Legends of club football – Kenny Dalglish

Dalglish established himself in the Celtic first-team in the 1971-72 season. On August 14, 1971, in the Old Firm derby at Ibrox, he scored his first senior goal for Celtic. The team had been awarded a penalty, and Dalglish stepped ahead to take the responsibility to take the kick. He delayed his run-up to retie his shoe laces, with the crowd chanting against him, before calmly slotting the ball into the back of the net. This was the first of the 167 goals that he would go on and score for Celtic in 322 games.

He made his debut for the Scottish national side in a 1-0 win over Belgium on November 10, 1971 in a European Championship qualifier. He was a hero for the Celtic fans but preferred to keep a low profile while away from the game. He preferred the company of his girlfriend (and later wife) Marina to his teammates, and continued to stay with his parents.

Topping the goal-scoring charts at the club consistently, he was appointed as the Celtic captain in 1975-76 season. In 1977, when Liverpool moved to sign him, it wasn’t a surprise for his teammates, who expected him to test new pastures and evolve as a player.

He left Celtic after winning 4 League titles, 4 Scottish Cups and a League Cup. Celtic star Bobby Lennox continued to follow Dalglish’s career closely even after he left the club: “At the peak of his powers with Liverpool, Kenny was the best player in the world. Zico was around then and he was outstanding, but Kenny had everything. Kenny played every game of football as if it was his last.”

Liverpool had just won the European Cup that year, but needed to sign a player to replace Kevin Keegan, who had left to join Hamburg. Manchester United were also interested in signing Dalglish and offered more money.

Dalglish preferred to join Liverpool as there was no doubt in his mind that Anfield was where he wanted to be: “Bob told John Smith he wanted me. Old Bob would just pick the players he wanted to bring to Anfield and John Smith and Peter Robinson would sort out the deals. They were brilliant at deals. So I walked into the boardroom to meet my next employers. Bob was there as well because new players like to talk to the person who is going to be looking after them. They informed me that the two clubs had agreed a fee. We talked for a couple of minutes. After two years of wanting a move, it was all happening in minutes.”

Bill Shankly, who had been contacting Celtic every year to negotiate a transfer for Dalglish, was delighted to know that the purchase had finally been made and expressed surprise that Celtic had decided to sell him saying, “I understand that like Kevin Keegan, Dalglish wants to get on but I would have moved heaven and earth to keep him. I would rather have quit and got out of the game altogether than sold a player of his brilliance.”

On August 13, 1977, Dalglish played his first game for Liverpool in the Charity Shield against Manchester United. He made his League debut for the team against Middlesbrough.

Liverpool Echo described his performance in the game as: “The first goal of the game came appropriately enough from the £440,000 feet of Kenny Dalglish, what a start for Liverpool’s record buy. It stemmed from a lovely down the middle move as Case controlled the ball just inside the Boro half, flicked it through to McDermott who turned into the path of Dalglish. Boro looked for an offside decision which wasn’t there and Dalglish strode smoothly on to beat Platt comfortably as the goalkeeper came out. It was a perfectly finished shot to a fine move and the Liverpool players enveloped Dalglish in their congratulations for his opener.”