Crowd reactions to returning former players can vary pretty widely.
Luis Suarez, Raheem Sterling and Michael Owen have all received fairly hostile welcomes from Liverpool supporters in recent times when coming back to Anfield with their new clubs for a number of reasons.
The circumstances and context for departure usually play a big part in how a footballer is perceived by those who used to adore them from the terraces and the affection shown to the likes of Ray Clemence, Danny Ings and - in all likelihood should Bayern Munich play in L4 again any time soon - Sadio Mane show the ties between fans and a player don’t necessarily end when he stops wearing their shirt.
There cannot however have been many more unusual receptions for a former Liverpool man than when Peter Beardsley stepped back on to the Anfield pitch for the first time as an opposition player following the conclusion of a largely stellar four seasons at the club which saw him play a pivotal role in one of the Reds’ most successful and attractive to watch sides.
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The diminutive Geordie was a graduate of Tyneside’s famous Wallsend Boys Club - whose conveyor belt of talent also produced the likes of Alan Shearer, Steve Bruce, Michael Carrick and Lee Clark - but, having been initially rejected by his boyhood club Newcastle United, got his early grounding in league football with Carlisle United. After four years at Brunton Park, the 20-year-old forward embarked on an audacious move to Vancouver Whitecaps in Canada in 1981 where an impressive performance in a friendly against Manchester United was enough for manager Ron Atkinson to take him to Old Trafford but, after making only one appearance in a League Cup tie and then briefly returning to Vancouver, he finally got his dream move to St James Park in 1983.
He immediately struck up a rapport with Kevin Keegan in the former Liverpool striker’s final season as a player before retirement and emerging winger Chris Waddle, scoring twenty league goals to help the Toon to promotion back to the top flight after a six-year absence, and first drew Anfield attention to his talents when chipping home a superb opener past Bruce Grobbelaar as the struggling Geordies held Kenny Dalglish’s championship chasers to a 1-1 draw in December 1985.
The following summer the whole country was alerted to his craft and creativity as well as his eye for goal when Bobby Robson thrust him into World Cup action with England’s hopes of qualifying for the knock-out stages in Mexico hanging by a thread after only one point from their first two games against Portugal and Morocco, Beardsley helping unlock Gary Lineker’s goalscoring prowess and providing the spark which took them all the way to the quarter finals before contentious defeat to a Diego Maradona-inspired Argentina.
Although he was only able to manage five goals the following campaign, his consistent performances in a Newcastle team which narrowly avoided relegation saw him named in the PFA First Division Team of the Year and a host of top clubs linked with his services including Liverpool. 1987 was a summer of transition at Anfield where Kenny Dalglish’s men had ended up empty handed after their historic league and FA Cup double in the Scot’s first campaign in charge twelve months before. With star striker Ian Rush now having left for Juventus, Dalglish had already started his succession planning the previous January by bringing in goal poacher John Aldridge from Oxford United for £750,000 which continued in early June with the acquisition of Watford winger John Barnes for £900,000.
But with the player-manager now 35 and reaching the end of his playing days, the prospect of adding Beardsley’s guile and ability to unlock defences - which had already been compared to Dalglish - to a squad determined to wrench the league title back across Stanley Park from neighbours Everton was impossible to resist and, with cash-strapped Newcastle prepared to do business after being unable to persuade him to sign an extension to his contract which only had one more year to run, the Reds agreed a British record £1.9m fee to take the 26-year-old to Anfield, much to Alex Ferguson’s fury.
The former Aberdeen boss, in the first summer of his 26-year-reign at Old Trafford, had approached Newcastle over Beardsley only to be told they would not sanction a transfer for anything less than £3m and was left ‘bemused, disappointed and angry’ at seeing the England forward pitch up on Merseyside soon afterwards for a fee significantly short of that. At Anfield though there was only satisfaction at sealing a deal which sent out a statement of intent as to the club’s ambition, chairman John Smith saying after the protracted negotiations were concluded, “Peter is worth waiting for. This is the first time in the history of Liverpool - maybe in the history of any club - that two current England players have been signed in such quick succession."
For Beardsley, despite the fact he was not desperate to leave St James Park, once he learned of Liverpool’s interest there was only one place he wanted to his football.
