For every new signing, the desire to make a good first impression can be all-consuming - particularly when they’re a striker.
No matter how high the price tag, for all the importance rightly given to aspects like workrate, linking the play and tracking back, goals are the currency by which all frontmen are judged and every single one of dream of getting off the mark as quickly as possible in their new colours.
No-one in Liverpool history has ever done it quicker at Anfield than Paul Walsh who arrived in L4 as one of the country’s most promising youngsters having been brought in to bolster one of the club’s most successful sides as the long-term replacement for one of the Reds’ greatest ever players.
It could and should have been the start of a long and distinguished spell on Merseyside for the Londoner but misfortune and, at times ill-discipline, meant while his Anfield days may have started with a bang, they ended with something of a whimper.
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The Plumstead-born forward first drew Liverpool’s attention to his talents after running rings around one of the meanest Reds’ defences for lowly Luton Town and almost inspiring a shock home defeat for Bob Paisley’s all-conquering side in September 1982. Having arrived at Kenilworth Road from Charlton Athletic earlier that summer, the 19-year-old didn’t find the net but put in a man-of-the-match performance - turning Mark Lawrenson inside out for the Hatters’ opener and having a hand in another goal - as only a late Craig Johnston equaliser salvaged a 3-3 draw for the defending champions who would go on to stroll to another league title the following May.
David Pleat’s side would only avoid relegation with a final day win at Manchester City but Walsh’s creativity and eye for goal was consistently marking him out as a player destined for greater things, sparking comparisons with Kenny Dalglish, and won him senior England recognition as well as the PFA Young Player of the Year award as the 1983/84 season drew to a close by which time Liverpool made their move.
Joe Fagan’s side were chasing a first-ever treble as they closed in on a third league title in a row after winning a fourth consecutive League Cup following a replay victory over Everton, with a European Cup final date against AS Roma on the Italians' own ground looming. Having agreed terms on a £700,000 move for the start of the following season, Walsh couldn’t wait to get started but found himself plunged into a club versus country row which would have serious implications for his International future.
“I was delighted to have officially become a Liverpool players but Fagan was about to give me a problem”, he revealed in his autobiography, ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’. “He said to me, ‘Paul, we want you come to the European Cup final in Rome with us and then come along to Swaziland with the lads for an end-of-season tour and get to know everyone a bit better’. I thought it sounded fantastic at the time and even better when he added, ‘And there will be £1,000 for you to spend on the trip too’, which was a fair wad at the time.
“The problem I had was the final of the European under-21 championship against Spain was coming up. The first leg was in Seville in just a few days’ time but I really wanted to travel with Liverpool to Roma and Africa. I asked David Pleat whether Bobby Robson would mind if I didn’t travel with the under-21s on this occasion as I really wanted to bed in at Liverpool as quickly as I could.
"My understanding was that I already had five full England caps and was sure to tour South America that summer so I felt confident that I was part of Robson’s plans. The bottom line was I’d played about 60 games that season and I was completely f***** and needed to recharge my batteries before I burned myself out. In hindsight, that’s how I should have approached the issue but I’d had my head turned and honestly didn’t see it as a major problem at the time. So I asked Pleaty’s advice and he said he would call Bobby Robson on my behalf and see what he had to say.
“I’m not sure how he portrayed me during the conversation but I should have called myself. If he’d even hinted that it was in my best interests to play for the under-21s I would have done so without hesitation. All I know is that I never played for England again. The next day I went to buy a paper and the headline on the back was ‘Bobby boots out Walsh!’ with Robson saying, ‘If he can’t motivate himself to play in a European under-21 final, he’s not for me’.
"Instead of calling Bobby up to try and sort things out and maybe better explain the situation, I left it. I thought now playing for a team like Liverpool it would only be a matter of time before I played my way back into his plans which was more naivety on my part. My England under-21 strike partner Mark Hateley, who was playing for Portsmouth in the Second Division at the time replaced me in the South American tour and of course scored against Brazil on the night John Barnes scored his wonder goal in the Maracana. It launched both their careers into a different stratosphere and I still can’t help wonder ‘what if?’ as I don’t think Bobby Robson ever forgave me. I made the wrong decision and paid for it and it’s still the biggest regret of my career.”
