European Cup Final Rewind A shot from the right Kennedy

AFTER Alan Kennedy’s underwhelming Liverpool debut against QPR boss Bob Paisley observed: “They shot the wrong Kennedy!”

Thankfully it didn’t take long for the former Newcastle United rampaging left-back to end any mocking association with JFK.

Liverpool fans would have gladly nominated him as their President after the greatest goal of his career – the one that decided the 1981 European Cup Final against Real Madrid in Paris.

With eight minutes to go, it was still goalless in “one of the most boring European Cup finals ever” according to Kennedy (above) when he went all Andy Robertson – moving onto a throw-in from Ray Kennedy, accelerating towards the Madrid area, ignoring screams to pass and burying his shot past keeper Agustin Rodriguez.

The goal celebrations, though, almost resulted in Kennedy and some of his ecstatic team-mates falling into the dry moat that ran alongside the perimeter of the pitch.

Team-mate Terry McDermott (above) recalled: “We went rushing over to Alan like a bunch of wild banshees but he had run to the edge of the moat. In jumping on his back to celebrate, some of us almost fell into it.”

Kennedy said: “The goal is obviously being talked about again now because Liverpool are going back to Paris again to face Real Madrid.

“I decided to give it a go after chesting down Ray’s throw in. I knew I would be in for another rollicking if it didn’t work out.” Thankfully for Liverpool, it did and minutes later a third European Cup was in the club’s grasp – a first winners medal for the full-back known affectionately by the fans as ‘Barney Rubble’ because of his likeness to the Flintstones character.

At the age of 67, the rampaging runs have been exchanged for the more sedate ‘walking football’.

It was touch and go whether Kennedy was going to play at the

Parc des Princes after breaking his wrist in the first leg of the semi-final against Bayern Munich.

“The club doctor told me it would be a 10-week job to heal,” he said. “In the end a metal cast gave me a chance of playing in the final.”

The build up to the game in the changing room bordered on

farce with players attempting to cover up an Umbro advertising logo on their shirts to avoid a row with the TV companies which, back then, didn’t allow it.

McDermott added:

“So there we were playing in a European Cup final with sticky plasters all over our shirts. It was ridiculous.”

The pitch wasn’t exactly fit to stage a game of this magnitude either. “We had trained on the pitch and it must be one of the worst I’ve played on,” Kennedy maintained. “The grass needed cutting and they also refused to water it.

“I think a game of rugby had taken place on it days earlier. But we had real characters in the side like Graeme Souness, Ray Kennedy and Phil Neal, who were just motivated even more to go out there and win the game.”

But few would have picked out the goal hero.