Keepie Up, with King Kenny
I recently had the pleasure of photographing Sir Kenny Dalglish, former Scotland, Celtic FC and Liverpool FC footballing legend par excellence, and his son Paul, also former footballer and now football agent. It was one of those photography assignments that makes you feel lucky to do this job. I’d never photographed Sir Kenny Dalglish before, although I had seen him play for Scotland many years back (but more of that later).
Paul plays with the ear of his father, Sir Kenny Dalglish, Troon, 2024. © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2024.
The assignment, for The Sunday Times Magazine, was for their Relative Values section of the magazine. The image was to be quite standard, and fit a formula so to speak, as it is a weekly slot in the magazine. But as in all jobs, there is still room to possibly fail, or room for the photographer’s professionalism to shine.
This job wasn’t without its minor challenges, but experience has taught me how to deal with it, a bit of forwarding planning, a bit of a recce, get there early, there’s lot of things come into play to make a job a success. Not just the camera work. And so with this job.
Firstly you always get there early. Scout around, do a recce, have two or three locations and ideas in mind for the photos. Because of course the star of your portraits won’t meet you where you’re meant to meet, nor at the time you’re meant to meet, and of course they won’t go to the first two of your scouted locations.
And after you’ve sat for a little while, realising the meeting time has come and gone 20minutes ago, you think, ok, time to take charge here. He’s not coming to me, I’m going to him. And you start searching the golf course to find him. Luckily a staff member had seen Sir Kenny on the practice driving range and I headed over there to find him already playing, a photo shoot the last thing on his mind.
With a few introductions, by his very kind and courteous son Paul, who was perhaps used to his dad’s taciturn demeanour, and hopefully we were good to go. I tell them my ideas, my locations, and Sir Kenny looks at me, “Can we no just do the snap here?”, not the words you want to hear when on a Sunday Times Magazine portrait job.
I guessed time would be short with him, and I may need a bit of cajoling to get what I need and I’d planned ahead. I took along a couple of copies of my Lower Block, ‘Sack The Board!’ photo-zine about Celtic FC (one of Kenny and Paul’s former clubs), as a little sweetener, to try and get them onside. And I do believe it work, as Sir Kenny flicked though the zine at high speed, perhaps spotting former colleagues and friends, looked up and said “Did you take these?” “Yes sir, I did”, and after that there was a certain mellowing in his demeanour.
So off we trouped, over to the fairway’s rough grass, the closest of my locations, the clock already ticking on my short amount of time that hadn’t been specified. Sir Kenny says “Do I need to take a ball?”, thankfully I’d suggested it might be useful and on the way across, my cameras ever ready, Sir Kenny, scorer of 30 goals for his country, starts to play keepie uppie with the golf ball. Bbbrrrr, my camera’s drive was in action and I got the images, while Sir Kenny’s son Paul smiled…
So over to the rough grass and I position them for the portrait, Sir Kenny quipping “everyone will think I hit my ball here”. Then I try my next little nugget of preparation, just to get him onside. “Sir”, I say, “In the very first international game I was at I saw you play for Scotland, against Argentina, at Hampden, with Maradona playing.” As a young kid this was a big game for me to see, Argentina had just won the World Cup, and here they were with boy wonder Diego Maradona in Glasgow’s Hamden Park Stadium. I’ve always remembered that day, how sunny it was, the game, the crowds. It left an impression on me. And I thought it might have left an impression on a man who played in the game, but to my surprise, Sir Kenny looked at me, quizically almost, “aye, what was the score again?” “3-1 to Argentina” I tell him. And then he went on to say he couldn’t remember who scored, made some jokes. And I was a little shocked, at how this game wasn’t too vivid in his mind, it didn’t seem to mean too much to him. I told him I still had my ticket stubb (which I’d hunted high and low for the previous evening, thinking maybe I’d break my cardinal rule and ask for an autograph, but I couldn’t find it). But none the less, the chat was buying me time, all while I photographed.
Paul Dalglish plays with his dad, Sir Kenny Dalglish’s hair. Troon, 2024. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2024.
Sometimes you have to help the energy along, I asked Paul to give his dad a hug, I quizzed them on who was the better golfer, things to bring energy to the portrait game. All the while photographing, with the clock rapidly ticking down. Time was short. Nearly the final whistle. “Can we just do one more photo over here against this wall?” I asked. “Aye, but then I need to go” says Sir Kenny. I was in extra time. Then peep peep, full time whistle. “Thank you Sir, it’s been a pleasure to meet you”. Hand shakes, job done, and another portrait in my archive, another few frames of mine helping to tell my story of Scotland and our people.
Sir Kenny Dalglish (on right) with son Paul, 2024. © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2024.
The portrait of Sir Kenny Dalglish and his son Paul is in today’s Sunday Times Magazine.
Sir Kenny Dalglish, footballer, with son Paul, Troon, 2024. © Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert.