WHEN Brian Barwick watches Kenny Dalglish lead Liverpool FC out at Wembley later this month for the Carling Cup Final against Cardiff, it will be with a double dose of personal pride.
Pride not only at seeing the LFC side he has supported for the past 50 years running out at the home of football after an absence of 16 years, but pride too at seeing them play in a magnificent, modern stadium which rose to completion upon his watch.
Barwick took over as chief executive at the Football Association in November 2004 when the national stadium remained a cross between a complex engineering project plan and a building site. But he took it on from there and despite controversies over rising costs and construction delays, in March 2007 he was given the keys to what is now recognised as one of the world’s greatest sporting theatres.
Croxteth-born Barwick left the FA at the end of 2008, having by then appointed Fabio Capello as England manager after the ill-fated reign of Steve McLaren.
He now divides his busy time between, among other things, running his consultancy, Barwick Media & Sport and acting as a visiting professor at Liverpool University, where he regularly lectures at the university’s renowned School of Business Management.
Last year, he also found time to pen his top-selling autobiography Anfield Days And Wembley Ways, recently published by Sport Media.
If he’d ever lost the urge, writing his fascinating memoirs has given former print journalist Barwick the drive to pen even more of his thoughts. And from next week the former Liverpool University economics graduate will begin a fortnightly column for The Post.
To say he has a wealth of worldly knowledge, expertise and experience to draw upon is indeed an understatement.
Growing up in Childwall in a happy home, the son of a police officer was bitten by the football bug long before other interests and a massively successful career in television and sport ensued.
As ever on Merseyside, it was Everton or Liverpool that beckoned for his support and while his dad did favour the Reds, Barwick recalls visiting both Goodison and Anfield as an awe-struck boy. He recalls: “My father took me to Everton one week and Liverpool the next.
“My memory in the very early sixties is that travelling home and away was a bit of a challenge – there were no motorways, the rail network wasn’t great and my sense is that it wasn’t unnatural to go to Everton one week and Liverpool the next.
“For some reason I pinned my colours to Liverpool. I don’t know why. They were in the Second Division when I first saw them play and Everton were the School of Science, the millionaire club and were bombing away.
“So I saw my first game at Anfield in October 1961, such as I remember it, against Leyton Orient. For some reason Liverpool were the team for me and I’ve followed them ever since; up close sometimes and at a distance sometimes; sometimes being the ultimate fan, sometimes being editorially objective about it. I’ve had to play every role in a way but I have followed them faithfully and firmly and loyally for all those years.”
As he capriciously chose red over blue, the young Barwick was already being gripped by a desire to get his observations and opinions down in print and share them with a wider audience.
“I remember during 1966 the World Cup, my father worked nights as a policeman and I would type out match reports from games I was watching in the evening on a Petite typewriter.
“Dad would take them with him to work and find a spare 10 minutes on the night shift and type them up on a proper typewriter.
“I would write the match reports just for my own pleasure – I’d obviously got a feel for it. I’d love to have them now – though they would probably end up lining the budgie’s cage within a week!”
So the desire to write about sport took root early on and Barwick later took his first job in journalism in Cumbria, on the North West Evening Mail in Barrow. There, he covered both news and sport for three years until he found himself at a fork in the road as he set about progressing his fledgling career in journalism. Another, better job on a newspaper offered – but so did a six month contract in London from the BBC.
Explains the Rudston Road Primary and former Quarry Bank High School pupil: “I had to move.
“I wanted to move my career on and I saw this advert in the UK Press Gazette for the BBC.
“I had actually been offered another job at another newspaper by that point and it was the flip of a coin really. Did I take that – or did I take a risk and a six month contract as opposed to a job?
“I took the contract.”
