen, when all I wanted to do was play on my Space Hopper or sort out the ‘swaps’ from my Argentina ’78 football sticker collection. But, just as I was always secretly grateful to the old fella for widening my football education, so it now falls to me to keep my sons aware of our club’s history and its glittering supporting cast. 

And few have glittered more than Ray. 

Having been an integral part of Arsenal’s double-winning team in 1971, it was something of a surprise when Ray Kennedy, still only 23 years old, was signed by Liverpool in 1974. It was, however, even more of a surprise when the man who signed him, the great Bill Shankly, announced his resignation on the same day. It fell to Shankly’s successor, Bob Paisley, to nurture and direct Kennedy’s subsequent career. In one of the most startling examples of footballing insight and intuition, Paisley converted the lumbering, slightly clumsy centre-forward into a left-sided midfielder of such poise, balance, vision and artistry that he was to become, in Bob’s own words, “...simply one of the best footballers I’ve ever seen”. From someone who had been involved in the game since the 1930’s and had seen all of the game’s greatest exponents this was a fitting tribute.

Kennedy was that rarest of wide players in that he could never be classed as a winger yet he offered his team genuine width and unmatched balance. His background as a striker ensured that he was instinctively aware of the best positions to take up in the opposition penalty area and his ability to ghost in unnoticed at the far post to finish off another Liverpool attack became a familiar sight in the second half of the 1970’s. Strong in the air, with a proverbial can-opener of a left foot and a shot of immense power, it’d be folly to estimate his worth in today’s inflated transfer market. But given the amount paid for the likes of Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves, a conservative estimate at Kennedy’s value would surely start at around £30 million, folly or not.

As his record of 72 goals in 393 games for Liverpool suggests, Ray never really lost his goal-scoring instinct. Many of these came in matches of real significance, such as the aforementioned winner against Bayern Munich. I can still picture his 25 yard rocket in the 1976 UEFA Cup Final against FC Brugges which was the first step to overturning a 2-0 deficit; the decisive third against Wolves which won us the title the same year; the final goal in the 3-0 FA Cup semi-final victory over Everton in 1977; the vital strike in the historic tie with St. Etienne, prior to setting up Fairclough’s legendary winner. 

Kennedy went on to become a member of arguably the greatest midfield quartet ever to grace this country’s football pitches. Souness, McDermott, Case and Kennedy had everything you could ever ask from your engine room, and they were hugely influential as Liverpool took their domination of the domestic game to new levels, swatting all before them with an irresistible combination of artistry, power, elegance and commitment.

By the early ‘80’s it was clear that Ray Kennedy’s powers were on the wane. But the rapidity of his decline took everyone, including Ray himself, by surprise. Just nine months after that memorable night in Munich, and after losing his place in the Liverpool team to the emerging Ronnie Whelan, he was signed by former team-mate John Toshack, who had guided Swansea towards the top of the First Division. But theirs was not to be a happy marriage, with Toshack eventually accusing Kennedy of not trying following a series of lacklustre displays. The truth was infinitely more distressing. For Ray Kennedy was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, the same affliction that would also fell Muhammad Ali, although at this stage neither he nor anyone else was yet aware of it. The reality was that he had probably been affected by Parkinson’s for at least five years, putting his achievements at the heart of the Liverpool machine into startling perspective. 

Before reaching his 33rd birthday Kennedy’s physical deterioration forced him to retire; it was a further two years before his condition was diagnosed. A disease that would have a devastating impact for the average person acquired tragic proportions for a professional athlete, whose health and fitness were his very lifeblood. 

The fall-out for Ray has been shattering. His personal life has been torn apart, he is confined to his home on an almost permanent basis, he has been forced to sell his entire medal collection in order to fund the treatment and care he requires, and his condition, sadly, continues to worsen. An emotional benefit match between Liverpool and Arsenal took place in 1991, but the proceeds raised have long since been accounted for and there has been little mention of Ray Kennedy in the public domain in the last 20 years.

Given the absence of meaningful initiatives from within official circles, it has fallen to a group of determined and resourceful Liverpool supporters to attempt to provide practical support to a stricken idol.  The ‘Ray of Hope’ Appeal has been established in an attempt to offer the financial assistance so crucial to a man whose income has disappeared, who has been left behind in the stampede to wring every last cent out of a game which now more than ever appears little more than an opportunity for feverish corporate greed.  Numerous activities and social events have been arranged, the intention being to raise a sum of money that would help make Ray’s everyday existence as comfortable as possible.  It is to be sincerely hoped that the efforts of the organisers are richly rewarded and that genuine football supporters, irrespective of tribal allegiance, support a cause that is as worthy as it is upsetting.

