Iconic images: Anfield meets its King
Throughout LFC's 125th anniversary year, Liverpoolfc.com will retrace the club's history through the striking images that plot a fascinating journey.
Ninth in the series is a photograph that captures the very first time Anfield bore witness to a celebration that was to become iconic in its own right.
Arms held aloft above a facial expression of pure glee.
Kenny Dalglish radiating joy and an eagerness to share a moment of jubilance created by his own brilliance with Liverpool’s supporters.
This was to become a gloriously familiar sight over the coming weeks, months and years.
Few, though, could have foreseen what Dalglish would go on to achieve when this photograph was taken on August 23, 1977 - just under a fortnight after he’d signed for the Reds from Celtic for a British record transfer fee.
He’d marked his league debut for the club with a goal in a 1-1 draw at Middlesbrough on the opening day of the 1977-78 First Division campaign.
Three days later, Dalglish introduced himself to an Anfield crowd that would come to adore him.
At half-time of their first home game of the season, Bob Paisley’s English and European champions were being held by Newcastle United.
But, just a minute after the restart, Dalglish, according to Derek Wallis’ match report in the Daily Mirror, ‘scored shrewdly, almost arrogantly’ to break the deadlock.
“Ray Kennedy drove the ball forward cunningly to the left of the penalty area where Dalglish, faced by the hurriedly advancing debutant goalkeeper Steve Hardwick, chipped the ball in. Cool as you like,” wrote Wallis.
The image above shows Dalglish running towards the Kop in elated celebration. It captures the first flushes of a love story that, 40 years later, is still going strong.
“It was a fabulous night for me. The reception from the Kop was marvellous and it was great to get a goal,” the No.7 said, after Liverpool’s 2-0 win.
The King had arrived.
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