‘I’ve finally got the proof I’m more Irish than English’

IRELAND AND LIVERPOOL LEGEND JOHN ALDRIDGE REVEALS HIS GENETIC TEST SHOWS THE TRUTH

LIVERPOOL legend John Aldridge has finally gone to extreme lengths to prove he was entitled to play for Ireland — an ancestry test.

The Scouser became the first non Irish-born player to be picked by Jack Charlton to play for Ireland under his famous ‘Granny rule policy’, when he signed up in 1986 and went on to score 19 goals during 69 appearances until 1996.

John’s maternal great-grandmother was from Athlone and travelled to Liverpool to settle in the 19th century.

“It can be a little bit hurtful,” he says about the ‘Plastic Paddy’ bashing he got from some quarters.

“You got to try and let it go over your head a little bit,” says fans’ favourite Aldo.

But in the RTÉ series ‘Keys To My Life’ tonight he reveals to presenter Brendan Courtney he has extra leverage to claim a place thanks to his Irish genes.

FAMILIES

“People have been saying ‘the DNA test’. I did do it a few months ago and I just got the test back this week — 41 per cent English. 9 per cent Scottish. 2 per cent Danish and Swedish... but 46 per cent Irish! So, there you go. Plastic Paddy? Have a bit of that will you,” he laughs.

John’s second generation Irish Catholic mother Betty met his Liverpudlian Protestant dad Bill in the late 1950s in Liverpool.

They had both already been married to different partners and each had their own families.

When they met and fell in love John was their only child, but they never got hitched to each other.

“I think they thought it was the wrong thing to do,” reflects John.

“When dad got older he used to say to me ‘we should have done, we should have done’ [got married]. But they didn’t.

COFFIN

“Before he passed away he kept saying it a lot of times. I went and got a draft certificate, now a marriage certificate, just to put in his coat in the coffin – which I didn’t tell anyone about it till afterwards.

“I was just a little touched because I know it would have meant a lot to me dad. I told me Ma afterwards. Dad was buried in 1996.”

When Aldo signed for Liverpool at the age of 28 in 1987 he bought his mum a house in the suburb of Garston, where he grew up in.

“Last time I was here I was at my mum’s funeral,” he recalls while visiting the house.

“She was laid out there. Everyone was outside, I said my ta-ra’s. Then I went out. Closed the front door. Didn’t realise there’s keys in the door and my mum was locked in on her own. It was quite ironic.

“So, we had to go around the back and I had to smash the window to get back in, to get the keys so the funeral people could get in and do what they had to do.

“It was quite funny actually. My mum would have been having a little smile at that one.”

John explains how when he was in his teens he initially tried to follow his dad into the roofing trade, but then became an apprentice toolmaker.

Despite showing promise at the age of 15 at the Liverpool Academy and hsving been given an indication he would be signed to the team, he started his professional career firstly with Newport County and then Oxford United.

LUNATIC

“I wasn’t playing very well at the time, maybe Joan having the baby, whatever, and Joan was very near to having it any time and we had this massive, massive row and I walked out,” he remembers, while visiting the first home he and his wife Joan bought in south Wales when he was aged 21.

“I basically told her to p*** off. I got in me car and I drove here. I drove like a lunatic. I’m a very stubborn man at times, I do the maddest things.

“I came here. I went to bed. There were no phones in them days, or whatever, or we didn’t have a phone.

“I remember someone knocking on the window. One of my colleagues, Terry Lees, telling me that he got to know, through the phone in their house, that Joan had gone into labour. I had to get back in my car and go down to Liverpool again.

“The travelling was horrendous, the windscreen wipers

‘We used to say “this is like Ragarse Rovers”

were sticking. I managed to get there just before she had our Paul.”

GRANDKIDS

John is now 65 and has two grown-up children and five grandkids, and admits Joan has been his rock throughout.

“Without a wife like Joan I would never have got to where I was,” he maintains.

“Without the backing, I’m pretty sure, yeah. Even though you’ve got the ability, you need your head to stay all right.

“I think [in] this day and age that doesn’t happen very often, it still probably does, but not probably enough like it used to. The secret? I think the secret is I couldn’t be without Joan and I think she couldn’t be without me.

“I think because we’re so used to each other. I know her from when we were 15, I think. Is that romantic of me?” he laughs. “Well that’s a nice thing. I mean it in a loving way, obviously.

“If I’d have been on me own, going out at the weekends, you could lose yourself.”

John is joined on the show by his old Liverpool and Ireland teammate Ray Houghton, who is Scottish born and also qualified through the ‘Granny’ rule thanks to his Donegal roots.

“Jack was no frills,” John points out. “He didn’t ask for state-of-the-art stuff.

“And to be fair, the players, we were no frills. Ragarse Rovers… Blackburn Rovers, or Albion Rovers, we used to say ‘this is like Ragarse Rovers’,” he laughs. “It set us up.”

Despite signing a four-year contract with Liverpool, he was let go by the club in 1989.

“I was shown the door,” he confirms. “It really, really hurt me. I scored 31 goals that season, league and cup, and had 40 starts, something around now, that’s pretty good. To say I was took back, hurt, bitter...”

EMBEDDED

The same year also saw a disaster which changed his life — Hillsborough.

“At first I couldn’t talk about it for a long time,” he ponders. “But time sort of heals somewhere for me. The more you talk about it the easier it gets.”

He replies “absolutely” when asked if it was the worst moment of his life.

“Ninety seven people died at a game,” he explains. “We’re talking about life — 97 lives. It definitely scarred me, scarred me. Absolutely. Scarred all of us, Liverpool.

“Take my family away, Liverpool Football Club is next. Always has been since I remember. It’s embedded in me. I could be a bit of a lunatic after that.

“Before that I wasn’t too bad. Since that happened — I’m alright now — but I was a bit of a looney at times.

“That must have been it all coming out of somewhere, I don’t know.”

Keys To My Life is on RTE One tonight at 7.30pm.

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