W L
INTERVIEW
You know , you think you are a good player , and then you look at say Zidane , and you think maybe they ’ re the best in the world – but Maradona , he was just so much better than anybody else !
Most difficult ( individual ) opponent ? Probably Gary Stevens at Everton – the right back . He was such a good athlete ; strong ; he was quick ; he was good in the air ; good defensively . I was lucky because all the nutters were at left back !
Favourite Liverpool goal ? The QPR [ goal ] – even more so than the Brazil one , because this was a proper game where they were really trying ! So the QPR goal was my favourite , and that chip against Wimbledon ; I quite liked that one as well .
Biggest regret of your career / lowest ( playing ) football moment ? No regrets whatsoever as I am a fatalist in every sense of the word ; so whatever happens is meant to happen . Although maybe , if 1989 came again I ’ d have probably taken the ball into corner against Arsenal . But I say this all the time : there ’ s no one incident where you win [ or lose ] the league . Steven Gerrard ’ s slip against Chelsea didn ’ t cost Liverpool the league – because we all think ‘ ahh if only that didn ’ t happen ’. But what we don ’ t think about , is the games we should have lost . So what happens over 38 games is meant to happen .
If you could give one piece of advice to a young aspiring footballer today what would that be ? Enjoy the game . You have to have that hunger to play football , which means if you are going to play for your local team , Crosby or whoever , that ’ s what you have to love . There are too many kids who want to play at the highest level , or they ’ re not interested in playing . So just enjoy the game , because unfortunately a lot of people [ parents etc ] will put pressure on you to be a professional footballer . Just enjoy it and see where it takes you .
Greatest strength on a football field ? Personality . Because you have lots of people with talent , and when I talk about personality , I talk about being able to handle the occasion ; being able to maximise your potential . So if you have the personality , the mentality and the ability , that ’ s when you ’ re looking at Messi , Ronaldo and all of them . That ’ s what Liverpool have in abundance right now ; mentality .
Biggest weakness ? Interestingly , and people always say this to me because you ’ re a footballer : I am not that competitive . People think about football and you have to be competitive – you look at Steve McMahon , Peter Reid and people like that . But I gave 100 % and if it didn ’ t go right it didn ’ t go right . And so I ’ m not that competitive . In many respects your weakness can be your biggest strength , because – I won ’ t say my nonchalance ; me not caring – but I wouldn ’ t be afraid to take a penalty , because it won ’ t kill me if I miss ! It would bother me , but I wasn ’ t scared to step up .
1987 / 88 vintage Vs the current crop ? I always say it depends on who is refereeing and whose rules we are playing . 1987 rules we beat them 6-0 ; 2020 rules they beat us 6-0 ! But any great team of any great era , any player of any great era would be similar . Stanley Matthews playing now would be the best player in the world , but what we do is look at Stanley Matthews from the 50 ’ s in the old black and white films and he looks like he ’ s walking - and we say ‘ he couldn ’ t play now ’ but of course if he played now he would have been born in 1986 and he would have been adapted to what it is now , so he would have still been the best player .
How was meeting Nelson Mandela ? [ laughs warmly ] It was … it was comforting ! Because he was just a normal humble guy . Which I expected ; I don ’ t know why I expected anything else . It was 94 , we were playing Kaizer Chiefs F . C . and I was doing a documentary for Granada about the changeover in South Africa . Nelson was the dignitary while I introduced the President to the players . When I was introducing him , I told him we were doing this documentary and so I asked ‘ can we have an interview ?’ and I thought he ’ d say , okay , we can do it on the side of the pitch or whatever . He just wrote his address down on a piece of paper , gave it to me and said ‘ come to the house tomorrow ’. And so we drove to his house , sat with him for three hours and for those three hours all he spoke about was the fact that he felt there were greater people than himself who never lived to see this day , the end of apartheid .
That was the first thing that showed how humble he was . Secondly , he said you have to understand that a lot of white people are .
John Barnes will be signing his new book at Thornton Hall Hotel , Wirral on Thursday 14th October . Tickets are available at : www . linghams . co . uk .
20 wirrallife . com