by Simon Hughes
‘Watford were just very relaxed and hospitable,’ Barnes recalls. ‘I trained with QPR as well, but they were very pushy. QPR didn’t realise I was training with Watford at the same time, and one week when I turned up to play for Watford against QPR, they weren’t very happy. So I never went back.’
Watford were a club on the rise: the traditional English football team for whom a midfield was merely something to be bypassed. For their defenders, it was a case of see ball, thump ball: the quicker the route to goal, the better. Tactically, Graham Taylor, their manager, favoured the chaos theory. It was extraordinary that a player of Barnes’s elegance managed to flourish in such a barbaric system.
‘Watford looked after me. I was living in England on my own by then, but Graham [Taylor] taught me so many lessons. He told me to believe in myself when times were bad but also to realise that when the times were good, I should not get ahead of myself just because people were saying nice things about me. Watford was a great club for that. I saw people go to Arsenal and Spurs who were talented but went off the rails because of too much praise or too much criticism. Watford helped me to handle the pressure, as they did with all the young players: Kenny Jackett, Steve Terry and Nigel Callaghan. As players, we were taught to be well dressed, well mannered and not to drink. From an educational and discipline point of view, it was the best place for me to go as a teenager.
‘We had this tag [of being a long-ball team], but if you watched us every week you’d realise that there were players like myself and Nigel – wingers that wanted to play, get the ball down and take people on. Later, Wimbledon took that tag off us. I remember on one cold Tuesday night Dave Bassett bringing his team to watch us play so they could learn the style he wanted to execute.’
In 1984, Watford reached the FA Cup final but lost to Everton.
‘It was a fairy tale for us – the journey we had been on from the Fourth Division to the First. We expected to win; we’d previously finished above Everton in the league. Yet the build-up for us was like our big day out. It was a novelty, because it hadn’t been done at Watford before. At Liverpool, there was more of a focus – you had to win. The week isn’t important; the story doesn’t matter, it’s only about winning. With Watford, it was almost as if we enjoyed the week so much that we forgot to turn up on the day, because we played well below the standards that had got us there in the first place.’
Already an international, having elected to represent England, that summer he was called up for a tour to South America and his most famous moment followed. During a game against Brazil in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium, Barnes scored a fine individual goal. After initially receiving possession near the halfway line on the 44th minute, he ran diagonally past seven Brazilian players, rounded the goalkeeper and tapped it into an empty net. England won 2–0. Some Brazilian newspapers labelled it the greatest goal the Maracana had ever seen.
Barnes’s act of genius was expected to launch him as a new level of player – one on whom England could rely to produce brilliance against the most potent opposition. Instead, it only offered a glimpse into what might have been. The exhilarating form he later produced for Liverpool was never matched internationally. Bobby Robson, the England manager, described Barnes as the ‘greatest enigma’ he’d encountered in 30 years of coaching. The player offers his own explanation for his contrasting fortunes.
‘When I played for Liverpool, I would receive the ball 20 or 30 times a game. That was enough to maybe score a goal or provide an assist from a cross or a pass. For England, I would receive possession maybe five or ten times a match. This was mainly because Liverpool dominated possession whereas England did not. There was a lot of long ball. During all my time in international football, I can’t remember a run of games where we passed a team off the park from start to finish like we did at Liverpool. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that, mathematically, I had less of an opportunity to impress. OK, I did all right at Watford – a team that played with a similar style to England – but the focus wasn’t on Watford like it was with England. Some games at Watford would go by without me touching the ball, but nothing would get said in the papers afterwards. Possession football suited my game, and that’s why I excelled with Liverpool.’
Barnes clicked at Anfield instantly. Yet the process of his transfer to the club did not help his relationship with supporters. Barnes was supposedly keen on a move abroad and his agent, Athole Still, compiled a video showcasing his talents and distributed it to a number of Italian and French clubs. Fiorentina, Napoli, Roma, Verona and Marseille all deployed scouts to Vicarage Road, but none of his performances were strong enough to merit a recommendation. He was also misquoted in an interview reproduced in the Liverpool Echo, allegedly saying that the only other clubs he wanted to join were Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal ‘because he wanted to stay in London’.
