When it comes to testimonials, few deliver them with such colour as the late Johnny King, who signed John Aldridge for Tranmere Rovers in the summer of 1991.
“Aldridge is like a gunslinger, he shows no emotion. He kills people and goes away,” said the Birkenhead club's greatest manager of all time. If King was speaking about you in such tongues, you must have been doing something right. Not that the 32-year-old had returned to Merseyside short of pedigree of course. Having scored goals for fun, for both Newport County and Oxford United, Aldridge enjoyed a relatively short but successful stint at boyhood club Liverpool, helping the Reds to clinch the league title before scoring in the 3-2 FA Cup triumph over Everton at Wembley 12 months later.
The return of Ian Rush to Anfield saw Aldridge leave his beloved Reds for a new adventure in Spain with Real Sociedad. Here, he proved that such a natural goalscorer can do the business home or abroad, netting 40 goals in 75 appearances for the Spanish side - a feat made more significant by the fact he was the club's first non-Basque signing for a number of decades.
