Dynamic player for Arsenal, Liverpool and England who won the Double and three European Cups
RAY KENNEDY, who has died aged 70, was a key if often overlooked influence in Liverpool’s midfield from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, when the Reds dominated football in England and Europe and he won every domestic honour with the club.
Previously, as a precocious teenage forward, Kennedy had contributed vital goals for Arsenal when in 1971 they claimed the Double, becoming only the second side of the century to achieve that. And most of these achievements Kennedy wrought despite already being afflicted by the Parkinson’s disease that would be diagnosed in his early thirties.
Kennedy arrived at Anfield on the same day in 1974 as Bill Shankly shocked Liverpool by announcing his resignation. Yet Shankly softened the blow by extolling Kennedy’s virtues. “He is big, brave and strong,” he said. “He fights all the way and he was at the top of my list of my wanted men. I’ve seen him in training and he looks good. He reminds me of Rocky Marciano.”
It was, however, Shankly’s successor, Bill Paisley, who was to unlock the tall, sallow Kennedy’s full potential by moving him, after a difficult first season, back to left midfield. His new role still made use of his power, especially in harness with Jimmy Case, but also revealed fully his passing ability, sublime first touch and anticipation.
There was no better example of this than Kennedy’s goal against Derby in 1979 which was voted the best of the season by the viewers of Match of the Day. His timing when arriving at the edge of the penalty area was so perfect that he hardly had to change direction to collect Terry Mcdermott’s pass, elude the defence and glide past the goalkeeper.
Between 1975 and 1982, Kennedy and Liverpool would win the English League title five times and the European Cup three times. The first championship came in 1976, when the club also took the Uefa Cup. The latter victory had seemed unlikely when Club Brugge went two goals up in the first leg, but Kennedy’s strike sparked Liverpool’s triumphant revival.
The team won the First Division the next year, and although they lost the FA Cup final to Manchester United, they defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1 in Rome to become champions of Europe. Kennedy described the match as his favourite in his career.
In 1978, Kennedy scored the winner in the semi-final of the League Cup against Arsenal, but Liverpool lost the final to the rising power that was Nottingham Forest. They did, however, retain the European Cup, running out victors against Brugge at Wembley.
The next season, the League was won by eight points from Forest. Bob Paisley later described that team, with Kenny Dalglish in his pomp and Kennedy and Case girded by Graeme Souness and Terry Mcdermott, as the best he saw in 40 years of football.
They won the title again the following season, and in 1981 took the club’s first League Cup, defeating West Ham. In the European Cup, Kennedy gave one of his greatest performances in the semi-final against Bayern Munich. Captaining a depleted team, he scored what would prove a decisive away goal. Liverpool went on to beat Real Madrid in the final.
By then, however, Kennedy, who was given to moods off the pitch, perhaps the result of a surprising lack of self-esteem, was getting more frequently into trouble, not least through his frequent marital infidelity. His place came under threat from Ronnie Whelan, and he played his last match for Liverpool against Zico’s Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup defeat at the end of 1981.
Kennedy had made enough appearances in the league to qualify for a fifth winners’ medal at the end of the season but by then he had moved on to Swansea. He had scored 72 goals in 393 matches for the Reds.
“Ray’s contribution to Liverpool’s achievements was enormous and his consistency remarkable,” wrote Paisley the next year in his memoir. “In my view he was one of Liverpool’s greatest players and probably the most underrated.”
The eldest of four children, Raymond Kennedy was born on July 28 1951 at Seaton Delaval, north of Newcastle, in Northumberland. It was coal country and his father was a miner.
Ray’s abilities as a footballer were first noted by Port Vale, and to the Kennedys’ home with schoolboy forms came their manager – Stanley Matthews. Yet at 16, the club let Ray go, having decided that he was too slow to make it in the professional game. Matthews later acknowledged his mistake in his autobiography, putting it down to Kennedy being “a late developer”.
He found work in a sweet factory and turned out for an amateur side, where he came to the attention of scouts for Arsenal. Aged 17, he signed for the Gunners and made his debut in 1969 in a Fairs Cup tie against Glentoran. The club reached the final, against Anderlecht, and Kennedy made his name by scoring a late goal in the first leg after coming off the bench. His strike would prove to be crucial to an aggregate victory that brought Arsenal their first trophy in Europe.
Partnered up front with John Radford the following season, in place of the injured Charlie George, the teenager finished as top scorer with 26 goals in 63 matches. It was his late header against Spurs that clinched the league title, and the first half of the Double, completed with victory in extra time over Liverpool in the FA Cup final.
During the next three seasons, however, his form fell away as his weight mounted. He was only a substitute when Arsenal lost in the Cup final to Leeds in 1972, and though the team finished second in the league the following year, Brian Kidd was bought to replace him. It was then that Liverpool made their move, with Kennedy having scored 71 times in 213 matches for the Gunners.
He won the first of 17 caps for England in 1976, but although these were the days when half the national side was drawn from Liverpool, Kennedy never fully established himself. Trevor Brooking was the preferred choice of Ron Greenwood, and Kennedy, when picked, was often misused as a defensive workhorse. He played twice at the 1980 European Championships in Italy, but soon after retired from international duty, having scored three goals.
At Swansea, Kennedy was managed by his former team-mate John Toshack and helped to win the Welsh Cup, but when the team’s unexpected title bid petered out, the club began its fall through the divisions. Kennedy went to Hartlepool for a season, and then in 1984 became player-manager of Pezoporikos in Cyprus.
He returned to Whitley Bay soon after to run a pub, but the symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease, diagnosed in 1984 when he was still only 33, were afflicting him so much that by 1986 he could not play Sunday league football. He had noticed fatigue and a stiffness in his fingers even in his Arsenal days.
Despite bouts of loneliness, he worked to raise awareness of the illness, and cherished a meeting with fellow sufferer Muhammad Ali. In 1991, Highbury hosted a testimonial match for Kennedy, and in 1993 he sold his medals to pay for his care.
His marriage to Jennifer ended in divorce and he is survived by a son and two daughters.