‘I just didn’t say that,’ Barnes insists. ‘Think about it: I was a Jamaican living in London. London wasn’t a natural habitat for me anyway. It wasn’t like London was my original home.’
Archives at the Echo and its morning paper the Daily Post reveal that before Barnes joined Liverpool, racist slogans were daubed on the walls behind the Kop. The local press found out about it, but officials persuaded editors not to print the story until after Barnes was signed. Eventually, the Post ran an article credited to an anonymous reporter announcing that the club was determined to clean up racism. It showed a photograph of an exit from the Kop where clearly sprayed read those grotesque initials, ‘NF’.
On Barnes’s arrival, Dalglish spoke of the importance of Liverpool recruiting their first genuine wide player since Steve Heighway. Yet Barnes was also the first black footballer to be signed from another team by either Liverpool or Everton. While black players had become familiar and often key performers at nearly every other major club in the country, the squads of the Merseyside institutions had remained white, aside from a few appearances by local black pretenders who – as examined with Howard Gayle – failed to flourish for reasons that are similar.
‘I would never judge anyone on their colour, creed or religion. All that concerns me is their ability,’ Dalglish – who grew up as a supporter of Glasgow Rangers before making his name at Celtic – would later say. Unfortunately, colour did matter to some. In Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby claims that before his debut against Arsenal, Barnes had bananas thrown at him from the away supporters’ enclosure as Liverpool warmed up at Highbury. Barnes insists that he has no recollection of that happening, preferring to focus on the football and his understanding with Peter Beardsley and John Aldridge, where the latter’s ruthlessness in front of goal dovetailed with the patience and incisiveness of the former.
‘People saw it click on the first day of the season, but I saw it on the first day of pre-season training. It felt like we had been together forever. As soon as we got the ball out and started passing, it felt natural. That was the genius of Liverpool: recognising how a group of players that hadn’t been in the same side could come together and gel instantly. We weren’t coached into being good.
‘Aldo wasn’t a natural footballer, but he was a natural finisher. Think about it: he wasn’t tall, but he scored lots of headed goals. He wasn’t really that quick, but he got on the end of crosses and through balls because of his determination and intelligence. John’s timing was phenomenal. He was usually picked last in the five-a-sides, but everyone knew he was the club’s premier finisher, and without him the team wouldn’t have been anywhere near as effective.
‘Peter’s game was dropping off and picking up possession. There was a time when the crowd didn’t really appreciate his work. There was an impression that he should be getting on the shoulder of the last man and reaching John’s flick-ons. People quickly started comparing Peter to Kenny, but they were very different in my eyes. Peter was a lot more mobile but not as good with his back to goal. Personally, Peter was crucial to my success because we clicked straight away. Whenever he got the ball, he would
look for me first and allow me to sprint off. Of everyone I played with, I would have to say that Peter was the one I enjoyed playing with most.’
Some inside the Liverpool dressing-room, however, were suspicious of Beardsley’s motives.
‘He was different from everyone else in that he didn’t drink. He’d collect the bibs, cones and balls after training had finished. Initially, there might have been a feeling that Peter was sucking up to the manager, being a bit of a creep, and there were a few snide remarks. But, gradually, people realised that was just his manner. He was a worker and unselfish – just as he was on the pitch.’
Barnes believes the key to Liverpool’s success was humanitarian. Management would target players with the correct type of character.
‘Although the majority enjoyed a drink, there was not really any wild, temperamental types. Bruce [Grobbelaar] was a one-off, but he could get away with it because he was a goalkeeper. If Bruce had turned up at Melwood in a fighter jet, no one would have thought it unusual.’
Grobbelaar’s eccentric behaviour was not different to other players in his position. But it was probably magnified because of his upbringing in Rhodesia.
‘He would tell us stories about fighting crocodiles as a kid and getting drunk with Clint Eastwood. He was a crazy man. But we loved him for it. I’m convinced that goalkeepers are a bit odd because it can be a lonely job. They have to find ways to amuse themselves. Bruce is unfortunate that he doesn’t play now because he was very comfortable in possession of the ball. With the back-pass rule now in place, he would have relished helping the team build from the back. He rarely did any specialised goalkeeping practice. It was just a case every now and then of someone suggesting we give him some shooting practice. In the five-a-sides, Bruce, instead, played outfield, and he was never the last one chosen, because he could play.’
The dressing-room equilibrium at Liverpool remained the same throughout the ’80s.
‘There was a status quo – a line-up. If you were Ian Rush, nobody ever gave you stick. He was one of the top players, and at Christmas we’d have a vote on the top three of everything. One of them would be the daftest lads in the squad. Even though Rushy was clearly one of those, he never got voted. Steve Nicol was always there, no matter what. Even though there were essentially no stars at Liverpool, there was still a rank and file. In sporting terms, that’s important, because it meant that youngsters and newcomers would have to earn their stripes.’
Barnes preferred to socialise amongst his own group of friends.
‘Although success in football can be based on camaraderie and an understanding between players based on experiences together, fundamentally it isn’t too different to the average office job in the sense that you might go for a drink with co-workers after a day’s work, and then if you get on really well perhaps meet up at weekends. I was always very wary of mixing at the kind of venues that footballers go to. I didn’t get the celebrity thing. You look at Paul Gascoigne and Chris Evans. I suppose they were best friends once upon a time and now they probably don’t see each other. You wonder how strong the friendship is. Sometimes it is out of convenience. It’s OK while you’re there, because you have a common interest, but when you move on, the friendship is over. I find my best friends are the ones I’ve always known: the ones that knew me before being a footballer.
‘When I moved to the Wirral, I would see Ian Rush, Jan Mølby, Stevie Nicol and Bruce. It was only on the pre-season tours and foreign trips where the whole squad would be out together. It was a typical case of boys together, playing pool and getting drunk. There were many cases with jealous, half-cut punters and a fracas ensuing. If the media had been as intense back then, Liverpool players would have been on the front pages every single week, even though I can’t remember anyone getting hospitalised. We were no different to any other group of young men having a drink to unwind. Graham Taylor [at Watford] would never have tolerated the consistent binges enjoyed by all the Liverpool players, no way.’
Barnes drank spirits rather than beer. ‘I don’t get why in the modern era it is such an issue if a player goes out and has a drink. Players get condemned by society because of the money that footballers earn. In my eyes, though, if a player makes £1,000 or £100,000 a week, he still has a duty to perform. If they deliver on the pitch and make people happy, what’s the problem? The majority of successful English clubs that dominated Europe in the ’70s and early ’80s all had a drinking culture even though they didn’t in Italy, Spain and maybe Germany, remember.’
Heavy drinkers they may have been, but Liverpool’s players reliably delivered on the pitch. Liverpool were forced to play the first three games of the 1987–88 season away from Anfield after a sewer collapse beneath the Kop. Parts of the stand were rendered unsafe. While the club was investing almost £4 million on new players, the ground was falling apart. After two wins and a draw, by the time the new-look Liverpool finally played at Anfield in mid-September, intrigue had peaked – especially in relation to Barnes.
The winger’s performances in the 1987–88 season were so good that the £900,000 Liverpool spent to bring him from Watford looked like a knock-down price. Barnes believes it was the balanced environment of Melwood that helped him settle.
‘At Watford, Graham [Taylor] was completely entrenched in all aspects of the football club: from the pitch to the stands to the coaching to the administration. He did everything. At Watford, we trained 100 per cent all of the time. But at Liverpool, they were “Hey – take it easy, slow down!”