"I still had twelve months of my contract to run and I was happy to honour it”, he admitted. “There had been paper talk about various clubs such as Tottenham, Manchester United and even Real Madrid wanting to sign me but I never heard anything definite and thought nothing about it. Then I heard Liverpool had made an offer. Newcastle called me to tell me they'd received the offer and Willie McFaul, the manager, told me that unless I agreed to sign a new three year contract with Newcastle, the club wanted me to go. I would have been happy to stay if the club had been ambitious and was intending to strengthen the team but there was no indication that Willie McFaul had any plans in that direction. When things started to move Willie McFaul went on holiday. The club wouldn't let me speak to Liverpool until he returned and there was no-one who could give me details of the three year contract the club were apparently willing to offer.
“I’d probably decided to sign for Liverpool even before I met Kenny Dalglish. I got the chance to speak to him, and for me to take over from 'God', as I call him, in terms of the No.7 shirt was just the greatest thing ever - especially when you consider Kevin Keegan wore it and then Kenny, probably the best No. 7 they ever had. It's a special shirt and probably always will be because of those two. For Kenny trusting me to wear his shirt, it wouldn't have mattered if they had said 'We'll give you a pound in wages.' I would have done it. Genuinely. Kenny wanted to sign good players and build a great team. People will say 'He's only saying that', but it was the only club - and I mean that genuinely. I had already been to Man United and failed. Without being disrespectful to other clubs, Liverpool were the biggest and the best then. John Barnes was already there, a big mate of mine through the England set-up. Aldo had come in just before that and Ray Houghton came straight after me. It was brilliant because Kenny obviously had a lot of great players and great friends in that team, but he was in the process of re-modelling the team. To be part of what he thought was the next era was a special thing."
Liverpool supporters desperate to see first hand what this next era would look like would have to wait a little longer than usual though with the Reds’ first three matches of the 1987/88 campaign away from home due to emergency repair works needed on the Kop where a Victorian sewer had collapsed. Those who travelled to Highbury for the season opener against Arsenal were rewarded almost immediately when Liverpool’s new attacking trio linked up after only nine minutes for what would become in many ways a signature strike for the campaign, Barnes and Beardsley playing a one-two down the left flank with the Jamaican-born winger’s cross being headed home by Aldridge. The Gunners soon equalised through Paul Davis but Steve Nicol’s late long-range header sent Dalglish’s men home with the three points and Beardsley got off the mark for his new club in the next game a fortnight later with a composed finish in a 4-1 win at FA Cup holders Coventry City.
After a draw at West Ham, Beardsley and his fellow new boys were finally able to make their Anfield bows in mid September with goals from Aldridge and Barnes seeing off Oxford United but hopes that breaking his scoring duck early may reduce some of the pressure caused by the Geordie’s record price tag did not immediately bear out. Although he scored his first home goals in successive 4-0 home wins over Derby County and Portsmouth as Liverpool cemented their place in second behind early pace-setters Queens Park Rangers, Beardsley’s probing in the second striker role behind Aldridge was not always initially on the same wavelength as his new team-mates even though Dalglish’s men kept winning, going top of the league after demolishing QPR in another 4-0 victory at Anfield in mid-October which saw Barnes truly advertise the new levels he and his team were capable of reaching with a sparking brace.
‘Peter the Plonker’ screamed one of the more ludicrous tabloid headlines as debate over some of the England man’s more indifferent performances continued but a dramatic week at the end of the month which saw two Merseyside derbies at Anfield within four days served notice it would only be a matter of time before Beardsley’s innate talent would be seen to full effect. After a late defected Gary Stevens strike snatched a third round League Cup tie for the Toffees, the sides did battle again the following Sunday in a televised encounter and, following Steve McMahon’s first half opener, Beardsley secured the points twenty minutes from time, latching on to a loose ball inside the penalty area after a sweeping Liverpool move featuring a sublime Barnes back-heel to thrash home a ferocious left-foot half-volley which gave Neville Southall no chance and sparked wild celebrations, even earning him a kiss from a man wearing a blue and white striped shirts after a mini-pitch invasion.
“It was nice to score - and it went in well, didn’t it!”, he said afterwards. “We had something to prove after losing to Everton in the Littlewoods Cup. They deserved that win but we felt we let the fans down and we really got it right today. John Barnes is always playing like that. People just didn’t really notice what great player he is or how consistent he can be when he was at Watford. Everything he does almost always creates chances. We are terrific mates and room together when we go away. John has really helped my game.”
Barnes himself was in no doubt how important Beardsley was to this new flair-filled Liverpool side even if it wasn’t as immediately apparent to others, even within the dressing room.
