Billy Kenny, 'Goodison Gazza', and the Dressing-Room Door That Never Opened Again

I stood under the stadium canopy when the first summer rain began to fall. In my ears, the sound of studs on the concrete corridor still echoes – the sound of young players leaving the dressing room full of hope. But some doors never open again. For Billy Kenny, that door slammed shut when he was only 21. The story he has just told in Jamie Fahey's book is not a tactical breakdown, nor a failed transfer. It is the story of a club that won the race for a signature but lost the battle to keep a human being. In the winter of 2026, Kenny played at Goodison Park in the Merseyside derby and was named man of the match against Liverpool. Three months later, he won one England U21 cap. A teenager compared to Paul Gascoigne, courted by three giants: Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, Kenny Dalglish's Liverpool and Howard Kendall's Everton. He chose Everton – the club he loved, under the manager he once saw as a father figure in football. Only 23 games later, his career lay in ruins. I have watched many young talents disappear from football's map. But Kenny's case reminds me of an old scout's words: “Talent never travels alone; it always carries a burden.” Kenny's burden did not come from opponents on the pitch. It came from dressing-room culture. According to Kenny, drinking was almost mandatory when he reached the Everton first team. Most of the first-team regulars “lived for the booze”. Those who did not drink were mocked and isolated. One senior player told Kenny that if he did not drink, he would be sold. Kenny was 18. He wanted to belong, wanted to be accepted, so he drank. At 19, Kenny was found to be using cocaine. He received no help from the club. “There was no help at all, there was no one for me,” he says. He sank deeper. Two years later, aged 21, he retired. His career amounted to 23 Everton games, 4 Oldham games, 2 Barrow games and one England U21 cap. What matters is that Kenny does not blame Everton for everything. He admits he was no angel and played his part in his own downfall. He holds no hatred for Howard Kendall. Kendall was one of Everton's most successful managers, but he was also an alcoholic. Kenny looks at Kendall with love and regret. Kendall sits at the “broken heart” of this story. Jamie Fahey's book, written by a Guardian journalist, depicts a period in English football when drink addled so many young men. The author calls it “penetrating and sobering”. For someone in my profession, this story is old, but every retelling still has the power to silence a room. The article's reference value lies not in tactics but in the contrast between past and present. Today, Everton's Finch Farm training ground has 17 mental-health support contacts for players. Michael Branch – Kenny's close friend, a former Everton player who went to prison – was later brought back by the club and helped rebuild his life. If those arms had existed in the 1990s, would Billy Kenny have travelled further? No one can answer. But I want to push back a little against the narrative spreading online. The public tends to reduce everything to one sentence: “Everton destroyed Billy Kenny.” The real story is more complex. Kenny admits he chose his path after 19. He speaks of nights at the Paradox nightclub, of alcohol on the team bus, of non-drinkers being treated as outsiders. That was a group, an era, a system lacking responsibility – and Kendall was inside that vortex too. I remember a rainy training-ground afternoon years ago, when a local coach told me: “Young players do not need another father; they need an adult who knows how to listen.” In that Everton side, Kenny had Colin Harvey – the assistant manager who often talked football with him. But one listener was not enough to fight a culture that lived for the booze. The biggest lesson here goes beyond Everton. It applies to every academy, every small club in Vietnam, every place where an 18-year-old is pushed into the light and then left alone in the dark. I have followed matches for three decades, and I have learned that running statistics never tell the whole story. A player can run a great deal for 90 minutes, but if nobody asks how he is living after the final whistle, those distances are just beautiful numbers. Kenny is now 53. He has been sober since his mother died. He tells his story as a warning, not as a demand for compensation. Jamie Fahey's book may not belong in a tactical library, but it is a document about human beings. There is a sentence I write at the end of every notebook: “I write about the ball, but I keep time with the hearts of the people who kick it.” Billy Kenny was once the heart of Goodison Park before he became a forgotten name. His return in this interview is not meant to save a finished career; it is meant to save careers that have not yet begun. From zero, I learned that the dressing-room door only opens when you are willing to stand in the rain. The rain of that year washed away many things, but it did not wash away the memory of one summer. For Billy Kenny, that summer was short, but it was long enough for people to see a talent flash and a system fail. In Vietnam, in China, wherever football exists, the dressing-room door truly opens only when we dare to stand in the rain and listen to what is not said. Kenny's story will always be new every time a talented boy is left alone in a dressing room.