When a teenaged Dean Saunders made his debut for Swansea in the Second Division, it probably seemed unlikely that, a decade later, he would be playing for Galatasaray with Mike Marsh and Barry Venison.
But life moves in mysterious ways and an eventful career took Saunders to Turkey, Portugal and beyond, via a British record transfer, more than 250 goals, three major trophies, 75 caps for Wales… and eight relegations. In 1991, the year he went down with Derby, his Rams goals and then his European heroics for Liverpool helped him to 13th in the Ballon d’Or voting, level with Hristo Stoichkov and above Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten.
His competitive spirit hasn’t left him. Before speaking to FFT, the 59-year-old has been battling it out over 18 holes. “My team won – we got a bottle of champagne!” he says, beaming.
A talkSPORT pundit since 2016, after seven seasons as a manager, Saunders meets us to retread his life in football. He isn’t short of an anecdote or three, featuring goats, umbrellas, accidental transfers, Robert Maxwell, Graeme Souness and, yes, Brian Clough…
Your father, Roy, played for Liverpool and Swansea – did he inspire you?
Jonathan Thomas, Swansea
He was from Salford. When he signed for Hull, Major Frank Buckley was the manager and he had to take my dad into a shop to get some long trousers. He only had shorts – he’d never owned a pair of long trousers – so when we’re thinking now about things being difficult in this country, imagine what it was like then. He later spent 11 years at Liverpool, then got transferred to Swansea, met my mum and stayed there for the rest of his life.
He pushed me into being competitive at every sport – I even played bowls for a pub. I was in a snooker team, a cricket team, the rugby team, the school football teams, athletics… My dad always made me feel like, ‘Why haven’t you won?’ He never hammered me but he’d say, ‘Who beat you? What happened? I know you scored twice today, but you should’ve had a bagful’.
That carried on through my career. I remember walking into the players lounge at Aston Villa; I think I’d scored two against Manchester United, but missed a few as well. My dad was shaking his head! [Laughs] He said, “You should’ve had a bagful out there.” But he gave me that determination.
How was your experience of playing for John Toshack at Swansea?
Lloyd Russell, Port Talbot
I was a young player when they climbed through the leagues, all the way from the Fourth Division to the top flight. He was like God. I did my ACL but he gave me a contract to give me a chance to get fit,