Having watched Liverpool’s European Cup triumph in Rome on penalties from the bench and - somewhat sheepishly given his lack of involvement taken part in the Treble-winners’ victory parade - Walsh returned to Merseyside after the summer break fully expecting to have to wait for his opportunity while playing second fiddle to first-choice strike pairing Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish and had to settle for an appearance off the bench behind the pair in the Charity Shield defeat to Everton at Wembley. But when the Welshman tore his cartilage in the week before league season opener away to Norwich City, the new boy found himself handed a full league debut at Carrow Road and quickly showed why he’d been bought with a precise lay-off which enabled Dalglish to put Liverpool two goals up after only 24 minutes, although it wasn’t the easiest of introductions with the Canaries fighting back to draw 3-3, manager Fagan commenting on his new signing afterwards, “He’s got to get used to being with a big club. He had a hard game - emotionally and physically he’s shattered. But I told him it would get harder.”
The Reds boss would be proved right but not before Walsh made a dream Anfield debut two days later against West Ham, opening the scoring after only 14 seconds having been played in by Ronnie Whelan to record the quickest goal in Liverpool’s history to beat Dave Hickson’s 15 second effort against Derby County in February 1961 (which was equalled by Naby Keita against Huddersfield in April 2019).
“My mum and dad came up for my home debut and things couldn’t have gone much better”, he recalled. “We were playing Dad’s team, West Ham, and I scored after just 14 seconds - probably the most exhilarating feeling I’d had in my career and a dream start in front of the Liverpool fans. I made another for John Walk, who scored twice, and we went on to win 3-0 - it was probably the happiest my dad had ever been after a West Ham defeat.”
Normal service seemed to have been resumed after the opening day drama at Norwich but Liverpool remarkably would not win another league game at home for almost another three months, even occupying the relegation placings in late October as Fagan’s side struggled to adapt following the departure of captain Graeme Souness to Sampdoria in Italy during the summer. Walsh’s lively performances had provided some comfort for supporters somewhat bewildered at their team’s unusually sketchy form, finding the net again at Anfield against Sunderland and Polish side Lech Poznan as the defence of the European Cup got underway, also scrambling home a 73rd minute equaliser against Manchester United at Old Trafford in an impressive showing which prompted the Guardian to write afterwards, “His first touch is masterful, he rouses a crowd through his ability to take the ball past opponents and, as he demonstrated in scoring Liverpool’s equaliser, he can scent out a goal.”
But a torn cartilage problem picked up in training - ironically around the same time as Ian Rush was nearing fitness having recovered from the same problem which had caused him to miss the start of the season - soon stalled the Londoner’s early progress and gave him a first experience of Liverpool’s old school approach to dealing with injuries.
“I felt my knee lock and knew I’d tweaked something”, he remembered. “I’d torn my cartilage but as I stood there rubbing my knee Joe Fagan said, ‘Look at Walshy - he thinks he’s Ian Rush’. Of course that made me want to play on all the more and by turning out against Spurs a few days later, I made things worse. My knee went again during the game and a minor tear became a big one. I was stretchered off, knowing I’d be out for four-to-six weeks as a result. I was p***** off because nobody had diagnosed the problem and I lost confidence in our physio department - if you could call it that - and their lack of medical knowledge almost immediately. There has to be something wrong when there is a culture of being afraid to report an injury for fear of being labelled a soft-arse.”
It was mid-December by the time Walsh was fit enough to return to first team action but, with Rush now back in tandem alongside Dalglish and the team gradually beginning to find some form, it would be February before he found the net again in a 7-0 FA Cup fifth round replay win over York City having to settle with figuring mostly from the substitutes bench. A rare start came came as the Reds saw off Austria Vienna in the European Cup quarter-finals but even though he scored twice - including a spectacular volley from outside the box - he missed a penalty to get his hat-trick which earned both him and Rush, the man who was supposed to be taking it, a reprimand afterwards from Fagan about the standards expected.
While life on the pitch was proving frustrating, the young Cockney had by now found a house on the Wirral with partner Melissa after spending the early months of the season in a hotel and was a popular figure in the dressing room, amongst those he could understand at least.
“We had a great social life, everyone liked a night out and there was a heavy boozing culture at the club back then", he said. "Stevie Nicol was over the water as well, mad Bruce, Craig Johnson was over there, Spackers, Jan was over there. Initially me, Warky, Jan and Kevin McDonald all lived in the George Hotel so we had a great introduction, we had company. Sammy Lee was a mate of mine. I probably went out with Stevie Nicol more than anyone else, he was a fantastic player and a good lad. They were all already winners and I was trying to be a winner with them.
“Growing up, Kenny Dalglish had been someone I wanted to emulate so to be playing alongside him was now a privilege but the problem I had was I couldn’t understand a f****** word he said! I know it’s funny but I found it a bit uncomfortable because there’s only so many times you can say ‘Eh? What?’ There were so many Scots in the dressing room that when they were together, they’d gradually get broader and broader until it was like they were talking a different language. I tended to shy away from Kenny to avoid further embarrassment, plus there was a 10-year age gap so we didn’t often mix socially. However the communication problem was a minor factor in what would develop into a troubled relationship.”
Liverpool’s dismal start to the league season meant the dream of an unprecedented fourth successive title never got off the ground and, though they would eventually finish a distant second to Howard Kendall’s revitalised Everton, focus shifted to alternate silverware as the season reached its business end, with the highlight of Walsh’s debut season coming when the Reds took on old foes Manchester United in a highly-charged FA Cup semi-final at Goodison Park. A spectacular 87th minute Ronnie Whelan equaliser had forced extra-time but Ron Atkinson’s side looked set for Wembley when Frank Stapleton’s deflected effort in the first additional period put them back in front only for Walsh’s 119th minute leveller to send the Liverpudlians packed into the Gwladys Street wild with delight and earn a replay.
“With just a minute of extra time to play, Dalglish swung in a cross, Rush’s header was saved by Gary Bailey but the ball fell to me a few yards out. It was between me and Kevin Moran but I reacted marginally faster and bundled the ball over the line to make it 2-2. It was in front of our fans packed into the Gwladys Street end and they just went mental. I’d never experienced a better atmosphere or such a rush when I scored a goal.”
It earned Walsh a starting slot for the Maine Road replay four days later and, while he was unable to prevent United recovering from a goal down at half time to reach the Wembley final against Everton, he was back in the side for the remaining 11 games of the season which concluded in Brussels as the Reds attempted to regain the European Cup against Italian champions Juventus. But hopes that a challenging first season at the club would end in triumph turned to disaster when fighting between supporters at the dilapidated Heysel stadium led to a charge by Liverpool supporters and the collapse of a wall leading to the deaths of 39 Juventus fans.
“I had been playing with a hernia for three months and Joe Fagan let me play but not train”, Walsh recalled. “It made me feel on top of the world because he wanted me in his team even with an injury, that’s how important he thought I was. I remember driving up to the stadium and thinking ’what a dump’. I’d seen better lower league grounds in England. Juventus had half the Italian national team playing for them so we knew it was going to be a really difficult game but there was something in the air that night - something felt wrong. I remember when we went out to look at the pitch and behind one goal, there was terracing with what looked like a makeshift fence going down the middle to segregate both sets of fans. There was an uncomfortable atmosphere and it seemed to be inviting trouble.
“I didn’t see exactly what happened but it just went from bad to worse and we knew people had died. They made a decision to play the game and it wasn’t until afterwards we heard how many people had been killed. If UEFA had done the their job properly it would never have happened. It had literally been a disaster waiting to happen and though plenty of people were quick to point the blame at the supporters, the truth was the stadium wasn’t fit for purpose and the security measures had been a joke. What should have been the biggest game my life turned out to be a nightmare. As professionals we did what we were asked but I was destined not to complete the game anyway. The injury I’d been carrying for several weeks worsened when I stretched for a cross towards the end of the first half, leaving me barely able to walk and I came off at the break. I didn’t even bother coming out for the second half and stayed in the dressing room.
