A Liverpool Legend
Former Liverpool striker John Aldridge is a familiar face around Praia da Luz. When he isn't playing golf, you might have seen him hanging out in one of the bars, enjoying a cold beer and not realise he is a former premiership footballer with a career total of 474 goals - which in some quarters is a post-war record.
John is a friend of Tomorrow magazine and has helped us raise money for TACT with his John Aldridge golf days, so I thought it would be rude not to join him for a beer and a chat about his career highs and lows and how he is going to help raise money for those in need in the Algarve.
John started playing football from as young as he can remember; he credits a bombed-out house in the back of his garden as giving him plenty of practice. “It made a perfect five-a-side pitch. After school, me and my mates would grab a ball and play there the whole time.”
He attended the Banks Road school and his team were the champions of Liverpool when he realised he had a talent for scoring goals. From playing local football, he ended up at South Liverpool, which was a 5th-division, non-league team.
In 1978 he was training to be a toolmaker, where for four years, he was paid £7 a week. The manager of Newport County knew he was about to qualify and could be earning the princely sum of £82 a week plus overtime a week, so he offered him £78 a week on a one-year contract to swap tools for a football. Even for less money, John knew he had to take his chances at football as it was all he had ever wanted to do, so he signed with the club, which was in the 4th division.
At Somerton Park, he played 198 times and scored 87 goals, including a respectable seven goals in just 12 FA Cup matches, helping Newport to promotion from the Fourth Division and Welsh Cup glory in his first season. They reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup in his second season.
John joined Liverpool in 1987 after three years playing for Oxford United, where he is fondly remembered by Oxford fans for his role in Oxford United's unprecedented years of success between 1984 and 1986. At Liverpool, he immediately had the pressure of filling Ian Rush´s boots, who was leaving for Juventus. Did he feel daunted by the prospect?
“There is Always pressure with any football job when you are scoring goals. I had pressure without Ian as I was a big Liverpool fan as I was growing up. I went to my first game when I was six years old, so the pressure of playing for Liverpool was on me anyway because I couldn´t let them down. But when you are following someone with the ilk of Ian, that´s tough, one of the best strikers in the world of football. I have always got on well with Ian; he has a place not far from here and we have a meetup and a drink occasionally. The team was full of international stars and I knew I would get lots of opportunities and chances, but I was confident in my own ability to take those chances. And that’s what happened - I won the Golden Boot the first year.
And when you´ve got John Barnes on one wing, Ray Houghton on another and Peter Beardsley behind you, that´s like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, from a striker’s point of view, you couldn´t get much better.” John earned the affectionate nickname from fans of “Aldo” that would stick throughout his career.
The Hillsborough disaster was the toughest period of his life. “Being there and witnessing what happened that day, and everything that went with it, there were people I knew as a fan who passed away; 96 people going to a match and not coming home, it was horrible.
We all had to go to funerals - I went to 11. It was incredibly tough and we weren´t given counselling. I could´t talk about it for years. I went to the funeral of the two Hick´s daughters and two brothers, but the one that hit me was one of the last ones. In those days, you weren´t chauffered, I got into my car and found the church and someone came to meet me and said, ‘John, can you just go and sit behind the family’. I didn´t know whose funeral it was - I hadn´t been told - then the coffin came out and You´ll Never Walk Alone was playing. I was trying to keep my head down, but as the coffin came past, I noticed a smaller coffin coming behind, and it ripped my insides out. I heard it was father and son.
On the Monday after the horrible event, we had to go to the hospital, where some fans were in comas. The doctor said can you talk to that wee lad there? He´s only 13. And I was telling him it was John Aldridge here and when he came round, I´d give him a signed shirt and he could meet John Barnes - this sort of talk. So as I walked away, I said to the doctor, ‘so when will he pull through?’ He told me they were cutting the life support that afternoon.
So you can imagine my son was the same age. It was horrendous. Then they never got the justice after all these years; it absolutely stinks, the mothers who wouldn’t let it go when the government thought they would give up, it reeks.”
After failing to achieve the "double" of the League championship and FA Cup, Aldridge appeared inconsolable as he sunk prostrate to the turf, demonstrating just how devoted he was to his team.
The following season, Rush was fully settled back into the Anfield groove and, with Dalglish reverting to a 4–4–2 formation with Rush and Beardsley as first-choice strikers, Liverpool accepted an offer of £1million from La Liga side Real Sociedad in early September 1989, with Aldridge having played twice in the league for Liverpool that season. “I didn´t want to leave. Wearing the Liverpool shirt meant everything to me, but Dalgliesh didn´t want me, and I had a ridiculous offer from Spain, so I took it.”
Aldridge was a hit at Atotxa (then Real Sociedad's stadium), scoring 40 goals in 75 appearances over two seasons, as the first non-Basque player to sign for Sociedad in several decades. Despite his success, he experienced hostility for being a foreigner; he handed in a transfer request in 1991 to the newly appointed manager John Toshack – another former Liverpool striker and moved to Tranmere Rovers.
When I talk to John, we are all recovering from the disappointment of seeing England defeated by Italy in the Euro 2020 final. John enjoyed the game from his purpose-built bar at the back of his home in Liverpool and says he was supporting England, although his international career saw him gain 69 caps for Ireland. “My Gran was Irish and Jack Charlton invited me to join the team; it was a fantastic experience. I played in Euro 88, and we beat England 1-0, so I never regretted it.”
A family man, John has been married to Joan since 1980. His son and daughter also live in Liverpool and he proudly shows me the pictures of his new grandaughter Nel, his 4th grandchild and a first child for daughter Jo.
The collapsed Super League would, I imagine, be the very antithesis of what John Aldridge stands for, “I still think it will happen, I have always believed that something of this ilk will happen in the future, I don´t know when. All these clubs are being bought up by the super-rich as they know how popular football is, something will happen somewhere and they will all benefit from it financially. It´s not like when I played and we used to bunk in when we played away; it´s a huge business. When I was played for Liverpool, the average wage was 3K a week.”
He is still very active within the Liverpool club and works in their corporate entertainment while acting as a Liverpool FC ambassador on match days, which he calls “a great day out.”
He discovered the Algarve in 1998, “we came first to Monte Sao Pedro and just loved it. We kept coming back then I got involved in Oceanico and at one time owned four apartments in Estrela da Luz, but now I am doing my own development in Luz.”
What does he like most about the Algarve, “The amanha mentality, although I always have to be doing something, but I like the atmosphere here, apart from now all the COVID form filling, which is driving me insane!”
Just after he retired from football, he was at a loose end and decided to start up a charity event with some friends - the John Aldridge golf day was born at Boavista Golf course. The first year they raised around €8000. “It´s just a really good crack and we make money for charity. Over the years, we have had lots of celebrities, including John Bishop, who is such a good laugh and of course, professional footballers come to Portugal for the event.”
John now generously donates the proceeds from the event to the Tomorrow charity TACT and we are delighted that it will be able to go ahead in September. As it may still be difficult for people to travel from the UK, we are looking for local support to make it a fantastic and successful event for our charities. It could not go ahead in 2020, but John heard about our Vicente appeal and donated some money towards his hip operation this year. “When you see kids in trouble, of course, I want to help or save a life. I try to utilise what little bit of fame I have to help.”
It has been a complete pleasure to get to know John, an all-around “good bloke”. He is incredibly down-to-earth, fun and generous with his time. We know this year’s golf day is going to be one to remember!
