A RESERVE match at Dunfermline’s East End Park is an unlikely place for a seismic moment in British football history to take place.
And yet on this day 40 years ago, something heart-breaking or life-changing happened,depending on whether you are a follower of Celtic or Liverpool.
The best player in Scotland at the time, Kenny Dalglish, Celtic captain, living legend and football genius, was training with the reserves because he wanted a transfer. In truth, he had wanted to move to England two years previously but stayed as a favour to Jock Stein. But that was then and this is 1977.
Read more: Is Celtic's Kieran Tierney Scottish football's best player for 40 years?
Liverpool are the coming force and then some. The prev-ious season saw them win the English title and European Cup for the first time. All was rosy in the red part of Merseyside. But their own talisman, Kevin Keegan, was of a similar mind to the man who was to fill the famous number seven jersey.
Keegan joined Hamburg for £550,000, a small fortune, and if Liverpool were to stay at the top then there was only one player they could go for as a suitable replacement.
Which is why Bob Paisley, the club’s soon to be legendary manager, and his chairman at Anfield, John Smith, were to be found in the Fife town on a nothing pre-season night. They had travelled north with a blank chequebook and unshakable determination to sign British football’s best player.
They may have been dealing with Celtic and the formidable Stein, but there was no way they would leave empty handed. And they did not.
Just before midnight, many hours after the match, Dalglish drove to Celtic Park to meet the party from Liverpool.
Read more: Is Celtic's Kieran Tierney Scottish football's best player for 40 years?
Last minute pleas were made by the Glasgow club in a vain attempt to get their captain to say but even Stein couldn’t persuade him. A fee of £440,000, a record between British clubs at the time, was agreed and while nobody knew it then, the Glasgow lad was to become the most important figure in the history of Liverpool Football Club.
Not only that, but Dalglish went on to become the most successful Scottish player of all time – let’s be honest, who else is going to win three European Cups? – and so much more.
“What does Kenny mean to Liverpool? Absolutely everything,” so says Ray Clemence who was Liverpool goalkeeper in 1977 and a nice enough man to forgive his new team-mate for famously putting the ball through his legs at Hampden the previous summer.
“I could talk all day about him as a player, and Kenny was wonderful, but he went on to become manager, he won a double, and then all the work he and his wife Marina have done for the families after Hillsborough has been nothing short of magnificent.
“It’s a club fortunate to have many genuine legends but I’m not sure anyone is above Kenny. He remains a fantastic ambassador for Liverpool. I can’t believe it’s 40 years but it was some bit of business.”
Indeed it was. Graeme Souness once said that at Dalglish’s peak, which seemed to last the best part of 20 years, he was the best player in the world. Only the simple minded would argue with his assessment.
Read more: Is Celtic's Kieran Tierney Scottish football's best player for 40 years?
“Kenny could do anything,” says Clemence. “One of the many things I loved about him was he scored goals from absolutely nothing. He’d be on the touchline, his back to goal, and then the ball is in the net. No matter how many times he did it, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“He was also a strong personality. He could handle the step up and I mean that with all due respect to Celtic which is a fantastic club. It didn’t take long for him to show in training and then within the first few games just how good he was.
“Kenny was called the King for a reason. He still is.”
As for the man himself, Dalglish understand-ably picked out the all-Merseyside FA Cup final of 1989, which came in the aftermath of Hillsborough, as the most significant (best would be the wrong word) game of his time at Liverpool.
He said: “I think the one that was most poignant was winning the FA Cup in 1989 in the year of Hillsborough. Obviously for a lot of the wrong reasons, but I think that was really important for everybody,” he said.
Now 66, Dalglish is still revered at both clubs he played for. Celtic supporters quite rightly voted him into the club’s greatest team in 2002. His spell as director of football didn’t go well but there have been few better players in Hoops since 1888.
“Liverpool has always been very close to all our hearts. Both Marina and I are very proud to be Glaswegians, born and brought up there, but we are equally proud to be adopted Scousers as well. The 40 years has passed in the blink of an eye really.”
Asked what Liverpool means to him, Dalglish said: “Everything.”
There’s that word again. It perfectly sums up what Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish means to those lucky enough to have seen him in the flesh.
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