“I remember a group of us being on the pitch afterwards looking at the wall which collapsed and Michel Platini came past carrying the European Cup and just shrugged his shoulders. I have nothing but sad, disappointing memories from the night in Brussels and there is a twinge of bitterness when I see European Cup finals in these magnificent stadiums today and wonder how they f*** we ever ended up playing at Heysel.”
Joe Fagan’s retirement as manager in the aftermath of the tragedy in Brussels saw Kenny Dalglish appointed as the club’s first ever player-manager which put Walsh in the unique and unenviable position of having his boss as the main rival for his starting spot but he faced another injury problem before the new season even got underway. His girlfriend Melissa’s father was the Luton Town club doctor and noticed during the summer Walsh wasn’t walking freely, diagnosing the hernia which had hampered him towards the end of the previous campaign and, after discussions with and permission from Liverpool’s surgeon, operated on it himself ruling the young Reds forward out of much of pre-season and the opening game at home to Arsenal.
Having started himself in the 2-0 win against the Gunners, Dalglish put Walsh back in for the second game - a 2-2 draw at Aston Villa - just as newspaper talk was linking the Londoner with a move to the Midlands club and he decided to speak to the manager to clarify the situation.
“What’s all this about Aston Villa in the papers?”, I asked and quick as a flash he replied, ‘Why, do you want to go?’ I said I didn’t and he said , ‘Well don’t worry about it then’ and carried on with whatever he’s been doing. I’m not sure what he thought I was going to say to that but it was a typical Dalglish clever-bollocks response. Maybe he’d wanted me to say yes so he could move me on - or maybe not - but I had no intention of leaving Anfield at that stage. I could never figure out what he was thinking and never really got to the bottom of the rumours.”
That uncertainty over how he was perceived by the manager would soon reach a head. Although the Reds had been beaten at Newcastle in their third league game and only managed a 2-2 draw at West Ham, home wins over Ipswich, Nottingham Forest and Watford had taken them up to second in the league before a trip to newly-promoted Oxford United. Dalglish was in the process of replacing Liverpool’s ageing full-backs and it proved to be the final game of Alan Kennedy’s decorated Anfield career after the late own goal which earned the hosts a point but a blazing dressing room row after the final whistle left Walsh feeling his days at the club may also be numbered.
“Ronnie Whelan came off after 20-odd minutes and I was on”, he recalled. “We come in at half-time one down to a goal by John Aldridge and playing poorly with the whole team out of sorts and unable to get going. I sat down and waited for Kenny to give us all a bit of a bollocking but I seemed to be his only focus. He leaned into me and said, ‘See you? You’re not even trying’. Now sometimes you play well and sometimes you don’t but one thing nobody had ever accused me of was not trying. I’d been p****** off at being left out of the team because I’d felt ready for a couple of weeks and by that point I’d had enough. I just snapped and said, ‘You can f*** off, you Scottish c***! Don’t ever accuse me of not trying - now f*** off!
“Kenny paused for a moment and said ‘There will only be one person f****** off and that’s you’. I just nodded. ‘Yeah? Well f******* get on with it then.’ I asked to be put on the transfer list and I thought that would be that as far as my time at Liverpool was concerned. Surprisingly though it didn’t turn out that way at all and eventually things settled down. A few weeks later I asked to be taken off the list and my second season at Anfield instead turned out to be my best in a red shirt.”
Having done a couple of weeks’ penance in the reserves, Walsh was soon back in the side and a goal in a 2-1 defeat at Queens Park Rangers was the start of 18 goals in 25 matches, the richest form of his Liverpool career, which proved vital in the context of the season. Although the early season form had not been as poor as the year before, the inevitable adjustments and new ways of working following the summer upheaval led to a five game winless run in December which - coupled with a rare eight-game scoring drought for star striker Ian Rush - made Walsh’s contribution even more valuable with Dalglish looking to gradually phase himself out of the team. Rush broke his duck on New Year’s Day in a 2-2 draw against Sheffield Wednesday with Walsh also finding the net having come off the bench, a brace for the Londoner soon afterwards in a televised win at Watford highlighting his increasing importance to the side.
