Tigers Come from Liverpool - Part 2
Kewley works his way up the Liverpool ladder.
Here's is Part 1 of this story…
As his youth team traveled to London, Holland, Scotland and elsewhere, Kevin Kewley found himself thriving on the football pitch. Scouts would come and try to get the best players to sign schoolboy forms. But Kewley’s friends advised him against it.
“The teachers and the guys ahead of us would say, ‘If you sign schoolboy forms at 13 and you suddenly become a star and everyone wants you, you still have to play for that team.’ They would tell us, ‘Don’t sign schoolboy forms unless they promise you an apprenticeship,’” Kewley said.
Sure enough, when he was 14 or 15 years old, a big fancy car parked outside his parents’ house—it was far too nice to be owned by anyone in his family.
“My mom said, ‘There’s a scout here from Liverpool, Tony Waiters.’ Two years before, he had played for England. Waiters said to me, ‘My scouts have been watching you and we think you’d be perfect for Liverpool and would be ideal for maturing into a player,’” Kewley said.
Kewley’s father had died the year before. He wonders how his Evertonian dad might have reacted to a scout from Liverpool coming to his door. If he had lived to see that day, Kevin’s personal history might be very different today. But Kewley already knew how to respond.
“I knew they wanted me. I said to Waiters, ‘The only way I’ll sign that is if you come back with an agreement that says, when I leave school, I sign as an apprentice professional with you.’ He didn’t blink. He just said, ‘Yeah,’” Kewley said.
Until he turned 17, Kewley would train with Liverpool in the morning and then go to school in the afternoon. He loved the experience, finding the coaches and players welcoming and the atmosphere a healthy one. Meanwhile, he said that his friends from Kirkby who entered the Everton system experienced older players running kangaroo courts that often ended in beatings. They hated it.
“I saw the camaraderie and the joking and laughing going on, and I thought, ‘This is where I want to be.’ I know Everton was a big pull for me, but this was entirely different. When we played Everton, it was like a war. Our coaches used to say, ‘They are going to hit you, so hit them first,’” Kewley said.
Historically, the rivalry between Liverpool and Everton could be intense. Roy Turner had lived it himself a dozen years before Kewley.
“I was very close to everybody. I was known to have some parties at my house and I remember I had Liverpool players until midnight, and then the Everton players came after midnight,” Turner said.
But by Kewley’s time, players tended to leave it on the field.
“I used to get into it with a couple of Everton’s guys. I got into it with one guy, and we went out that night, and I saw him at a party. He just came up to me and said, ‘Sorry about that, Kevin.’ … A guy just headbutted one of our players and I saw him after the game and I’m thinking it’s gonna be a bit of a ruckus here. He just said, ‘Sorry about that.’ And our guy said, ‘It’s part of the game,’” Kewley recalled.
Luckily for Kewley, he could hold his own on the pitch. If you kicked him, he’d kick you back. He wasn’t huge at 5’10, 165, but he refused to back down. English football wasn’t for the meek.
“I always remember this drill. Our coach thought we were getting kicked around and he was furious after the game. On Monday morning, he had us all lined up and we were two or three yards apart and he blew the whistle and we both had to go for it. So, you had to do a block tackle to try to get it. And if you were unlucky enough to get one of the big center halfbacks who were 6’2 or 6’3, whew. How nobody got hurt in those drills…” Kewley said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Liverpool had 14 apprentice professionals in Kewley’s class. Only three of them signed with the team. He was one. The hierarchy of the Liverpool system started with a First Team, then descended to a reserve team, A team, B team, and, finally, at the bottom, a C team. At age 15, Kewley played on the A team. By 16, he made the reserve squad, only one step below the First Team. He scored a goal in his first game.
“You are playing against seasoned men. You tend to think you’ve made it, and you really haven’t,” Kewley said.
Kewley now believes success might have come too early for him. For many players, the philosophy was: “Win or lose, we’re on the booze.” He began to feel pressure from the older players to join in. But he came to realize that some players loved it when the other fellas would paint the town red. On Saturday, when the teams were picked for the coming week, those guys were the ones who would benefit when a party boy’s fitness level declined after a boozy weekend.
“If I had my time over again, I would have trained like an absolute maniac, I wouldn’t have drunk alcohol, and I would have lifted weights,” Kewley said.
By the time he was 18 years old, Kewley felt like he belonged on the First Team. In retrospect, he realizes his party lifestyle kept him from ascending further. But then, fate intervened.
“Al Miller came over from America and wanted two young players who would have an impact in Dallas. He picked me and Tommy Tynan to go. We came over and Tommy didn’t like it… but I was like, ‘This is a new lease on life,’” Kewley said.
Liverpool loaned Kewley to the Dallas Tornado, a North American Soccer League (NASL) squad owned by visionary sports team owner Lamar Hunt. Kewley joined Pele and a number of European greats in what was becoming a fast-growing and popular sport in America.
Kewley had a series of delays in his flights on the way over to America. His plane was scheduled to fly into New York before the second leg to Dallas. But a massive storm diverted the flight.
“The captain came on and said, ‘We are flying to Dallas Airport.’ I thought to myself, ‘That’s where I’m going!’ But the lady next to me explained it was DULLES Airport in Washington,” Kewley said, laughing.
Next week: Part 3 of “Tigers Come From Liverpool.”