IT’S SIR KENNY
My huge debt to great men who made me
FOR Kenny Dalglish, the official crown emblem on the letter was cause for a moment of panic.
“I got a letter through the door. I thought it was the taxman!” he said with a smile, as he explained the moment that he changed into ‘Sir Kenny’. “I saw a wee bit of the crown, but as I went to open it the door bell went so I said to Marina, ‘here’, and she went, ‘Oooh…’ That was it.” The oooh was the moment – some would say not a moment too soon – where the stirring deeds of one of football’s true legends were finally recognised. Manchester United have had their footballing knights, but not Liverpool, not pitch side.
For Dalglish the honour is not for him, but for the people he has encountered on every step of an incredible journey, people within the football world and beyond who have as much right to the honour as himself.
But it is football that has given him his platform and it is the game that he feels he owes the biggest debt. He said: “It is some journey, aye. You start off in your life just hoping to be a footballer.
“You become a footballer and have a bit of success in the football world and that seems to give you a
platform to go on to other things. Me and my wife Marina only set out to do the best we possibly could, even through all the other stuff. The charity or Hillsborough – it was to help people because somebody helped us.
“You start off with your parents and they put you on the right road. Then the football, you couldn’t get any better tutors than Jock Stein and Bob Paisley.
“People might say they didn’t get a recognition like this. I wouldn’t get into a discussion about that, but I’m not saying I’m any more deserving than those two great men.
“Someone has thought it was fitting for me to get it and that’s all we can deal with at the moment. We are hugely proud to have got this accolade.”
Football has been Dalglish’s life, one of the greatest players in Scotland’s history, one of the greatest players full stop. And a manager who won everything, with Liverpool of course, but also a fairytale Premier League triumph with Blackburn.
Yet, his story goes beyond the sport. As a youngster at Celtic, he was in the stands during the Ibrox disaster in 1971, and was involved as a player at Heysel, and a manager at Hillsborough. He has given so much back, through the cancer charity he founded with Marina (below), and in supporting the families of the Hillsborough victims. Dalglish, 67, said: “Everything we have done is everything that you should do, really. Whether it is football, charity, Hillsborough or whatever. We want to help people that needed a bit of help. “If you try your best, you are lucky to be a footballer. We were fortunate to have had a great life and to have learnt from great people. You try your best. I think it’s just what you are supposed to do in life, isn’t it? We are fortunate that we are in a position, because of the football, that we can give a bit of help.”
There are so many memories for Dalglish, but the one that stands out again goes beyond the mere sport. After the Hillsborough tragedy, Liverpool played Everton in a humbling FA Cup Final.
He added: “The game that gave us greatest success was the Cup Final in 1989. Not because of the game itself but what it meant to the people of Liverpool. That’s my most important memory.
“We lost the league to Arsenal, but I think the Cup was the most important trophy for everybody.
“I look back and think, ‘I’m really pleased we won that one’.”