Walsh’s outstanding form was even leading to newspaper speculation Bobby Robson could hand him an England recall with the World Cup in Mexico looming but the fates again conspired to fatally hamper his hopes of featuring in the conclusion to Liverpool’s season, let alone anything beyond that. A seemingly innocuous aerial challenge with Kevin Moran half an hour into the Reds’ home clash against Manchester United in early February saw the forward stretchered off with an ankle problem which again, much to the Londoner’s distress, would prove difficult to resolve.
“It was just an accident. We jumped and my leg got caught between his and it turned my ankle round. It felt like a bad one immediately and later I’d discover I’d ruptured ankle ligaments. I was in considerable discomfort as Roy Evans ran on, slapped a cold sponge and started to work it around on my ankle. I winced and said ‘Roy for f**** sake that ain’t going to help mate’. He later arranged for me to see a surgeon who advised me to rest for a few weeks during which time I would receive treatment while slowly building the ankle’s strength up. You trust surgeons and doctors to know what they’re doing so I didn’t really question the prognosis but even after six weeks I was still miles off being fully fit. The truth was nobody knew what was wrong with the ankle because it hadn’t been thoroughly investigated. I’d had an X-ray but that only showed there were no breaks or fractures and the general assumption it was minor ligament damage which would eventually heal on its own. I had two or three weeks of treatment and then I’m back running, trying to get fit. I don’t even know I’ve ruptured my ligaments. Kenny begged me to play in a game against Sheffield Wednesday at the end of March. ‘Wee man just give me an hour’ he said but I could barely run and only lasted an hour.”
Liverpool’s hopes of regaining their league title from Everton had seemed dead in the water when the Toffees won at Anfield in late February to open up and eight point lead over their Merseyside rivals but Dalglish’s men embarked on a relentless winning run with the game Walsh started at Hillsborough being the only one they didn’t win until the end of the season. Desperate to play his part, Walsh tried to play through the pain and attempted to prove his fitness in the reserves, playing and scoring in a win for the second-string at Hull City despite serious discomfort. Having gone out for a few drinks with team-mates Sammy Lee and John McGregor on their return to Liverpool, he got involved in a row outside the Coconut Grove nightclub and lashed out with his bad ankle causing further damage, the three Reds players being arrested the following day at Melwood and charged with GBH which they were later acquitted of.
“I was gutted. I was having the best run of my life but got stopped in my tracks and knew my season was effectively over”, Walsh said. “I was linking up really well with Ian Rush and probably heading for 20 or 25 goals that season which would easily have been the best of my career at that stage. But just as everything had fallen into place, it then fell apart and I’d never get back to where I’d worked so hard to reach. I travelled down with the rest of the squad and watched the FA Cup semi-final against Southampton and, though I know it’s selfish, I felt sick just watching in front of my eyes as we went on to win 2-0 in extra time. I knew that had my injury been correctly diagnosed straight away, I would have had a chance of being back for the last few weeks of the season.
“We beat Chelsea on the final day to win the league and Stamford Bridge with Kenny’s volleyed goal one of the most iconic Liverpool moments of the era. I doubt he’d have played even 15 games that season had I been fit but people still remember that goal as the title clincher while my contribution towards that moment was largely forgotten. We beat Everton 3-1 in the FA Cup final the week after to clinch the Double and I’d been robbed of what would have been the best moment of my career. I watched it it from the bench, tracksuited up but no more than part of the background staff. After the game I had my picture taken on the pitch during the post-match celebrations, trying to look happy but feeling completely detached from everything. We had a reception in Covent Garden and then went to Stringfellows along with the FA Cup for a few beers. I drowned my sorrows. There was one small consolation when I found out I’d been named in the PFA Team of the Season. I was quite proud I’d been chosen because I’d been out for a few months but my peers still thought I was worthy of a place which meant a lot with Mark Lawrenson the only other Liverpool player picked, there was no Dalglish or Rush.”
