Soccer AM

Barnes: Liverpool hero

We all love football. But why?

This week former Liverpool legend John Barnes speaks about his love of the game and reveals why it will never change, despite what we all think.

WHAT WAS YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY OF FOOTBALL...
My earliest memory of football is the 1974 World Cup final between West Germany and Holland. My father went to the 1972 Munich Olympics and brought me back my first football boots - I was living in Jamaica at the time - a pair of Adidas Gerd Muller's. So in 1974 West Germany was my favourite team.

I USED TO GO AND WATCH...
I went to School on Marylebone Road and the closest team was Queens Park Rangers. Although they're coming good again they've been in the doldrums, but in 1976 in my opinion they were the best team in the country. Gerry Francis, Don Masson, Stan Bowles - they were my heroes.

IF I DIDN'T HAVE FOOTBALL I WOULD...
I would never have even expected to be a professional footballer because when I first came to England at 13 my father was a diplomat - he was military attaching - he got posted here for four years so I fully expected to go back to Jamaica, I didn't expect to be in be in England. I got offered a football scholarship to Washington University which I would have taken and done something. And it wasn't until probably six months before I was due to go back, Watford - my first club - saw me playing in a park and said 'do you want to stay and play?' And that was the first time that I ever thought about being a professional footballer.

FOOTBALL IS BETTER NOW BECAUSE...
Football is better now for attacking players because you're not allowed to get kicked! Imagine Stuart Pearce playing against Cristiano Ronaldo. Imagine Tommy Smith playing against Cristiano Ronaldo! I mean in the old days when I was playing as a striker they would just kick you up and down in the air and not even get a yellow card, where as now as an attacking player you can do anything you want knowing they can't tackle you because they're going to get booked or sent off. So the only reason football is better now and the only people football is better now is for the strikers.

THE FUTURE OF FOOTBALL IS...
Football will never change because as much as we talk about football either changing for the better or the worse we are too supersedeas in feeling that we have control over the development of football and we don't.

We do in the Premier League, but the Premier League is probably 0.1 per cent of football. When you talk about football I've been travelling to Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, all over Africa and you see kids playing football, who aren't even aware of the Premier League, because they love football and that's the power of football - every politician in this country uses football as a weapon.

Now we believe that because of diving for example that football is going to change and football is going to be destroyed because there's diving in the Premier League - some kid in Rwanda isn't even aware of that and he still loves football so we have no power over football and it will continue to grow and continue to be loved by everyone and continue to be played by everyone and we cannot change that.

I LOVE FOOTBALL BECAUSE...
Well I love football, not only because it has given me everything have, but I've never had as much pleasure doing anything - although I've got six children I may add - then what football gave me.