Thomas Kevin Beattie was an English footballer. He played at both professional and international levels, mostly as a centre-half. He has been called Ipswich Town’s best ever player by many pundits and polls. He won the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup with Ipswich, as well as the European Cup with Liverpool and Celtic.
About Kevin Beattie in brief
Thomas Kevin Beattie was an English footballer. He played at both professional and international levels, mostly as a centre-half. His playing career included some controversy, notably when he went missing after being selected for England’s under-23 team. After retiring from playing he descended into unemployment and alcohol abuse, and contemplated suicide, before finding purpose once more and a new career in later life, as a football commentator on television and radio. He was named the inaugural PFA Young Player of the Year at the end of the 1972–73 season, and featured in the film Escape to Victory alongside many of his Ipswich teammates. He has been called Ipswich Town’s best ever player by many pundits and polls. He won the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup with Ipswich, as well as the European Cup with Liverpool and Celtic. He died of a heart attack at the age of 69. He is survived by his wife, two children and a step-daughter. He also leaves behind a son, a daughter and a son-in-law. He never played for Liverpool, but was offered a trial with the club when he was 15. He left school aged 14, and subsequently worked as a machine fitter and delivery boy in factories, a warehouse, a dry cleaner and then a furniture company. His father worked for the National Coal Board, delivering coal. His family lived in the Botcherby estate and he was one of nine children: five boys and four girls.
His mother was a cleaner at a Lipton tea shop, whilst his father played amateur football as a goalkeeper. He idolised players like Hughie McIlmoyle, and idolised his local football team, Carlisle United, and modelled himself on Chelsea’s Peter Osgood. He passed his eleven-plus exams, but his family could not afford the grammar school uniform, so he moved to St Patrick’s Roman Catholic senior school. He began playing for Blackfriars, a local youth team managed by Raffety, and also for a pub team, alongside his father. At 15, he was spotted by a football scout and offered atrial with Liverpool. He impressed manager Bill Shankly sufficiently for him to be invited back to sign for the club. After an hour and a half, and with nothing but his boots and train ticket, he returned home to Carlisle. He would later describe missing out on signing for Liverpool as one of his biggest mistakes. Soon after this he joined Ipswich as an apprentice. The poverty was evident when he arrived in his father’s shoes, so when he played in a youth match at Fulham, he wore some Ipswich club’s clothes, so the club’s chief scout, Ron Grayman, bought him some clothes. If you miss him, you’ve lost your job, he told him, so told him. He said: ‘If you’ve missed him, miss him. You’ve lost him, I’m sorry’ He went on to play for Portman Road in a friendly against Fulham.
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This page is based on the article Kevin Beattie published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