Despite a summer of rest, when Walsh returned for pre-season determined to get his head together and fitness back in the wake of the news Ian Rush would be departing for Juventus at the end of the campaign, he found to his dismay soon after pounding the sun-baked pitches of Melwood that his ankle was no better and Liverpool’s surgeon suggested an investigative procedure to investigate the damage.
“This could and should have been done months earlier and sure enough he looked at the X-ray plate and said ‘You need an operation, Paul’. I just thought, ‘Why the f*** didn’t you do that four months ago?’ It was laughable and hard to believe a club the size of Liverpool had such amateurish medical practices. I had the op soon afterwards which meant missing pre-season for the second year running and knew I would need a period of rehab to get back to where I needed to be but I’d lost all confidence in the club’s medical practices - and it got worse.
“One day I was in the treatment room - bear in mind I’d been having ultrasound for several months by this point - when a guy came in to test all the equipment. After a simple procedure on the ultrasound machine, he informed us it wasn’t even working! I’d been having treatment all that time and the f****** machine was broken. Christ knows how long it had been like that. I just shook my head but I wasn’t surprised and almost expected it because the medical situation at the club was diabolical and no-one seemed to have a clue what they were doing.”
Walsh returned to the side for the first leg of Liverpool’s Screen Sports Super Cup final - a short-lived and sparsely-attended tournament created to make up for the lack of European football following the Heysel ban - against Everton but suffered yet more misfortune, fracturing the scaphoid bone in his hand after landing awkwardly which left him in a full plaster cast up to his armpit and facing another spell on the sidelines. He proved there was still goals in him by hammering home a hat-trick in a 6-2 victory against Norwich at the beginning of November and started the next dozen games but went goalless with his lack of core fitness having missed pre-season taking its toll.
“They couldn’t see I needed to be rested. We just didn't have the players to come in and cover so I had to carry on. I was aware a few fans were moaning about my lack of goals and Kenny was saying we needed another striker. To be fair we did need someone, and it was wrong to rely on Ian Rush, a half-fit Paul Walsh and an ageing Kenny Dalglish who had all but phased himself out by that point. Had I been brought back in a controlled manner I would have been fine but instead Liverpool signed John Aldridge who wasn’t a technically gifted player but he was good at putting the ball in the back of the net. I wasn’t frozen out of the team but my involvement did become more sporadic.”
Aldridge had been earmarked as Rush’s replacement once he had left for Italy in the summer and, having set up the Welshman for the late winner which knocked Everton out of the League Cup quarter-final at Goodison, Walsh was given the nod for the first leg of the semi-final at Southampton where his increasing frustration at his situation saw him receive a red card, even if on this occasion his actions didn't get the reaction he expected from the Liverpool manager.
“It was a bad-tempered game and I was in a frustrated state of mind because the goals had dried up for me. So when I got the ball from a throw-in and was clattered from behind by Kevin Bond - who stuck his studs right down my back for good measure - I wasn’t best pleased. We had a bit of a grapple and though it was handbags at that point, he crossed the line when he leant in and spat in my face. I checked to see the ref wasn’t looking and then turned round and smashed him as had as I could in the face.
“What I hadn’t noticed was the linesman who was stood about five yards away and saw the whole thing so I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was sent off and was waiting for my bollocking in the dressing room when Kenny walked in after the final whistle. We’d drawn 0-0 and he said, ‘Wee man, you know you were in the wrong don’t you?’ I nodded, waiting for the inevitable, then he said, ‘But if there’s one person I don’t mind you smacking, it’s that t***.’
Suspension ruled the Londoner out of the second leg against the Saints but he was back in the side for the final against Arsenal at Wembley where the seeds of the growing rivalry between Dalglish’s men and George Graham’s emerging side were cemented by the Gunners’ fortuitous late win, the inescapable feeling of a changing of the guard being added to by Liverpool’s incredible record of never having lost any of the 145 previous matches Ian Rush had scored in coming to an end that day after Charlie Nicholas’s brace took the cup to Highbury.
