Kenny Dalglish casts a long shadow across Scottish football, still holding records for appearances and (jointly) goals for the national team, and as the nation’s only genuine Ballon D’Or contender in the last six decades. However, few cities hold Dalglish in such high esteem as Liverpool, in England. Asif Kapadia’s KENNY DALGLISH chronicles the reasons behind the passion, whilst also using Dalglish’s career in sport to examine modern British history, and the public’s relationship with the nation’s press and state institutions.
The backdrop of politics and identity in the UK is established in the discussion of Dalglish’s upbringing in 1950s Glasgow, where he chose a Catholic school over a Protestant one because the former had a new football pitch. Although Dalglish is now a Celtic icon, he and his father initially supported Rangers. The film only briefly addresses the Ibrox disaster of 1971 (at which Dalglish was present), but it primarily serves as foreshadowing for later tragedies and how the dysfunction of post-war Britain seemed to follow Dalglish throughout his career.
The film primarily focuses on Dalglish’s time at Liverpool, as part of the highly successful teams of the 1970s and 1980s and as a leading light of the ‘Jock Mafia’ alongside fellow Scots Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness. Dalglish’s status is never made more evident than when Paul McCartney – perhaps the world’s most famous Scouser – mentions him as an idol. It’s around this point, when Dalglish’s sporting talent, achievements, and impact are clear, that Kapadia shifts gear to use the Scot as an avatar representing the human angle of the worst impulses and aims of the British press and political class.
“The contrast between the city’s perception in Whitehall and the sporting success of its pre-eminent football side explains why its icons have been placed upon such lofty pedestals.”
Liverpool’s poor relationship with the governments of Margaret Thatcher and her callous attitude to the city are well documented, and they form the nucleus of Kapadia’s themes and analysis. The contrast between the city’s perception in Whitehall and the sporting success of its pre-eminent football side explains why its icons have been placed upon such lofty pedestals. At a time when Britain’s establishment figures rejected the city – some encouraging the Prime Minister to abandon it – the city’s cultural impact was a powerful riposte.
That indifference has a heavy toll. First, the impact of the Heysel disaster in 1985 is presented as a turning point in the history of English football and society. The fallout from that event – thirty-nine deaths, a ban on English clubs competing in Europe, the failure of Belgian authorities, the stadium’s dilapidation, and fourteen Liverpool fans convicted of manslaughter – is still felt to this day in both the tragedy and the lasting perceptions, and would add significantly to the weight on the shoulders of Liverpool icons.
The Hillsborough disaster, by which time Dalglish was the manager of Liverpool, is a dark moment in modern British history, and a key moment in understanding the British tabloid press’s immoral, sensationalist zeal. The Sun, in the aftermath of the 1989 event, which saw the deaths of 97 people due to overcrowding, infamously laid the blame at the feet of Liverpool supporters, making heinous, unsubstantiated claims on its front page of fans pickpocketing the dead, and drunken fans without tickets causing the fatal crush. Kapadia’s insertion of Dalglish’s frank interactions with the smug moral vacuum of Kelvin Mackenzie, then editor of The Sun, further conveys not only why Dalglish is so revered, but also the heavy burden he carried for a city whose national government abdicated its duty of care.
“By channelling this examination of the modern British state and press through a revered sporting figure, Kapadia also makes clear the intersection and inseparability of sport and politics.”
Dalglish’s departure from Liverpool is shown as the inevitable result of even the most accomplished and compassionate members of British society being ground down by its press and governments. By channelling this examination of the modern British state and press through a revered sporting figure, Kapadia also makes clear the intersection and inseparability of sport and politics.
That message is a powerful one in an age when many are more indignant than ever when political or social issues interact with football or sport: taking the knee, rainbow laces/OneLove, and human rights abuses in tournament host countries have all been subjects of controversy. KENNY DALGLISH provides an extended example not only of how sport, politics, and social justice can intersect, but also of why they should, whilst being mindful of the cost to those who feel they must. That inextricable relationship between politics, society, and sport is the story of modern Britain, a powerful tool for understanding what tomorrow’s nation may look like, and for how we will come to view today’s.