Kenny Dalglish review Liverpool's everyman football hero who took the city's woes on his shoulders

"Kapadia makes his central focus the mysterious inner trial, perhaps Dalglish's hidden ordeal, that took place between 1985 to 1989; from Heysel to Hillsborough. Dalglish was the easygoing, level-headed everyman whose destiny it was to take the city's woes on his shoulders. He became player-manager just after the Heysel stadium disaster in 1985, when there were 39 deaths as a result of a riot at the dilapidated Belgian ground before the Juventus v Liverpool European Cup final."

"It was a day of shame for Liverpool, whose fans were held to be responsible although subsequent analysis of the stadium design, crowd control and policing revealed a situation not too far from the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 97 Liverpool fans largely due to the fencing that, as Kapadia shows, was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Throughout, Dalglish was a stoic figure, consistently visiting hospitals and attending funerals with his players."

"Kapadia shows the grim spectacle of Margaret Thatcher showing up at Hillsborough a couple of days after the disaster, radiating her distaste for football and its massed fans; for her, football was the leisure-activity dimension of trade-unionism. Did she see Hillsborough as all that different from Orgreave? Her government effectively greenlit the Sun's grotesque The Truth headline which caused that paper's circulation to collapse on Merseyside."

The film compiles archival footage and voiceovers to chart Kenny Dalglish's childhood in Glasgow, his standout years at Celtic, and his transfer to Liverpool, where he effectively replaced Kevin Keegan. The narrative centers on Dalglish's inner trial between 1985 and 1989, spanning the Heysel disaster and the Hillsborough tragedy. Heysel resulted in 39 deaths amid a riot before the Juventus v Liverpool European Cup final. Hillsborough caused 97 deaths, largely due to perimeter fencing and failures in stadium design, crowd control, and policing. Dalglish remained a stoic public figure, visiting hospitals and attending funerals while facing intense media and political fallout.

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