“He was different from everyone else in that he didn’t drink,” he explained. “He’d collect the bibs, cones and balls after training had finished. Initially, there might have been a feeling that Peter was sucking up to the manager… there were a few snide remarks. That was the genius of Liverpool: recognising how a group of players that hadn’t been in the same side could come together and gel instantly. Peter was crucial to my success. Of everyone I played with, Peter was the one I enjoyed playing with most.”
His derby goal on the first day of November would be Beardsley’s last goal before the turn of the year but Liverpool’s relentless form had by this point silenced any criticism with the Geordie’s brace in a 4-0 romp over Coventry at Anfield on New Year’s Day putting the Reds 13 points clear at the top of the First Division and later that month Dalglish’s side was the talk of Europe after another scintillating performance, this time against George Graham’s emerging Arsenal. The Gunners had edged the previous season’s League Cup final at Wembley between the sides and would soon become Liverpool’s main domestic rivals, their trip to Anfield being beamed to an estimated worldwide television audience of 250 million people.
English clubs were in the third year of the European ban following the 1985 Heysel tragedy and with Uefa meeting the following week to discuss the possibility of a return, French legend Michel Platini was in the capacity Anfield crowd which was treated to another masterclass. Aldridge opened the scoring from close range on the stroke of half time after relentless midfield harrying from Steve McMahon set up Beardsley for a shot which goalkeeper John Lukic could only divert into the Garston-born striker’s path and the Geordie himself added the second just after the hour mark with a brilliant solo strike, picking the ball up midway inside the Gunners’ half and nutmegging midfielder Michael Thomas before wriggling through and dinking the ball impudently over Lukic.
Even notoriously tough taskmaster Graham said afterwards his team could have done nothing about Beardsley’s ‘brilliant’ goal, with the striker himself saying “I knew what I was doing. Michael Thomas was between me and the goal and I put the ball through his legs. Goalkeepers have to commit themselves and nine times out of ten they lie down. John Lukic did and I chipped the ball over him.”
Platini’s post-match comments further illustrated what European football and this Liverpool side were missing out on due to their continued non-involvement in continental action which would not ultimately come to an end until 1991, shortly after Beardsley’s Anfield departure. “I never thought I’d see an English team playing like this”, the former French captain said. “It was a continental performance. Liverpool played their football on the ground. Arsenal were more typically English, playing the ball through the air. Beardsley’s goal might have been scored by a top French or Italian player.”
The plaudits kept coming as Dalglish’s side continued to remorselessly steamroller the opposition as they imperiously strolled towards the championship with none of their distant challengers able to cut the Reds’ lead at the top to even single figures, German striker Rudi Voller saying “It’s a pity Liverpool cannot play in Europe, it would be great to play against them. I have seen them on tv a number of times and been very impressed, I have enormous respect for Beardsley and Barnes in particular. My colleagues in the West Germany team are excellent players but Beardsley and Barnes are world class.”
Although defeat at Goodison Park in late March meant the Reds were only able to equal Leeds United’s record of going 29 league games unbeaten from the start of a season, a 5-0 destruction of closest challengers Nottingham Forest in mid-April put them on the brink of confirming the club’s 17th league championship with the Reds’ free-flowing brilliance prompting the BBC’s John Motson to suggest “The whole country was enthralled by that – it left many good judges speechless” while England legend Tom Finney, a former team-mate and hero of the Liverpool icon Bill Shankly was moved to comment, “It’s one of the finest exhibitions of football I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen Brazilians play but I’ve never seen the game played at that pace or executed like that.”
Beardsley himself scored the goal against Tottenham at Anfield which clinched the title with five matches left to play and, after the Geordie bagged a brace in the final day 5-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday to take his goal tally to 18 (14 of which had come since New Year’s Day), attention turned to Wembley where the following weekend Liverpool were aiming for a second league and FA Cup double in three seasons. Their opponents were lowly Wimbledon, a non-league side only eleven years earlier, but who had ruffled numerous feathers as they rose up the English pyramid due to their robust approach and route-one game, shocking Anfield the previous March by winning on their first ever visit to dent the Reds’ title chances.
It was the classic David versus Goliath encounter and, despite Liverpool’s majestic performances over the previous nine months (before the Cup Final the BBC broadcast their Goal of the Season competition which was made up entirely of Liverpool goals), the Londoners prevailed in one of the FA Cup’s greatest ever upsets although things may well have been different but for a controversial first half incident involving Beardsley. With the game goalless ten minutes before the break despite early Reds pressure, the Liverpool man latched on to a through ball from defence by Gary Gillespie despite clearly being held back by Dons defender Andy Thorn and clipped the ball into the net past goalkeeper Dave Beasant only to turn round and see referee Brian Hill had not played advantage but pulled back the play and awarded a free-kick to Liverpool for Thorn’s foul.