I’m surely not alone in thinking that, regardless of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding ownership of the club and its economic implications, Liverpool F.C. could be seen to take an active lead in providing some form of support for one of its fallen legends? If nothing else, and in purely cynical terms, it would certainly be an effective PR exercise. And if anyone deserves to benefit from Liverpool’s ongoing status as a footballing super-power then surely it’s someone who had such a significant role to play in laying the foundations of its continued success?

Someone who could justifiably be described as the ‘Player of the ‘70s’? 

Someone who I’m proud to say I saw at the peak of his thrilling powers?

The last word, as ever, should go to Shanks, the man responsible for bringing Ray to Anfield. When asked in later years for his opinion of his final signing, the great man had no doubts: “Ray Kennedy is some player.” And you know what? As always, he was right.

“NOT SINGING ANYMORE?”

 [Originally published in 'Late Tackle' magazine - January 2013]

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Be honest. You hear the words football and music in the same sentence and your imagination instantly transports you to a place where tackiness, tedium and human degradation hold sway. Your head fills with fractured images and jarring howls; with ‘Back Home’ and ‘Blue Is The Colour’, with ‘This Time’ and ‘Ossie’s Dream. Worst case scenario – you find yourself haunted by the omni-mulletted ghosts of Hoddle and Waddle, while apocalyptic visions of a Steve Bruce / Status Quo Axis of Evil stalk your dreams like discordant, denim-draped demons, imploring you to “keep your bottle and use your head” with all the harmonic subtlety of a cat holocaust.

It’s like falling through a Stargate to an entire dimension of unremitting naffness. Chilling. Truly chilling.

Of course, you can always point to the outliers, to ‘World In Motion’ and ‘Three Lions’ and, taken in isolation, it’s true that each is a refreshing exception to the rule. Even if the former did help foist relentless charm-void, Keith Allen, on a public that had previously managed quite well without him, and the latter unleashed mid-90s laddism on the beautiful game and in doing so should be held culpable for kick-starting the joyless Soccer AM banter-bus.

But there have been few songs in the public arena which openly reflect the realities of football’s rich culture or which capture its appeal, its unique fascination to those who have spent their lives under its spell. Gimmicky World Cup records and FA Cup Final sing-alongs are all well and good, and have helped provide Chas & Dave with a regular income for far longer than logic dictates reasonable, but they don’t tell us anything about our relationship with the game. They don’t come laden with insight or sparkling wit. They don’t hold the mirror up to our obsessions and allow us to see how ridiculous, joyous, and all-encompassing they are.

For that we must cast our gaze further afield.

It’s best to swiftly disregard prototype efforts such as the spectacularly ill-conceived ‘Match of the Day’, an attempt by a post-Peter Gabriel Genesis to cast off their noodly prog-rock pretensions and position themselves as the voice of the common man, via some of the most awkward lyrics this side of a Scouting For Girls songbook. Random samples:

“Each side's eleven men, with numbers on their backs, but at a distance they all tend to look the same…”

“And that's not all, our mate’s the keeper, slipping and sliding in the mud, arms as long as creepers…”

and the astounding, “Where are your specs, Ref? We'll kick you to death, Ref.”

Phil Collins, ladies and gentlemen – the Poet Ruffian of the tax-exile Ultras.

Thankfully, the subsequent decades have thrown up a collection of artists with greater empathy for the game than a man happy to rhyme “hat and scarf” with “have a laugh.” Although it seems to be a subject matter that appeals, in the main, to quite a narrow musical demographic, encompassing slightly ramshackle indie shamblers emerging from 1980s working class culture.

Thus we see contributions from the likes of the Sultans of Ping FC, whose semi-legendary ‘Give Him a Ball and a Yard of Grass’ was a heartfelt celebration of Brian Clough and son Nigel (“He’s a nice young man with a lovely smile”); The Trashcan Sinatras, who, in ‘I’m Immortal’, peered through the eyes of an ageing substitute (“Out for a spell, I was slated. I'd lost a yard, I was hated”); and I, Ludicrous, who came as close as anyone to summoning the mundane addictiveness of the football supporter’s existence in the ominous “We Stand Around” (“We taunt the home fans humorously, the policemen eye us with ill-disguised contempt”).

There have also been notable entries to the canon from several more familiar names. Barking’s favourite son, Billy Bragg, has long been known to drop casual footballing analogies into his songs, happy to use the game as a handy metaphor for his adolescent romantic dalliances (as evidenced in “The Boy Done Good”). With ‘God’s Footballer’ Bragg went one step further, sensitively recounting the story of 60s Wolves striker, Peter Knowles, who retired from the game at the age of 25 after deciding life as a Jehovah’s Witness was a more rewarding experience than leading the line at Molineux every other week (“He scores goals on a Saturday and saves souls on a Sunday”).

