By LFC Vancouver member Ste Speed, 09 May 07.

Mullet hair-styled Welshman Dean Saunders biggest claim to fame, from his time at Anfield, might be the fact that he’s the only Liverpool player ever to have a kit named after him! For a number of years I’ve always referred to the awful 1992 shirt (the one with the big Adidas stripes on the shoulder) as the ‘Dean Saunders Kit’. I was discussing this particular shirt with a friend recently and when I was trying to describe it to him, he responded: “you mean the Dean Saunders kit?” I was surprised to find I wasn’t the only person to refer to the shirt in this way, so I asked around a few friends about it and I discovered to my amusement that I’m definitely not the only person to refer to that particular shirt in this way.

Dean Saunders football career has been interestingly linked with a number of Ex Red’s as he was managed by and has worked with a number of former Liverpool players from his playing days to his coaching role at Newcastle United.

Saunders started his football career in 1980, signing as an apprentice for his hometown club Swansea City when he was sixteen years old. The Saunders father and son connection is strong at Swansea City and Liverpool as Dean’s father Roy had also been a player at both clubs in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Dean made his full debut for Swansea City in 1982 and went on to make almost fifty appearances over the following three years. In the early 1980’s, Swansea City were managed by former Liverpool striker John Toshack, who was in the process of taking the club from the old fourth division to the first division. Saunders first season at the club followed what had been a great one Swansea City who had just finished sixth in the first division. They had actually been top of the league at various times during the season too and famously defeated Liverpool in what was a big upset at the time. Unfortunately it was downhill from there as they were then relegated two seasons in a row and Toshack was sacked.

By 1985 the club was close to going out of business due to mounting debts and Saunders moved on to Brighton & Hove Albion where he spent two seasons. In February 1987 he moved to Oxford United who where struggling near the bottom of the first division table. He scored a number of vital goals in the next few months which helped the side narrowly avoid relegation at the end of the season. During the following season 1987/88, Oxford United got a new manager, ex Liverpool defender Mark Lawrenson. Unfortunately they were relegated at the end of the season, finishing in bottom place. Saunders had made a bit of a name for himself with some great goals and performances and in August 1988 he was sold to Derby County for £1 million. This was a very controversial transfer at the time because Derby County’s chairman was the infamous media tycoon Robert Maxwell and Oxford United’s chairman was his son Kevin. Mark Lawrenson complained bitterly about the transfer as he was losing his best player and this eventually led to Lawro being sacked over it.

He had two seasons at Derby County and his goal scoring record there was very impressive. In his second season he scored twenty four goals despite Derby being relegated in bottom place of the first division. After Derby County were relegated Saunders became a fixture on the back pages of the newspapers as almost every top club were linked with buying him. Liverpool eventually won the race to sign him in August 1991, paying a British record (at the time) of £2.9 million.

Graeme Souness had just returned to Liverpool as manager near the end of the previous season, replacing Kenny Dalglish. Souey was a firm favourite with the fans from his playing days at Anfield and he had tasted success at Rangers in Scotland. So we all had high hopes that he would just continue where Kenny had left off and take us to more glory and league title wins. Dean Saunders was his first major signing for Liverpool and at the time it appeared to be a phenomenal move. This transfer that at first seemed exciting soon turned sour on Souness as, in a move to partly finance the transfer, Peter Beardsley was sold to Everton for £1 million. A lot of Liverpool fans never forgave Souness for this and Saunders was often left as the scapegoat for this anger as the team had an inconsistent season in the league.

He had a poor start to his Liverpool career when he failed to score in his opening three games. In his second game at Man City he missed a penalty and then in his third game at Luton Town he missed an open goal from three yards out. Things soon improved however and he formed a decent striking partnership with his Wales team-mate Ian Rush. Saunders and Rush had a good partnership at Liverpool as well as with Wales. During his time at Liverpool, Saunders scored the winning goal for Wales in a 1 – 0 win against Brazil.

Saunders is often wrongly thought of as being a bit of a failure for Liverpool. This stems partly by the fact that he only played one full season for us and also because we didn’t have a great season in the league that year, which was also Graeme Souness’s first full season as manager. However when we look back at what Saunders achieved in the 1991/92 season it’s clear that he was actually far from a failure. He scored 23 goals that season in all competitions and he became the first Liverpool player to score four goals in a single European game, against Kuusysi Lahti from Finland. He also broke Roger Hunt’s record of total goals in Europe in a single season with nine in the UEFA Cup which had stood for over twenty five years. Saunders also helped the club to finish the season with an FA Cup Final win over Sunderland with a good performance and assisting in the second goal for Ian Rush.

Unfortunately after just one season he was transferred to Aston Villa for £2.5 million. Souness appeared to prefer Ronny Rosenthal up front with Rush. I never understood this decision at the time and I still think it was a massive mistake to sell him so quickly. This decision came back to haunt Souey as quickly as Saunders home debut for Villa which was against Liverpool. He scored two amazing goals and Rosenthal missed an open goal in one of the all time great football bloopers. Saunders had a good couple of seasons at Villa in which he scored the goals to help them finish second in the first Premiership season. He later scored two goals in the League Cup Final victory against Man Utd.

After his time at Aston Villa ended in 1995, Saunders spent the final six years of his career as a bit of a journeyman. He rejoined Souness at Galatasaray and Benfica and he had disappointing spells with Nottingham Forest and Sheffield Utd. His final club was Bradford City where played for three years before retiring in 2002. He was last seen as a coach with Newcastle Utd, where he was reunited once again with Souness and he worked alongside another Ex Red, Terry McDermott.

Despite the bad feeling a lot of Reds fans have for the Graeme Souness managerial reign at Anfield, there are still fans who have respect for Dean Saunders. He always gave 100% effort during his time as a Liverpool player and he scored some very important goals too.

Video Clip:
Dean Saunders Cheeky/Hilarious Goal 1998

What do you think? Give Ste your comments at steSpeed [at] lfcvancouver.com.

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YNWA/JFT 96,
Andy Neumann

Standings as of 10 May 07.

Rank	Member	Points
1	Ste	43
2	Kevin	40
3	Lance	36
3	Dennis	36
5	Mark Aston	31
6	Andy	26
7	Keith	24
8	Glenn Whyte	10
9	Chris Cole	6
10	Quentin	5
11	Glenn Whitt.	3

To enter the members contest see the rules below.

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• Only open to paid LFC Vancouver Members.
• You list the names of the players you think will start the next LFC match.
• You must submit your list to lfcvancouver [at] gmail.com at least 12 hours before kick-off.
• This contest will include every match that LFC plays this season. Starting with Blackburn.
• The member(s) that correctly guess the starting XI will be awarded 5 points.
• At the end of the season the player with the most points will win the prize.
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YNWA/JFT 96,

Andy Neumann