It says everything about Ray Kennedy’s capacity to cope with the challenges of life that his extraordinary achievements with Liverpool and Arsenal came in the face of acute self-doubt.
In the early years at Arsenal, where he was a legend of the 1971 Double team and scored the title-winning goal at White Hart Lane, he often joked of going back to the job he had left as a trainee sugar boiler in a sweet factory at Whitley Bay in his native North East.
At Liverpool, where he arrived in 1974, he became convinced Bill Shankly, who resigned on the very day he signed, was privately expressing doubts about the wisdom of a £200,000 deal.
‘Keep at it, son,’ Shankly told Kennedy when he encountered him at the Melwood training ground one morning.
He wondered if that statement was loaded with meaning. He lost a stone in weight after joining Liverpool. He was one of life’s worriers. Kennedy, who has died at the age of 70 after living with Parkinson’s disease for 37 years, did not need to have any anxiety.
Steve Burtenshaw, his first guiding influence at Arsenal, marvelled at the first touch, vision and strength for which he is still remembered as a striker at that club.
Ray Kennedy (right, pictured for Liverpool in 1980) has died after battling Parkinson's disease
Kennedy won three European Cups during his time with Liverpool in 1977, 1978 and 1981
Those were qualities which saw him soar when Bob Paisley, newly appointed as Liverpool’s manager and looking for a way to improve him, learned through a chance encounter with Kennedy’s former secondary school games teacher that the schoolboy player had been a midfielder. Paisley, who always listened more than he spoke, told Kennedy he would be moving to the left side of midfield.
That complicated mind of Kennedy’s made him suspicious of this. His nickname at Liverpool was ‘Susser’, as he always seemed to be trying to ‘suss out’ an ulterior motive. But it was the making of him.
Many remember Kennedy’s smart, left-foot finish into the top of the net at Wolves which sealed the 1976 First Division title. And the gorgeous pass which set up David Fairclough’s legendary 1977 European Cup quarter-final winner against Saint-Etienne.
Former Reds manager Bob Paisley (right) switched the Englishman to the left-side of midfield
But most former team-mates were on Tuesday recalling his performance and goal for a weakened Liverpool against a seemingly invincible Bayern Munich in 1981. The ghosted run into the box to receive David Johnson’s pass, the control under pressure and finish into the corner. It was trademark Kennedy and it took