Morrissey may not be the obvious choice to commemorate one of football’s most affecting tragedies, particularly as his previous lyrical flirtation with the game consisted of a painfully clumsy play on words in the title of a typical piece of post-Smiths whimsy (‘Roy’s Keen’). Yet, in ‘Munich Air Disaster 1958’ he offered a poignant tribute to the fallen Busby Babes (“We love them, we mourn for them. Unlucky boys of Red”).

And let us not overlook the characteristically abrasive offerings to the genre from legendary curmudgeon Mark E Smith, who manages to channel the cynicism of a supporter through the eye of an absurdist. In The Fall’s seminal 1983 effort, ‘Kicker Conspiracy’, Smith rails wildly against the dark authoritarian forces at work within the game’s hierarchies (“Under Marble Millichip, the FA broods. On how flair can be punished”).

30 years later, in ‘Theme From Sparta FC’, he was constructing a loose parable around the notion of a semi-mythical hooligan gang with a particular distaste for the over-privileged residents of Stamford Bridge (“English Chelsea fan, this is your last game. We’re not Galatasaray, we’re Sparta FC”). The BBC, happy to endorse such sentiments, adopted it as the theme music to their Saturday afternoon Final Score sequence, which led to the frankly disturbing sight of Smith reading the football scores to a bewildered nation one memorable day in November 2005. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see Ray Stubbs accused of having the haircut of a convicted murderer, You Tube is your friend.

But there can surely be little real doubt as to the rightful heirs to the football song throne. Half Man Half Biscuit have been at it for more than two decades now, peppering their cuttingly satirical observations on popular culture and its false icons with nods to obscure 1950’s goalkeepers (George Farm, Blackpool – ‘1966 And All That’), lower league journeymen (Bobby Svarc, Colchester – ‘Fear My Wraith’) and under-appreciated Dutch maestros (Wim van Hanegem, Feyenoord – ‘Girlfriend’s Finished With Him’), to name but a fraction. As you’d expect from a band that famously spurned the chance to appear on Channel 4’s prestigious music vehicle, ‘The Tube’, because it clashed with a Tranmere home game, Half Man Half Biscuit present an authentic supporter’s vision of the game’s disappointments, frustrations and paradoxes. Footballing references don’t so much inform their stance as infuse it.

The perspective of lyrical supremo, Nigel Blackwell, the undisputed Bard of Birkenhead, is the very antithesis of the pervasive Sky-saturated football landscape. Instead, his concerns are grounded among those who queue for stale pies and cold cups of tea on roofless terraces, who travel the length of the country to witness grim midweek goalless draws and who turn up season after season in the hope that an unspectacular mid-table finish can be secured.

The game’s masochistic allure is documented with depressing clarity in ‘Friday Night and the Gates Are Low’, in which the contrasts between the two ends of the footballing spectrum are vividly outlined: “Stick a burger in my mouth, shove a seat beneath my arse. Buy the shirt and shorts and socks, win the keeper’s sweaty jocks. Point a gun down at your foot, am I supposed to be at home?” Though, despite taking aim at a range of targets, from match-going families to dwindling attendances, from juvenile goal-scoring substitutes to worthless competitions (“the Lux Familiar Cup”) it’s worth noting that, ultimately, it’s an irresistible calling: “Friday night and I just love complaining. And no, I haven’t got anything better to do.”

Their scope is wide, their zeal that of the lifelong Panini sticker collector, their outlook never less than relevant. From the wistful discourse on childhood Subbuteo sessions in ‘All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit’, (“…after only five minutes you’d be down to ten men, ‘cos he’d sent off your right back for taking the base from under his left winger”) to the icy pragmatism of ‘Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets’, to ‘Rock And Roll Is Full Of Bad Wools’ blistering assault on know-nothing hipster bands hungry to acquire credibility by “sitting on a so-called soccer sofa on a Saturday morning, having the so-called banter with the Preston, touching base with fellow guest Heston.”

In ‘The Referee’s Alphabet’, they even manage to give a voice to the much-maligned man in the middle, in the form of an A-Z which offers a robust defence of the official’s art:

“R is for running backwards, a difficult skill which the pundits never seem to appreciate….
U is for the umpire which I sometimes wish I’d been instead. You never hear a cricket crowd chanting “who’s the bastard in the hat?”

                                              

Nigel Blackwell – Prenton Park’s poet laureate.

All of which goes to show that football and music can occupy the same territory; you just need to look in the right places. Like Birkenhead. And if you see Francis Rossi heading towards your club with a weird glint in his eye, save yourself before it’s too late.