Liverpool legend Ronnie Whelan said his first six months at Anfield was one of the worst times of his life.
The dad of three, who was capped 53 times for Ireland, said homesickness drove him to booze and gambling – and almost derailed his football career. In 1979 the Dubliner, 60, was living in digs near Anfield, earning £150 a week at the age of 18; but he pined for his family back home in Finglas.
Ronnie said: “It was a massive big change, and for a good few months, not for the best because I was extremely homesick. Every day was a battle, in training as well, which I wasn’t used to, playing amateur football.
Read more: Fed up residents consider human 'blockade' on bridge to stop everyday violence
“So the whole thing was getting on top of me, and then you were finished for the day at half one or two o’clock, that is when I’d get lonely. You go back to the digs, nothing to do, say, ‘okay I’ll go down and put a bet on’. You start drifting a little bit.
“Every day you go to the bookies and go, ‘this isn’t right’. You have a pint, because I’m bored, things catch you out, things draw you in in some ways because you’re alone with nothing else to do.
"The feeling of letting everyone down – the family – would be so, so strong when you go back home. You know you’re gonna be known as, ‘Yeah he went to Liverpool, he wasn’t good enough to make it there’.”
Ronnie’s left-footed Ireland goal against Russia at Euro ‘88 remains the stuff of legend and he won six titles, two FA Cups and a European Cup with the Reds. He described the roar from the Kop as intoxicating, but admitted racism was rife in the early ‘80s – and he got a hard time from some fans.
Ronnie added: “It’s not nice when there’s a crowd that don’t like you, which I had. The whole Irish thing, being the stupid Irish person, that was more back in the early ‘80s than ever, but you just had to basically get on with it.”
When his Liverpool contract was abruptly axed in 1994 under new manager Roy Evans – he was earning “six or seven grand” a week by then – Ronnie said he broke down in tears.
He said: “It was like coming out of prison. ‘What am I going to do? I’ve got three kids’.
“I had a cry, I pulled [the car] over and I wept on the side of the road thinking, ‘It’s gone, it’s all gone’.”
- Ronnie recounts his life story in Keys To My Life on RTE One tonight at 8.30pm.
Read next:
Huge government update on Dublin's controversial €25m whitewater rafting project
City centre locals 'terrified' to leave home after man hit with wooden plank
Car ban on South William Street a step closer after inclusion in development plan
Sign up to the Dublin Live Newsletter to get all the latest Dublin news straight to your inbox.