Moments later the underdogs went in front when Lawrie Sanchez headed home Dennis Wise’s free-kick and when Beasant in the second half denied Aldridge from 12 yards to become the first goalkeeper to save a penalty in the FA Cup final, the realisation took hold that despite nine months of champagne football one of Liverpool’s greatest ever seasons was destined to finish on a sour note.
Referee Hill was later questioned by the FA after labelling Liverpool as ‘moaners’ before the match and he later accepted he could have played advantage, admitting “I had already blown for a foul when Beardsley managed to go on and score. Wimbledon’s defenders just stood still and you can only give what you see. With hindsight I might have played advantage. I had every opportunity to do”, with Liverpool skipper Alan Hansen saying “I told him he had made a bad decision and he just said ‘Fair comment’.”
Beardsley and Barnes were unable to take out their frustrations during that summer’s European Championships in West Germany as Bobby Robson’s side crashed out in the group stages after losing all three matches and, despite Ian Rush returning from Italy to add more firepower to Liverpool’s attack, the first half of the following campaign was one of relative struggle. Beardsley again was only able to manage four goals before January and a 3-1 collapse at Manchester United on New Year’s Day seemed to have put an end to any hopes the Reds may have had of retaining their league crown.
Dalglish’s men then however embarked on a remarkable run to claw back the advantage leaders Arsenal held - which at one stage stretched to 19 points - with Beardsley finding his goalscoring touch again, a brace in a 5-1 victory against Sheffield Wednesday at Anfield on 8th April giving him nine goals in his last nine games. Three days later a win at Millwall put the Reds top of the league table for the first time all season and the following Saturday Liverpool travelled to Hillsborough for a repeat of the previous year’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. It was to prove a day which changed the face of Liverpool FC and English football forever with catastrophic crowd mismanagement by the South Yorkshire Police leading to 97 Reds supporters being unlawfully killed in European football’s worst ever sporting disaster.
Beardsley was in the Liverpool line-up that day and, speaking in the wake of the 2016 second inquest verdicts, said he wished he and his team-mates could have done more to help with the rescue operation.
“After four minutes I hit the crossbar at the bottom end and I turned round in disappointment, I probably should have scored, and I’m looking round and behind Bruce’s goal there’s people trying to get to safety. No trouble, not the slightest hint of a bit of trouble and Ray Lewis, who was the referee, tapped me on my backside and he said ‘come on, we’re going off’ and he took everybody off. Graham Kelly (the Football Association’s chief executive at the time of Hillsborough) came into the dressing room and he said ‘we’ll be back on in 10 minutes lads’ and he did that probably four or five times.
“We didn’t know, sadly, people were losing their lives. We genuinely didn’t. We could have maybe done something about it as a group of players, and I don’t mean calm people down, but we could have physically carried the boards, people lying on the advertising boards. We honestly feel as though we could have helped. But we weren’t allowed to. We thought we were going back on to play.
“The red and blue of the city came together and, to be fair, I’m not sure any other city could have reacted in the way that they did because they were incredible. Kenny was amazing - Kenny and Marina - incredible. What Kenny did for people was just frighteningly good and I really mean that, he couldn’t have done any more. I went to a funeral of one of the victims in Burnley. The family were magnificent with me, but I found it really hard. I’d only been to one funeral before that, but this one was for a teenage boy. I found it really hard. Kenny was unbelievable. He was more of man than I was. Both he and his wife Marina went to dozens of funerals and did whatever they could to help the bereaved families. A lot of people, me included, believe that the reason Kenny left the club was because mentally he’d had enough, it took so much out of him.”
Liverpool returned to playing action after a period of mourning and consultation with the families of the bereaved, winning the replayed semi-final at Old Trafford to set up a fitting all-Merseyside showpiece with neighbours Everton at Wembley in which Dalglish’s men emerged victorious in 3-2 classic after extra time. Beardsley had started all but one of Liverpool’s fixtures after Hillsborough but been unable to add to his season’s goal tally of 12 and - with Ian Rush now fit after missing much of the campaign through illness and injury and having shown his enduring prowess at Wembley with the two goals which sealed the cup - found himself left on the bench for the marathon season’s final two games. He came on in both, creating a goal for Ray Houghton in the 5-1 win over West Ham which meant championship rivals Arsenal now had to win by two clear goals in the last-match decider three nights later and replacing the injured Rush in the first half against the Gunners but being unable, along with his physically and mentally exhausted team-mates, to prevent George Graham’s side dramatically snatching the title through Michael Thomas’ last minute goal.
