Friday, 8 August 2008

Peter Barnes 1990

Peter Simon Barnes was born 10th June, 1957, in Manchester, son of footballer Ken Barnes. He made his debut for Manchester City in 1974-75, and scored in the 1976 League Cup final at the age of 19. In the same year he was voted Young Player of the Year by the Professional Footballers Association. Peter was sold by Malcolm Allison 1979, and joined West Bromwich Albion for a fee of £752,000 - a club transfer record which was not broken for nearly 20 years.
He was Albion's leading scorer in 1979-80, but he struggled to emulate this form after signing for Leeds United in 1981. Leeds manager Allan Clarke played him as a striker, but Peter failed to adapt to his new role, scoring only one goal. He was a regular with England at the time but apparently unpopular with his team-mates, who took advantage of his club troubles in pressuring manager Ron Greenwood to drop him.
When Leeds were relegated in 1982 he was loaned to Spanish club Real Betis for a season, but didn't relish the climate and returned to Leeds the following year. After 27 games and 4 goals in the Second Division, he was sold to Coventry City for £50,000, where he scored 8 goals in 29 games. Ron Atkinson subsequently signed him for Manchester United, where he was effectively an understudy to Danish winger Jesper Olsen. Barnes managed only 35 appearances during his two years at Manchester United, and scored 10 goals.
Atkinson was replaced as Manchester United manager by Alex Ferguson, who quickly fell out with him. He was transferred back to Manchester City in 1987, but soon fell out of favour and was loaned out to Bolton Wanderers and Port Vale. His league career petered out with brief spells at Hull City, Bolton again and Sunderland. He moved on to the Rowdies in the APSL.
Peter played only 11 games for the Rowdies in 1990 and scoring 1 goal with 6 assists.
When he joined the Rowdies, he was 32 years old, after failing to persuade Bury he was worth a contract, drifted into non-league football with Mossley.
He had also played in Spain and Portugal.
Played for England 22 times, between 1976 and 1982.

After retiring from playing, Peter had a spell managing Runcorn and has since worked behind the scenes at Manchester City and for local radio.
I have a game worn Rowdies jersey worn by Peter from 1990.

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