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15-year-old Kenny Dalglish had West Ham stars standing and applauding
Harry Redknapp is one of the game’s most colourful and outspoken characters. Here, in the latest extract from his fascinating book, he reveals the clamour for Kenny Dalglish's signature and charts the beginning of English football's influx of foreign talent.
I go back a long way with Kenny Dalglish. He came for a trial at West Ham in 1966 and I would drive him to training.
The 15-year-old Kenny was with us for two weeks — everyone in the country was trying to sign him.
I had a little green Austin 1100 and would collect him and another Scottish lad, Jimmy Lindsay, from digs.
Harry Redknapp was playing for West Ham United as a youngster when Kenny Dalglish trialed at the club
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Harry Redknapp was playing for West Ham United as a youngster when Kenny Dalglish trialed at the club
One Saturday morning we had a practice match and manager Ron Greenwood played him with the first-team players. One of the lads laid a ball to him and it was like fast-forwarding through the next 20 years of British football — he took it perfectly, dropped a shoulder, turned and curled it into the far corner of the net.
Our reserves didn’t know what had hit them. Both sets of players just stopped and applauded.
I can remember talking to Ron about him after that game.
‘Will we get him?’ I asked. ‘No chance,’ he said. ‘We’ve tried. Everybody wants him, but he’s going to Celtic.’
I don’t remember him being very talkative then, but I’m not sure I would have understood a word anyway. The strength of Kenny’s Glasgow accent is legendary. When Liverpool wanted to sign my son, Jamie, Kenny rang up to speak to us about it.
I could hear my wife, Sandra, on the phone but I didn’t know who she was talking to.
‘I’m sorry,’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t understand your Scouse accent.’ She must have said it about four times.
In the end, I heard her say the name Kenny. I took the phone, just in time to hear Kenny saying in the broadest Scottish tone you’ll ever hear, ‘Can ye nae understan’ me?’
That’s my missus. She’s got to be about the only person who doesn’t know Kenny Dalglish is from Scotland. ‘I thought he was from Liverpool,’ she said. ‘No, he manages Liverpool — he was born in Glasgow,’ I replied. We got there in the end.
Kenny was just a fantastic player. Absolutely world-class. He could hold the ball as well as any man twice his size; he could bring team-mates into play or take it on himself. He didn’t have pace, but that didn’t matter. His pace was in his head. He was the attacking equivalent of Bobby Moore, in that he read the play better than anybody.
He scored 30 goals in his first season for Liverpool, including the winner in the 1978 European Cup final against Bruges. It allowed them to maintain this fantastic period of dominance in the English game.
Copyright - Daily Mail
I go back a long way with Kenny Dalglish. He came for a trial at West Ham in 1966 and I would drive him to training.
The 15-year-old Kenny was with us for two weeks — everyone in the country was trying to sign him.
I had a little green Austin 1100 and would collect him and another Scottish lad, Jimmy Lindsay, from digs.
Harry Redknapp was playing for West Ham United as a youngster when Kenny Dalglish trialed at the club
+17
Harry Redknapp was playing for West Ham United as a youngster when Kenny Dalglish trialed at the club
One Saturday morning we had a practice match and manager Ron Greenwood played him with the first-team players. One of the lads laid a ball to him and it was like fast-forwarding through the next 20 years of British football — he took it perfectly, dropped a shoulder, turned and curled it into the far corner of the net.
Our reserves didn’t know what had hit them. Both sets of players just stopped and applauded.
I can remember talking to Ron about him after that game.
‘Will we get him?’ I asked. ‘No chance,’ he said. ‘We’ve tried. Everybody wants him, but he’s going to Celtic.’
I don’t remember him being very talkative then, but I’m not sure I would have understood a word anyway. The strength of Kenny’s Glasgow accent is legendary. When Liverpool wanted to sign my son, Jamie, Kenny rang up to speak to us about it.
I could hear my wife, Sandra, on the phone but I didn’t know who she was talking to.
‘I’m sorry,’ she kept saying. ‘I can’t understand your Scouse accent.’ She must have said it about four times.
In the end, I heard her say the name Kenny. I took the phone, just in time to hear Kenny saying in the broadest Scottish tone you’ll ever hear, ‘Can ye nae understan’ me?’
That’s my missus. She’s got to be about the only person who doesn’t know Kenny Dalglish is from Scotland. ‘I thought he was from Liverpool,’ she said. ‘No, he manages Liverpool — he was born in Glasgow,’ I replied. We got there in the end.
Kenny was just a fantastic player. Absolutely world-class. He could hold the ball as well as any man twice his size; he could bring team-mates into play or take it on himself. He didn’t have pace, but that didn’t matter. His pace was in his head. He was the attacking equivalent of Bobby Moore, in that he read the play better than anybody.
He scored 30 goals in his first season for Liverpool, including the winner in the 1978 European Cup final against Bruges. It allowed them to maintain this fantastic period of dominance in the English game.
Copyright - Daily Mail
