17/08/2007, 01:41 PM
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| مشرف سابق بمنتدى الرياضة العالمية | | تاريخ التسجيل: 01/04/2004 المكان: ANFEILD ROAD
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مازال اسبوع الكينج كيني مستمرا
والحقيقه المقال هذا بديع .. قريت بدايته وشدني لنهايته
انتظر ارائكم
على فكره الكاتب .. يكتب في صحيفه ليفربول ايكو
Can you imagine what it must be like to follow the Beatles on stage, Muhammad Ali into the ring or to take the microphone after Martin Luther King?
There are some acts which are so good they simply cannot be followed.
Now spare a thought for Paul Walsh, Nigel Clough and Jari Litmanen who were all asked to fill the boots of Kenny Dalglish, the greatest player ever to pull on a red shirt.
All of them contributed to the Liverpool cause in their own way and all three were blessed with the kind of talent which the rest of us can only dream of. But none of them could even come close to matching the achievements of King Kenny and the likelihood is no one ever will.
You can't measure Dalglish's Anfield playing career merely in statistics because although 172 goals and 19 medals (including five league championships and three European Cups) collected in just 13 seasons does tell its own compelling story, there have been Liverpool players who have scored more goals and collected more medals.
What really sets him apart is he was the ultimate team player in the ultimate Liverpool team. Never in the history of English football has a player been able to channel such magnificent individual ability into the team ethic.
There may well have been those with more talent. George Best is often cited as the finest British footballer of all time and his ability is without question.
But he wasn't even in the same league as Dalglish when it came down to sacrificing individual flair for the good of the team and neither was anyone else, before or since.
If it wasn't the pinpoint passes for Ian Rush to feed on - who will ever forget the one against Watford when Kenny spun away from his marker on the halfway line before picking out his strike partner with the kind of through ball that suggested he was telepathic? - it was the runs to take defenders away so midfielders runs into the box could go unchecked or his unerring ability to hold the ball up and bring others into the game.
The "creator supreme" as he was once famously described by one commentator was in a class of his own and everyone who was fortunate enough to see him in action knew that full well.
The first time I can remember seeing Kenny in action I was about five-years-old and my dad had taken me to Anfield to see Liverpool play Altrincham in the FA Cup.
Sat in the Main Stand on a freezing cold afternoon I was transfixed by Liverpool's number 7. Everyone sat around me got excited when he was on the ball and the Kop kept on singing his name, over and over again.
He rewarded them with two goals in an easy 4-1 win and I can remember coming away from the ground and my dad telling me how privileged I'd been to see the King in his regal pomp.
After that I was hooked and I still count myself privileged to have seen Dalglish in action on more than 100 occasions. He will always remain my ultimate hero and the goals I was lucky enough to see him score will live long in the memory.
My infatuation with him is, thankfully, not as obsessive as it once was. There was one school summer holiday when once a week for six weeks I spent all my pocket money on some sort of Dalglish memorabilia.
I'd walk a couple of miles across Newsham Park, up Belmont Road and along Oakfield Road with ten bob in my pocket to get to the souvenir shop that used to be on Walton Breck Road and all I ever wanted was a King Kenny souvenir.
I could have got the bus but the 6p fare on the 27 might have stopped me from being able to buy what I wanted.
The first time I got a picture, then I got a key ring, a badge, a poster, a pencil and, finally, a different picture. The girl behind the counter once tried to get me interested in some Ian Rush stuff but, as much as I loved Rushie, Kenny was the only one for me.
Luckily, I was far from being the only one. Kenny was king to every single Liverpool supporter for an entire generation and our devotion to him was repaid with magnificent preformances on the pitch and a quiet dignity off it.
That dignity stood him in good stead when he became manager, particularly when he led us through the dark days of Hillsborough and the sheer humanity he displayed at that time is something which no Liverpool fan will ever forget.
I have heard stories about him leaving tickets with a steward at the players entrance who gave them to a couple of unemployed lads who followed Liverpool everywhere. I've got no idea whether or not this is true but it certainly fits in with the image of a man who never lost touch with the ordinary folk who treated him like a deity.
The day Dalglish stepped down as Liverpool boss it broke my heart. I'd seen the old TV footage of Reds being in bits when they were told that Shankly had resigned in 1974 but I never knew how it felt until Kenny did the same thing 17 years later.
I think it was the first time I'd realised even heroes are mortal, although I suppose I should have got onto that when he signed Jimmy Carter.
But Dalglish's legend will always live on. As a key figure in the two greatest Liverpool sides of all time - a player in 1978/79 and player manager in 1987/88 - he has earned himself a unique place in the history of Britain's most successful football club.
Following in the footsteps of King Kenny is an impossible dream. He is, and always will be, Liverpool's greatest ever player.
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