Sir Kenny Dalglish is reflecting on the day when he stunned football.
Sunday marks 35 years since he announced his decision to resign as Liverpool manager at a hastily arranged press conference at Anfield. His side were top of the table and seemingly on course to claim a fourth league title in Dalglish’s six years as manager. But a breathless 4-4 draw at neighbours Everton in an FA Cup fifth-round replay on February 20, 1991, convinced him that it was time to walk away.
Liverpool led four times at Goodison Park but on each occasion they were pegged back. Dalglish blamed himself for not making the tactical adjustments required to see the game out.
The stress of leading the club in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, from which 97 supporters lost their lives, had taken a heavy toll on his health. Chairman Noel White and chief executive Peter Robinson reluctantly accepted his resignation after admitting defeat in their attempts to change his mind.
“The proper thing to do at that time was to step away because the club didn’t deserve that,” Dalglish tells The Athletic. “If you’re the manager, then you have got to be there to make decisions. That’s what you’re employed for. If you’re not making them, then it’s not fair on anyone to stay, especially after what Liverpool Football Club had done for us.”
Kenny Dalglish at the press conference where his resignation was announced in 1991 (PA Images via Getty Images)
Sat alongside Dalglish, now 74, is Kelly Cates, the eldest of his four children and one of the UK’s most prominent football TV broadcasters. She was 15 when her father stepped down as manager.
“The night before the news came out, my mum called me back from my friend’s house across the road to tell me,” she says. “I can’t remember exactly what she said, but the next minute you came back and walked into the house with a little box of stuff from your office. I ran up the stairs in tears. It was horrible. That was how I found out. It was a quick decision, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I decided on the Thursday and it was announced on the Friday,” Dalglish replies.
The outpouring of emotion triggered by Dalglish’s exit opened his daughter’s eyes to the depth of adoration for her father, who had been a pillar of support for the city in the aftermath of Hillsborough. Dalglish and his wife Marina attended dozens of funerals and stood shoulder to shoulder with the families in the fight for truth and justice after the cruel lies pedalled by the authorities that the fans were to blame for the tragedy.
“When you left Liverpool, I realised for the first time that it was about more than just being a player or a manager,” Cates says. “I remember my friend called me in tears. She had walked home from school and her mum was crying when she opened the door: ‘Oh my God, mum, what’s happened?’. She said, ‘Kenny has gone’.
“Revisiting that time around Hillsborough as an adult, you do see things differently. I was only 13 in 1989. Now I see what dad and mum did with a different perspective. At 13, you take what your parents do for granted and don’t read too much into it. Going back to it as an adult, you see it and respect it in a completely different way.”
“The kids got a trip to Disney World out of me resigning,” Dalglish responds dryly. “We all went to the Magic Kingdom.”
Eight months later, Dalglish was refreshed and back in management at Blackburn Rovers. He got them promoted to the top flight and then led them to Premier League title glory in 1994-95. There were also spells at Newcastle United and Celtic before he returned to Liverpool in January 2011, winning the League Cup a year later.
Legendary status was initially bestowed on Dalglish in recognition of his wizardry with a ball at his feet. After winning four league titles with Celtic, he moved to Liverpool in 1977 for a British record fee of £440,000 ($720,000 at the time) as a replacement for Kevin Keegan, who had left to join German side Hamburg.
Dalglish went on to score 172 goals in 515 appearances and is widely regarded as the greatest player in the club’s history. Appointed as Joe Fagan’s successor following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, which claimed the lives of 39 fans, he won the league and cup double as player-manager in 1985-86.
Cates: “My kids first realised he was a famous player when they had access to YouTube. They came to show me and were like: ‘Did you know granddad is on YouTube?’. That was the highest praise they could give him.
“When I was a kid, it wasn’t something we really thought about. We knew when we went to games at Anfield that he would get a lot of attention, but when we were at home or out and about, it wasn’t really a thing.
“We went to watch Rod Stewart at Ibrox when I was about nine. Seeing Dad get stopped walking around the perimeter of the ground was a bit strange. It made sense to me when it happened at Anfield, but I didn’t understand it happening anywhere else. I was like: ‘Oh, so other people are also interested in him’.”
Dalglish: “Kelly and my son Paul used to enjoy going to the football because Marina used to sit next to a woman who had bags of sweets.”
Cates: “Mrs Prince! She used to bring each of us a Wispa chocolate bar.”
Dalglish: “Mrs Prince was a bigger attraction for the kids than the actual game. There were a lot of kids around the same age, so they used to go and play on the pitch after a game at Anfield.”
Cates: “The boys did. We weren’t allowed. The reason was that to get there, you had to go past the dressing rooms. The girls weren’t allowed past a certain point down the corridor.”
Kenny Dalglish with his wife Marina and Kelly at a memorial service for the victims at Hillsborough in 1989 (John Giles – PA Images via Getty Images)
How did family life change when Kenny made the move from playing to management?
Cates: “You were much moodier! I remember being in the car coming back from a game and you’d won, but you were in such a bad mood because you didn’t like something about how they had played. Mum was like: ‘God, if you’re like this when they win…’. You were grumpier but not necessarily about the result.”
Dalglish: “That only lasted overnight.”
What was Kelly like growing up?
Dalglish: “Very difficult. I passed her on to Marina. That was her responsibility!
“Marina and I are immensely proud of them all and what they have done in their lives. Probably the greatest contribution they have made to the family is the grandkids, who are absolutely brilliant. Lauren hasn’t had any children yet but she does a huge amount of work for Marina’s charity.
“They have all done brilliantly and they have done it themselves. The surname is sometimes a disadvantage for them.”
