Kennedy, foreshadowing Thomas, first made his name with the London club. He proved much more effective in the red strip of Liverpool than Thomas ever did and his career there was dazzling. He was a member of what was arguably the best Liverpool side ever, the 1977 European Cup winning team. By the following year he was central to what was one of the finest arrangements ever to marshal midfield English soccer, alongside Souness, Case and MacDermott. He was to make over 380 appearances in a Liverpool strip before joining John Toshack’s Swansea in 1982.
Kennedy’s potential wasn’t always clear. In 1967 one wise old owl of soccer, Stanley Matthews, regretfully advised him that he would never make it in professional soccer. How wrong that would prove to be. Jimmy Greaves, another owl, came to view him as the English player of the 1970s. He certainly had the medals to buttress such a claim on his behalf. By the age of 25 he had been a central part of teams that had won 3 league championships, one FA Cup, 2 European Cups, one European Fairs Cup and one EUFA Cup. He had also kicked off his international career with England. That was before the days when an England player would find it difficult attaining a Doncaster Rovers cap.
Signed as a professional by an uninspiring Arsenal side in 1968 Kennedy would become part of the great 1971 double winning side. He just missed out on a second double 6 seasons later with Liverpool, who lost in the thrilling 1977 FA Cup final to Manchester United. It was a mark of his ability that he was playing at such a level with different leading clubs and winning top drawer trophies. He was still winning European Cups in 1981. I had the good fortune as a young “Glens” fan to be in the crowd that watched him play in his first Arsenal game when the Gunners met Glentoran in September 1969 in the Fairs Cup, although I recall the game rather than him.
In 1974 shortly after Liverpool trounced Newcastle in the FA Cup final, Bill Shankly signed him to form a partnership with Kevin Keegan. Reluctant to leave the Gunners and angry at the club for wanting to pass him on he arrived in Liverpool only to read in the papers that Shankly had resigned as manager. The thought crossed Kennedy’s mind that Shankly’s departure was related to his own transfer.
London night club life had sapped Kennedy’s vitality as he scored more with women than he did on the pitch. His marriage was coming under strain because of inveterate chasing. Shankly would later ask if bringing Kennedy to Liverpool was the mistake of his managerial career. He dropped into the reserves before Bob Paisley announced that he would try him out in midfield. The result was astonishing. Shankly’s faith in him was restored.
There was a tension between Kennedy and Keegan, with the former thinking the latter too sweet to be wholesome as well as being very greedy. With other players he formed a different sort of partnership. In court along with Jimmy Case for late night revelling antics, Graeme Souness would eventually comment that ‘everyone knows that Jimmy Case, Ray Kennedy and Terry Mac all left the club earlier than their ability warranted because they occasionally overdid the leisure time.’
The co-author of A Ray of Hope claims that Kennedy would have hated a ghost written hagiography. To be fair this is anything but. Dr Andrew Lees was his neurologist treating him for Parkinson’s illness which had begun to plague him while still a player and the book traces the premature decline of Kennedy’s career and his descent into physical and mental illness. He eventually became the most famous patient with Parkinson’s Disease in the UK. Between them Lees and Kennedy produced a stimulating book that examined not only with the player’s career but also the debilitating illness that was to reduce him to a physical wreck and a paranoid shambles, a former shadow of the rambunctious and skilful played he was right throughout the 1970s.
Books like this and Ronald Reng’s biography of Robert Enke are revealing of a Janus world that shows a glitzy face to the outside and a pain ingrained one internally, sketched by the accumulation of unrelenting pressures to succeed. A world where for the system to win there must be many losers. The god of professional sport must have its sacrifices.
Dr Andrew Lees and Ray Kennedy, 1993, Ray of Hope. Pelham: London. ISBN: 0-7207-2019-2
From Beano
ReplyDeleteIn the modern game we hear of great strikers or world class central midfielders. In the era that Ray Kennedy plied his trade the emphasis would have been more on great players. And that is what Ray Kennedy was. He always reminded me of someone who was just a brilliant player and that positions wouldn’t matter to him. People hailed Paisley a genius for converting him to a midfield player but I think he recognised that he was too good a player not to be in that team so had to play him somewhere. When you think that he only got 17 English caps you wonder why ... but there is a theory that Keegan and Greenwood conspired to have Brooking picked ahead of him even when his powers were waning.
Kennedy made football look easy and uncomplicated. I remember the fantastic football writer Hugh McIlvenny saying that Kennedy gave such a fabulous pass to Dalglish—setting up a goal scoring opportunity--- that the ball “sat up and begged to be kicked”.
The Liverpool team of that era were something else and I think what typifies it most for me was the day in 1978 they thumped Spurs 7-0. Ray Kennedy scored with a header that day but it was another headed goal by McDermott that will long live in the memory ... Dalglish ... Johnson ... Heighway ... McDermott ...GOAL!!!