With the Wembley heartbreak coming during a spell of six defeats in eight games which saw Dalglish’s men squander a nine-point lead at the top of the First Division and ultimately their league title crown to Everton, summer rebuilding felt inevitable and Walsh was becoming rapidly aware he may not be part of it, especially when in the middle of the trial concerning the Coconut Grove brawl he was asked to drive down to Coventry ahead of the Reds’ late-season fixture there only to not even be handed a place on the substitutes bench. Driving home in anger, he got caught by police for speeding and given a six month driving ban which only added to his sense of frustration.
“I couldn’t work out why the manager had bothered to ask me to come down if he had no intention of playing me. I just felt embarrassed. I was already stressed out to f*** and was sick of Dalglish and his ways so I wanted out. For whatever reason, I felt as thought I was being treated differently. At the point, if there’d been a hole in the middle of the motorway I’d happily have driven into it. There had been mitigating circumstances but I felt I was being pushed towards the door and when John Barnes and Peter Beardsley were brought in during the close season, I saw it was basically the end for me at Anfield.
“I had got into bad habits to console myself. I’d allowed myself to become weak mentally, consoling myself by enjoying my social life more than my football and allowing that to compensate for what I wasn’t getting on a Saturday afternoon. Kenny was still including me in every squad, taking me to every away game but I wasn’t even making the bench any more. I was travelling, staying in hotels and training but not getting a sniff so I was pretty demoralised with the whole situation. The end result was that because I knew I wouldn’t be playing I started to drink more and more at away games. Once the manager had delivered the predictable news I wasn’t involved, I’d go to the bar and have a few beers, get on the coach half-p***** after the game and start making sarcastic comments on the way back trying to cheer myself up - then I’d go out again when I got home. The only thing I was interested in was getting drunk and enjoying myself because I felt I had nothing else to look forward to. I spent the best part of a year in that frame of mind, feeling sorry for myself and handling the situation badly.”
After only making one start in the first half of the 1987/88 campaign, ironically in a win at Tottenham, Walsh jumped at the chance of a move to White Hart Lane when Liverpool agreed a £500,000 fee with the North London club the following February and would spend four years there, playing in their 1991 FA Cup triumph but being a self-confessed ringleader in the Spurs’ drinking culture which existed there also and leaving under a cloud after punching reserve team manager and former Liverpool goalkeeper Ray Clemence who had just substituted him in a game for the second string side. He moved to second tier Portsmouth and almost helped them into the Premier League, being voted Player of the Year despite strike partner Guy Whittingham scoring 47 goals, but was sent off in the final game of the season at relegation-threatened Sunderland when victory would have secured automatic promotion and was suspended for the play-offs where they lost to Leicester City. He finished his playing days at Fratton Park after a spell back in the top flight with Manchester City and, after a short stint as an agent, was involved in the football media, regularly appearing on Sky’s Soccer Saturday programme.
In February 2021, Walsh acknowledged the impact drink had on his playing career and in a revealing interview with the Mail said he has found peace after years of anger and regret, now regularly attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings having put the deep private unhappiness his life post-football behind him.
“I left Liverpool as a drunk and arrived at Tottenham as a drunk”, he admitted. “I am sorry, particularly to Terry Venables because my behaviour at Tottenham under him was unprofessional. I was a joke and a disgrace, I hated my life and hated myself. I couldn’t cope post-football. So I went in to AA for the first time and that was the start of trying to do things differently. So far it is working. When you behave a certain way as long as I did, it doesn’t disappear overnight. So I have to work at it. Football is about ego and self-obsession. I had to find a way to let all that go.
“I am trying to look at it through different eyes now and recognise I achieved something. I played for Liverpool. I lived a dream. If you’d offered me that at 15 I’d have bitten your hand off. I genuinely wanted to please Kenny and wanted him to think I was a good player but I never really knew if I had that approval. I’m not sure I ever did because he was happy to let me go in the end and brought other players in and put them in front of me. Only Kenny has the answers, I haven’t.”