Cates: “You can’t ask about one of us without mentioning all of us, otherwise everybody will fall out! We’ve got to keep it all balanced.”
Dalglish: “They have all played their part. And then there’s Marina. I might have been the manager of a football club but I wasn’t the manager indoors.”
Cates was in the middle of a maths degree at the University of Glasgow when she accepted a job offer at Sky Sports News following the channel’s launch in 1998. She has become one of the most respected sports presenters in the country. At the start of this season, she became one of the three new co-hosts for the BBC’s flagship Premier League highlights show, Match of the Day, alongside Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.
Cates: “I’m a 50-year-old nepo baby! I didn’t really have a plan about what I wanted to do when I was studying. I was thinking something vaguely in the city. But I wasn’t loving it. I kept hoping something would come up that I was interested in.
“The family name opens doors and it’s stupid not to acknowledge that and acknowledge the help you get at an early stage. It’s a difficult and weird industry to get into. I just hope that, nearly 30 years in, you get a bit of your own credit.
Dalglish at his investiture at Buckingham Palace with (left-right) daughters Lauren, Kelly and Lynsey, wife Marina and son Paul (Jonathan Brady – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
“It was similar for me and Gabby (whose father, Terry Yorath, was a Wales international) when we started out. There was a sort of belief that, ‘I don’t know whether women know anything about football, but if their dad did, then maybe they picked something up along the way’. It was almost that kind of assumption.
“It was a very male-dominated world. But when I started out at Sky Sports News, it was pretty much 50-50 in terms of male-female. There were female producers and directors, and a lot of women in the gallery as well as presenting.
“Doing Match of the Day has been amazing. I was so delighted to be asked. It’s one of the things that everyone has grown up with. It still has that status at a time when so much of everything is digital.”
Dalglish: “It’s on too late for me! I probably see it more often when it’s repeated on a Sunday morning.”
Cates: “If something is annoying him during a game, then he sends me a text. If I don’t answer it quickly enough, I get a call on the way home from the studio. He likes to be part of the chat!”
The pair rarely get the opportunity to sit and watch a game together, which is why Liverpool’s 5-1 triumph over Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield last April, wrapping up the Premier League title for Arne Slot’s side, meant so much.
Cates: “That was such a lovely day. We haven’t been together for a game since. Normally, if Dad is at a game, then I’m working. The highlight of his day against Tottenham was meeting (British actress) Millie Bobby Brown. He’s a big Stranger Things fan.
Dalglish: “Is that the name of the group?”
Cates: “It’s the TV show! We were all there as a family. I very rarely get to go and watch a game for fun. And that day was a lot of fun.”
Dalglish and Cates at the premiere of ‘Kenny Dalglish’, the documentary about his life (John Phillips/Getty Images)
Has Kenny mellowed over the years?
Dalglish: “My golf handicap has certainly got better. It fluctuates a bit but it’s 9.2 at the minute. Not bad.”
Cates: “Yeah, he’s definitely mellowed. If you’re in a house with four kids, I guess you’re not going to be as relaxed as when you’re spending an afternoon on the golf course.”
The affection between the pair is obvious, even over a Zoom call, and the conversation is peppered with moments of playful teasing and genuine warmth.
They have been brought together today to launch Carlsberg’s ‘Signs of Unity’ campaign in partnership with Liverpool. A section of fans have been taught to perform the club’s anthem, You’ll Never Walk Alone, in British sign language for their home match with West Ham United on February 28, helping deaf supporters share in the moment.
Research shows that eight in every 10 deaf or hard-of-hearing fans want to join in matchday chants but feel unable to do so. Some 74 per cent of those affected feel disconnected from the stadium atmosphere. Anfield bar staff are also being trained in basic sign language and there will be fan interpreters at every home game to translate pre-match announcements.
Cates: “It’s really important that everyone can enjoy the full matchday experience. That’s the point of coming to watch live football. To be able to not just join in, but also to feel that others are joining in with you — to have that communal feeling. Supporting a club is to feel part of something. It’s a brilliant initiative.”
Dalglish: “The football club has always been dependent on and appreciative of the surrounding area. As the club has got bigger and bigger, maybe local people are not there in the same numbers as in the 1960s and 1970s, but they still have not lost their appreciation for the support they get.
“Everyone who comes along should get the full joy and excitement. If it helps people, then the club has done its work again.”
It’s been a difficult season for Liverpool, with Slot having plenty of issues to contend with. However, after back-to-back wins over Sunderland and Brighton & Hove Albion, there are signs of improvement.
Kelly Cates has carved out a hugely successful career as a broadcaster (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Dalglish: “It’s always easier to criticise someone than it is to praise them. There’s a lot less patience these days and that’s a problem. If you don’t have patience, it’s unlikely you’ll have success. Nothing just grows overnight. Nobody has ever walked into a club and won a trophy straightaway. Everyone has an opinion but things could be a bit more constructive at times.
“The way we were brought up, it was all about the next game. Don’t look any further ahead than that. Liverpool’s last game was excellent. If we can put on performances like that most weeks, we’ll have a lot of pluses.”
When Dalglish takes his seat in the Anfield directors’ box at every home game, he looks across at the stand which bears his name. It was renamed in his honour in 2017.
Dalglish: “It’s in better condition now than when it was the Kemlyn Road. It might have my name on it but it’s also a show of respect to the teams I played in. It’s not an individual sport. You can’t win things as a footballer without the right people around you.
“It’s an honour and a privilege. It just said ‘Kenny Dalglish Stand’ at the beginning. Then someone in their wisdom gave me a knighthood, so they had to get the ladders back up. I would have loved to have seen that. I bet you those guys were cussing having to add ‘Sir’.”