A small modicum of revenge was gained at Wembley two and half months later when Beardsley’s goal at Wembley beat Arsenal in the Charity Shield and another strike in the league opener against Manchester City a week later set him and his team on course for another championship-winning campaign. With John Aldridge leaving to join Real Sociedad in Spain, Beardsley was firmly installed as Rush’s regular strike partner and enjoyed the best goals-to-games ratio of his Liverpool career, scoring 16 times in 41 appearances. But his absence from a handful of key games hinted that Dalglish may have been beginning to harbour doubts over his Newcastle-born forward, a perception which became stronger the following campaign after a summer in which the manager reportedly informed Beardsley Marseilles had bid £3.6m to take him to France. Not willing to uproot his young family, the Geordie was concerned the Liverpool were ready to cash in on him and despite starting the 1990/91 campaign in rich form - scoring seven goals in his first four games including a hat-trick against Manchester United and brace against Everton as the Reds won their first eight matches - those worries persisted.
Dalglish increasingly was opting for a more cautious approach and often five-man defence in tougher away games and, although Beardsley came off the bench to score in a 3-1 win at Tottenham in late October, his absence six weeks later in a shocking 3-0 defeat at title rivals Arsenal - along with the inclusion of full-backs David Burrows and Barry Venison in midfield - hinted all was not well behind the scenes at Anfield despite that being the Reds' first league loss of the season. An ankle injury picked up against Sheffield United soon after ruled Beardsley out for a month either side of new year and he was unable to immediately win his place back in the side with Dalglish having brought in Scottish veteran David Speedie from Coventry City who made a blistering start with three goals in his first two games against Manchester United and Everton.
The game against the Toffees was the first of a four-game Mersey derby marathon with the sides meeting a week after their league encounter in an FA Cup fifth round tie which went to two replays. The first of them saw Beardsley handed his first Liverpool start in over two months and, in many people’s eyes, prove a point as to why he should be in the team by scoring twice in a rollercoaster 4-4 draw, the Times writing afterwards, “A victim of injury and his manager’s curious selection policy, Beardsley illuminated the evening having been a principle figure in Liverpool’s irresistible opening to the season. His second goal relieved Liverpool’s uncertainty and was one of pure inspiration. Using the mobility he had shown throughout the evening, he deliberately threaded a path along the edge of the area before unleashing a firm and measured drive beyond the reach of Southall.”
What impact Beardsley’s renaissance would have on Dalglish’s plans for the rest of the season became moot in less than 48 hours when the Liverpool manager stunned the football world by stepping down with immediate effect, citing the intolerable pressure to be successful caused from nearly two decades at the knife-edge of top-level football, and later the strain of Hillsborough. Although Beardsley was back in the starting XI for much of the rest of the campaign, he was unable to add to his season’s goal tally of 13 meaning his strikes at Goodison were to prove his final ones in a Liverpool shirt.
Graeme Souness had eventually taken over as manager after a caretaker spell in charge from Ronnie Moran and, with the Reds having ended the season empty handed, was backed by the Anfield board in the summer of 1991 with Liverpool again breaking the British transfer record by paying Derby County £2.9m for Welsh forward Dean Saunders. Another £2.2m was spent on the Rams’ England centre back Mark Wright with a further £1.5m shelled out to Souness’ former club Glasgow Rangers for winger Mark Walters.
With Everton having missed out in the chase for the in-demand Saunders, Howard Kendall’s attentions turned towards Beardsley who was persistently being linked with a move away from Anfield to such an extent that the player himself confronted the new Liverpool manager about his future. Souness had admitted when taking over that rebuilding an ageing squad would be one of his priorities and, with Beardsley having now turned 30 and a new forward having just arrived at the club, his concerns were swiftly validated as he wrote in his book ‘My Life Story’.
“The impression that a lot of people got was that maybe Souness had had his card marked by Kenny Dalglish about me, especially after what happened in the later months of Kenny’s management. Whether that’s true or not, I’ll never know but I find it difficult to believe. I never fell out with Kenny other than being devastated at being left out of the team. Kenny is a good friend. I’ve been involved in his wife Marina's charity, we’ve played in a charity games together and he played in my testimonial. If I had any problem with him I wouldn't have invited him. It is wrong for people to say we fell out.
