標題: TOMKINS: RAY OF SUNSHINE, RAY OF HOPE [打印本頁] 作者: benitez80 時間: 2008-2-22 11:38 AM 標題: TOMKINS: RAY OF SUNSHINE, RAY OF HOPE
Ray Kennedy is, to my mind at least, a mythical player. He represents what all significant players do to a young child discovering the game: the footballer as Superhero.
They are football. It's as if there have never been players beforehand, and none will follow: in your mind, as a kid, they exist without historical context.
I wrote the preceding paragraphs a few years ago now, in a piece designed to draw people's attention to Ray's ongoing struggle with Parkinson's Disease, and last month I was asked to help out with the Ray of Hope Appeal. With that in mind, I thought I'd revisit the piece and update it for a new audience.
Football fans don't always get a lot of credit in the media, but the interests of most fans extend beyond the latest result. It's just one of those things that journeymen up and down the country now get paid a hundred times the amount a legend like Ray did, but when fans see one of the true greats of the game falling on hard times and suffering, they will act to do what they can to support someone who really merits their help.
Ray of Hope is an inspiring initiative to raise money and awareness for both Ray and Parkinson's Disease. At the game against Middlesborough on the 23rd of this month there will be a collection, and the Ray of Hope official launch takes place after the match.
In truth, I don't have too many memories of Ray the footballer from the time he played for the Reds; I was just ten when, in 1981, he played his last game for the Reds before he moved to Swansea, and my first live game wasn't until nine years later. I saw Istvan Kozma play more than I did Ray. But through videos and DVDs, I got to see what all the fuss was about.
Born with a surname as famous as any from the twentieth century -- delivered in Northumberland twelve years before his American namesake was assassinated in Dallas -- Ray Kennedy was a key component in writing Liverpool's own staggering headlines.
The way he controlled the ball and struck home the crucial goal away to Bayern Munich in the 1981 European Cup semi-final -- having been forced up front after Kenny Dalglish's early injury -- highlighted the contradictions of the big man: good body strength in shaping to control the ball on his chest, before rifling a shot with his 'weaker' right foot. High pressure, progress to the ultimate game in club football at stake, and he's cool, calm and collected. It was a colossus moving with the nimble skills of a ballerina. (Don't tell him I said that.)
It was only in later years that I learned he'd led a 'double life': he'd not, as I somehow believed, been a Red since Day One; he'd been an Arsenal player, and a bruising centre forward at that. He was a key component of Arsenal's double-winning side of 1971, scoring 19 league goals that season -- although it would have been nice if they'd fallen at the final hurdle to Bill Shankly's men in the FA Cup that year; but I'm not going to make myself bitter over a football match which took place when I was merely one month old.
When he arrived at Liverpool in 1974, centre-forward was the role in which Shankly intended him to play. Things didn't exactly go as planned, and he failed to make a spot in the side his own, and found himself in the reserves. Indeed, Ray was yet another example of a talented footballer who failed to settle at a new club, in a new system of play, when a hefty price tag had to be lived up to. It didn't help that Shanks retired on the very same day that Kennedy signed.
The transformation under Bob Paisley from a big and burly centre forward to an artful left-sided midfielder in 1975 is still seen as the manager's long-term tactical masterstroke. To put it into modern context, it would have been the same as Gérard Houllier playing Emile Heskey at left midfield and miraculously ending up with Robert Pires. (Alas, that never transpired.)
Of course, the main credit should go to Kennedy, as he was the man who took to the field and adapted so wonderfully. There was none of this tosh about being played out of position; good players are versatile. Each will have his best position, of course, but if you can control, pass, shoot, head -- then you can do a job anywhere, and often a good one at that.
From midfield, Kennedy managed to ghost in and score crucial goals, hitting ten, nine and eight in three successive league seasons from 1978 to 1980. But he wasn't a David Platt type, who offered little else other than goals. Kennedy was a proper player.
It was true what people said about Kennedy: he had an especially sweet left foot. That is the adjective people use: Sweet. It is used for other players too, although almost exclusively left-footed players, as if those who prefer to use that foot possess greater perception and vision.
He was a tall, upright kind of player -- not compact and dynamic like Keegan, the real Superstar player of the mid-'70s (before 'KK' took to spectacularly falling off of bikes as a television 'Superstar'). Watch Ray Kennedy run, and there seems no way he was a footballer; he was in the same club as Patrick Vieira and Chris Waddle in that he simply didn't look the part, didn't move naturally.
Put a ball at Ray's feet, however, and suddenly it was the most natural sight in the world. It stayed close to his side like an obedient sheepdog. He was suddenly a master, in control, calling the shots. Some players are busy, but busy themselves in going nowhere; Ray took his time, but always got there, always arrived. In being upright, it meant he also played with his head up -- the sign of a good player.
You need time on the ball to be able to lift your head, and only good players get time on the ball. You also need to know your control is perfect to take your eyes from the ball and survey the field, particularly in the days before pitches were like bowling greens.
In many ways Kennedy's decline was swift. In his final years at Liverpool he knew something was physically wrong when he played, and found himself increasingly struggling to get into the pace of games. He'd had physical problems for many years, but his great fitness masked their seriousness and kept any real concerns at bay. But it started affecting his game, and having moved to Swansea, his career quickly fell apart. It took another few years to discover that his decline was down to Parkinson's.
Ray's condition is now such that he is virtually housebound and finds talking very difficult and tiring. He is still only 56, and without medical advances, his prognosis is not good.
People say I'd give 'anything' to be a professional footballer, or for the chance to play for Liverpool (or Arsenal), let alone win league championships and European Cups, score over 100 league goals and represent their country on a number of occasions. But they wouldn't really give anything, because it's a very easy thing to say, and a much harder thing to do. And no-one would swap their health for the plight of someone like Ray.
Would anyone trade a 'normal' existence for a great life till the age of 31, but with an abrupt physical decline as the payoff? (Not that playing football was a factor in Ray's illness.) A condition that, in Ray's case, saw him fall in the shower a few years ago, and require more stitches than most footballers will need during a career; happening to a man who correctly listed 'balance' as one of his main strengths as a player.
How warm do memories keep you at night? Ray could only sell his medals, shirts and England caps once, and he did that a long time ago. And what pays the bills? Even if he had played in today's age, where average journeymen quickly become millionaires -- and as such, unlike the reality of the 1970s star he was, Ray had found himself set up for life -- the riches wouldn't be compensation for twenty years gradually succumbing to a degenerative condition.
But the fact is, he doesn't have his health, and as well as not possessing the wealth that's so easily run up in the sport today, he doesn't have a way of generating his own income to pay for the best possible life he could hope to lead in the circumstances. We all want to lead a remarkable life, but at what price?
While memories won't keep Ray warm at night, the ones he gave us fans still help warm our souls. And for that he deserves every last inch of our support.
