Former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish. Photo / Getty Images.
Kenny Dalglish never "dealt" with witnessing three of football's biggest tragedies because he was more concerned with the victims and the bereaved, his family say in a new film that addresses the Liverpool legend's experiences at Ibrox, Heysel and Hillsborough.
Dalglish was in the crowd when 66 were killed at
Ibrox in 1971, on the pitch for the Heysel tragedy of 1985 (39 deaths) and in the dug-out when 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives at Sheffield Wednesday's ground in 1989 - a scandal that is still working itself through the justice system.
In 'Kenny', which is due for cinema release on 20 November, Dalglish's daughter, Kelly Cates, says: "He never dealt with absorbing all that information because he felt his need was so much lower than everyone else's." Paul Dalglish, Kenny's son, who coaches in Canada, says: "I've never spoken to my dad about Hillsborough."
In the aftermath of that tragedy, Kenny Dalglish attended numerous funerals and supported the families of the dead. But the trauma was building up inside. Dalglish resigned unexpectedly as Liverpool manager in 1991. Marina, his wife, tells the documentary makers: "He was falling apart after Hillsborough. He was terrible to live with."
Her husband, who developed a rash and needed sleeping pills, decided he had to escape the Anfield dug-out after feeling unable to make a decision about substitutions in a game against Everton. "If I cannae make decisions, I don't deserve to be there," he says in the film. Marina says however: "He wouldn't admit Hillsborough had anything to to do with it."