“There had been speculation in the papers about various comings and goings, and I felt it was reasonable to find out exactly where I stood with Graeme Souness so I made an appointment to go and see him and ask about my situation. Then prior to our fourth pre-season game, he pulled me to one side and announced, ‘I’ve had an offer for you.’ I asked him from which club and he told me that it was Everton. I asked him how much, to which he replied curtly, ‘I am not prepared to tell you’.
“He said there was a plane leaving the local airport at ten to five for Stockholm with a connection to London. He admitted it was a bit of a rush but explained that it was the way Howard Kendall wanted it. He said the Everton manager had requested that I be on the plane and he was going to have me picked up to meet him to discuss the move. Souness then made a point of telling me not to say a word to anybody about the deal because he wanted it kept quiet. You can imagine my surprise then when I bumped into a journalist on the way out of the hotel who said to me, ‘So you’re off to Everton then?’ I just muttered, ‘No, where did you hear that?’, remembering that the manager had ordered me to keep the deal secret. He must have been surprised by my denial; it made me look especially foolish when he told me that Souness had just announced to the press what he had asked me to keep quiet about. I tried to find him to get some sort of explanation, but he had disappeared and I could not reach him.
“And when I met with Howard, his opening salvo unknowingly made me aware of the underhand way Souness had handled things. ‘This is a bit of a nuisance for me,’ he commented. I told him I didn’t understand what he meant, to which he replied, ‘It would have been a lot easier for me if I could have seen you in Manchester tomorrow.’ It turned out that when he made an offer for me, Souness had agreed but then told him he wanted me out straight away. Which was a completely different story to that which I had been given in Sweden, when he told me it was Kendall who wanted me on the flight to meet in London. I thought Souness’ attitude was rather pathetic. I couldn’t see any reason why I couldn’t have stayed for one more night, watched the match, said my goodbyes to the players and staff and then caught the plane to Manchester the next day. He did the deal with such indecent haste that he didn’t even allow me to pick up my boots which were back at the ground with the rest of the kit.
“I never caused him any trouble and he wanted me out of the door — and this after virtually promising me I would be in his side at the start of the following season. It was almost as if he regarded me as a troublemaker who might have tainted the dressing room had I stayed any longer. I found out later he told Barnesy about the deal after I left Sweden but said he didn’t think I would sign for Everton because I didn’t have the bottle to switch clubs. Well, he was wrong about that, just as he was wrong about a few other things while he was in charge at Anfield.”
After his £1m transfer made him the first player to cross Stanley Park since Alan Harper in 1983 - and arguably the highest profile player to do so since Dave Hickson in 1959 - the capricious nature of the fixture list decided Beardsley should have to return to Anfield in only his fifth game for his new club just weeks later. It was an unhappy afternoon for the blue half of the city with a first minute David Burrows strike and further goals from Dean Saunders and Ray Houghton setting Liverpool up for a 3-1 victory but the new Everton man gained some consolation by creating the visitors’ late consolation goal for Mike Newell and from the reception he got from the his former adorers on the Kop.
“Just before the game the Kop chanted my name and I don’t suppose that’s happened too many times, an Everton player getting his name chanted by the Kop”, he recalled. “But during the game, with Liverpool winning, the crowd started to chant, ‘What a waste of talent!’ The Kop were a bit special to me on that day and I won’t ever forget it.”
Beardsley himself was the derby matchwinner at Goodison the following campaign, rifling home a late winner after being set up by former Liverpool team mate Gary Ablett who had crossed Stanley Park the previous January, to condemn Souness’ struggling side to another miserable defeat in a rapidly unravelling season and further highlight the folly of selling him. After scoring 32 goals during his two seasons with the blue half of Merseyside, the Geordie moved back home to Newcastle and played a big role in their resurgence under Kevin Keegan, coming close to winning the Premier League in 1996, before finishing his career with spells at Bolton, Manchester City, Fulham and Hartlepool.
Although some Liverpool players like Michael Owen have seen their legacy tarnished by moving to a major rival, the circumstances of Beardsley’s untimely exit and the sheer magic of his penalty box artistry in one of the Reds’ most revered teams helped ensure memories remain fond on both sides.
“When you lose a star like Rushie there is a lot of negativity because he was such an icon – and don’t forget Kenny was coming to the end as a player himself around that time as well”, Beardsley reflected. “Luckily, myself, Aldo and Barnesy were a perfect fit. It took me a while to get going at Anfield, but the fans respected me for the effort I put in. It was a great time to be playing for Liverpool – so exciting – and I have fantastic memories.”
