Arise Sir Kenny, an ordinary guy who has achieved the extraordinary
IT goes without saying that Kenny Dalglish deserves a knighthood. It does not take a desperately moving, emotional, funny, biographical movie to tell us that.
The curmudgeonly, caustic character that most came to know and like stripped himself bare in his instinctive, unequivocal support of those tragically impacted by the Hillsborough disaster.
He gave as much of his soul as he could for their lives.
As piercingly poignant as it is, the film ‘Kenny’, on general cinema release today, tells many little more than they did not already know about the man. An ordinary guy who did extraordinary things for a club and its city in the best and worst of times.
But what it does shed a light on is football’s sad shift, its flight from its roots, its cash-strewn journey from camaraderie and community to commerce, its descent into a world where only wealth matters.
In one of the film’s many striking sequences, the actor Ricky Tomlinson reads from a memo sent to Margaret Thatcher by Geoffrey Howe which, as the city of Liverpool railed against impoverishment and deprivation, suggested that a policy of “managed decline” in the area should not be ruled out.
Tomlinson then recalls how one of the few escapes for the downtrodden and desperate came every other Saturday at Anfield. How very true.
The last time I saw Tomlinson, incidentally, a couple of months ago, he was sat in the £300-a-seat Tunnel Club area of the Etihad, where punters enjoy a champagne meal, watch the players through one-way glass, and slump into padded seats. Just the sort of place where the unemployed and the unfortunate find solace at the end of a troubled week.
No criticism of Tomlinson (right) . Being a socialist does not mean you have to cock a snook at comfort or pat away perks. No one wants to return to the days when hooliganism was rife, when going to a match could be fraught with worry, when stadia were crumbling death-traps.
But the theme of the Kenny film is family. Not only the rocks of wife Marina (above with Dalglish), children Kelly, Lauren, Lynsey and Paul, but the family of a football club and its supporters.
In the film, Dalglish talks of his support for the families of Hillsborough victims by saying: “We only did what somebody would have done for us.”
Even outside of desperate tragedy, there was a distinctly working-class, familial feel to the club Dalglish joined in 1977.
Now, the average price of a Liverpool season ticket exceeds £800. Today’s minimum wage
Anfield was one of the few escapes of the downtrodden
ranges from £4.05 an hour for an under-18 to £7.50 for an over-25.
Liverpool recently released a replica jersey that will never be worn by the first team but was yours for £90. They flock to the club on a Saturday from China, Scandinavia and the States. It is the same the Premier League over.
Liverpool do as much for the community as any club. Probably more than most. Indeed, 500 tickets are made available for every home match at £9 each for people living in the Liverpool postcode area. It remains a grand club.
But in an era when £lmillion-amonth salaries have to be paid for, the poor cannot be prioritised, a great arena such as Anfield can no longer be the ultimate community centre it still was in the Dalglish playing days.
Those days took in the 1981 Toxteth riots and it is was in their wake that Howe, on the subject of possible urban regeneration in the area, despatched his letter to Thatcher.
“It would be… regrettable if some of the brighter ideas for renewing economic activity were to be sown only on relatively stony ground on the banks of the Mersey. I cannot help feeling that the option of managed decline is one we should not forget altogether.”
The sort of people who, in those challenging times, found an escape at the match, found an escape watching Kenny the genius player, are not being frozen out, insist today’s big football clubs.
Oh no. They are just in managed decline.