The Tomkins Times’ Tribute to Ray Kennedy
We Reflect on the Sad Death of a True Legend
Chris Rowland, a regular match-goer throughout Ray Kennedy’s time as a player, has written an article for the site on a genuine legend, which I've linked to below, following a brief excerpt. Before that, a few words from me.
It occurs to me that we don't like the word 'death' or 'died' anymore, with a lot of people preferring the euphemisms of "passed", or "passing". Yet a tribute to the passing of Ray Kennedy could clearly mean two very different things.
Conversely, “legend” – a serious word – is overused, but rather than be carried along by great sides, he helped define them, in almost 400 games. Ergo, a true legend.
Rarely can such a bullish striker have turned into a super-stylish playmaker, but that seems to sum up the Kennedy story, before his post-career life was almost immediately dominated by Parkinson's disease.
These days, 70 seems to young, but boy did he cram a lot into his career, at Arsenal and then Liverpool.
"Ray's contribution to Liverpool's achievements was enormous and his consistency remarkable. So much so, in fact, that on the rare occasions he missed a match his absence was felt deeply simply because he was a midfield power house with tremendous vision and knowledge of the game... In my view he was one of Liverpool's greatest players and probably the most underrated."
Bob Paisley, in his 1983 autobiography.
The Tomkins Times’ Tribute to Ray Kennedy
That the arrival of this quiet, unassuming, modest man of the northeast for the considerable sum at the time of £180,000 went largely unheralded at the time sort of summed him up. He was the antithesis of the headline maker or the egocentric footballer. And it was another son of the northeast, Shankly's successor Bob Paisley, who inexplicably decided this burly, strong striker with the steam hammer left foot would be better off as a left-sided midfielder. What he saw was that that left foot was also capable of an extremely delicate touch, a caress to go with the bludgeon. He could play the short pass as well as the long pass with aplomb. Paisley would just have called it the right pass.