‘Kenny just played five-a-side with us and didn’t do much else, especially coaching. Players were left to develop alone – a natural evolution. Nobody really analysed tactics from a method point of view. The first team to come along and do it was George Graham with Arsenal. And they won the league. He was a pioneer in this country in many ways.
‘The biggest lesson I learnt is to always focus on the next challenge and not get too excited or disappointed. When I won my first title, there was nothing from the management. Ronnie [Moran] came into the dressing-room and told us the first date of pre-season training then walked out. When we lost the title to Arsenal, he did the same, and the following year we won the league again. When Blackburn won the Premier League, they had the biggest party ever and were cock-a-hoop for months. A few years later they went down. To maintain success you need to be consistent on the pitch and consistent off it, especially with your emotions.’
Despite his influence often proving crucial, Barnes did not enjoy derby matches against Everton. It was not, however, a result of any taunting from the terraces.
‘It was mainly because they weren’t good games and, instead, full of bravado,’ he explains. ‘I understood why they meant so much to the fans; the sense of anticipation was intense. But I prefer games where the winners prevail because of football. A lot of players on both sides would play derby games with their hearts rather than their heads, and that’s a dangerous thing. It was a mistake we kept making – why should we change our approach just because it was Everton? We were Liverpool and we were the better team.’
On the pitch, there were two significant disappointments in Barnes’s first three seasons as a Liverpool player. The first came in the FA Cup final of 1988 against Wimbledon. Barnes maintains that several myths are attached to the fixture.
‘It is regarded as one of the biggest upsets in history,’ he says. ‘Yet Wimbledon finished seventh that season and subsequently regularly concluded a campaign in the top ten for another decade. OK, some of the skill levels may have not been so high, but they were a very good, effective side who knew each other’s function and contribution as well as any other team in the country.’
Then there was the issue of Wimbledon’s supposed intimidating tactics.
‘That didn’t happen,’ he insists. ‘Liverpool were the top team in the country because we had one or two nasty players in the team that could mix it if necessary. On that particular day, however, we didn’t play particularly well
as a team and they took their chance.’
The second disappointment arrived a year later when Liverpool surrendered the league title to Arsenal in the final game of the season. ‘After Hillsborough, though – to me – [losing to Arsenal] became irrelevant. It was a frustration, but I don’t look back upon it holding a sense of regret.’
At his best – and that seemed to be a regular occurrence in his early years at Anfield – Barnes was untouchable. He was Liverpool’s number 10, but a number 10 with a difference. Despite his starting position being on the left wing, Dalglish offered Barnes freedom to operate where he liked. He did not seem to move as fast as other wingers in the league, but he reliably found a way to influence the game. His bulk and rapid feet marked him out as a centre-forward, and when he found space in that area of the field, he was lethal. In his first four years at the club, he averaged more than 19 goals a season.
In 1991, however, Barnes ruptured his Achilles tendon.
‘I couldn’t sprint any more. So overnight, I couldn’t do what I did well. People remember me for dribbling and taking the full-back on, but that was over. I had to change the way I played. I decided to let Steve McManaman do my role and try to play like Ronnie Whelan: not have too many touches on the ball and release it quickly. My passing and awareness had to improve, and I think they did. Maybe I wasn’t as effective as I was before, but I still contributed positively to the structure of the team.’
By then, Liverpool were also in decline. He has his own explanation for the club’s regression.
‘The culture of Liverpool was guided by football and nothing else,’ he says. ‘The commercial dominance enjoyed by United in the ’90s could have been Liverpool instead. Liverpool won trophy after trophy in the ’70s and ’80s, but Bill Shankly would never have believed in exploiting the club’s commercial potential and nor would Bob Paisley or Joe Fagan. They were only interested in what happened on the training ground and what happened when Liverpool took to the field. You only have to look at Anfield to realise that. Other stadiums in London or Manchester are grand. Yet Anfield is still very basic and spartanly decorated. The same applies to the training ground. It is true that Liverpool only existed to win trophies.