John Charles Bryan Barnes MBE was born on 7 November 1963 and is a former professional football player and manager.
70 Facts About John Barnes
2.
John Barnes won two league titles and two FA Cup finals with Liverpool.
3.
John Barnes was an FA Cup runner-up with Watford, Liverpool and Newcastle United.
4.
John Barnes was born and raised in Jamaica as the son of a military officer from Trinidad and Tobago and a Jamaican mother.
5.
John Barnes moved to London, England, with his family when he was 12 years old.
6.
John Barnes joined Watford aged 17 in 1981, before playing 296 competitive games for them, scoring 85 goals.
7.
John Barnes had eight months as Celtic head coach when his former Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish was director of football.
8.
John Barnes was the PFA Players' Player of the Year once and the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year twice.
9.
In 2006, in a poll of Liverpool fans' favourite players, John Barnes came fifth; a year later, FourFourTwo magazine named him Liverpool's best all-time player.
10.
John Barnes was born in Jamaica, to Roderick Kenrick "Ken" John Barnes and Frances Jeanne Hill.
11.
Ken John Barnes hailed from Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago emigrating to Jamaica in 1956 as a member of the West India Regiment.
12.
John Barnes joined the Jamaica Defence Force when formed after the nation's 1962 independence when he was initially commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Jamaica Regiment.
13.
John Barnes spent his early childhood living in Jamaica's biggest military base, playing football and living a disciplined life.
14.
John Barnes's father was president of the Jamaica Amateur Swimming Association and later formed Jamaica's first bobsleigh team.
15.
Ken John Barnes, who was promoted to Colonel in 1973, was appointed Defence adviser to the High Commission of Jamaica, London and John Barnes moved to London with his family in January 1976 when he was 12 years old.
16.
John Barnes was noticed by Watford as a teenager while playing for Middlesex League club Sudbury Court.
17.
John Barnes left Watford on 9 June 1987 to sign for Liverpool FC on June 12,1987 after 233 league appearances scoring 65 goals.
18.
John Barnes signed for Liverpool FC on June 12,1987.
19.
John Barnes was a key performer on the Anfield Rap; the club's cup final song that UK charted at number 3.
20.
John Barnes pulled out of an England international friendly in order to fulfil these public duties.
21.
John Barnes was voted Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year, and expectations from England manager Bobby Robson were high, seeing John Barnes as a key component in the buildup to Italia 90.
22.
For three or four years at the end of the '80s, John Barnes was possibly the best player in the world.
23.
John Barnes continued to play regularly for Liverpool and England into the 1990s.
24.
Liverpool won the 1992 FA Cup Final but John Barnes missed the game through injury.
25.
John Barnes never recovered his explosive burst of speed that had been a key element of his play.
26.
John Barnes once had to make a public apology to Souness after he gave an interview criticising the tactics employed by the manager before an important match.
27.
Young teammate Robbie Fowler said in his autobiography that Souness felt at the time John Barnes was past his best, but in Fowler's opinion he still had a lot to offer and was still one of the most talented players at the club.
28.
When Rush departed to Leeds United at the season's end John Barnes became full-time captain.
29.
Jamie Carragher debuted for the Liverpool first team in January 1997 and said that despite the 33-year-old John Barnes now being past his peak, he was still the best player at the club.
30.
On 13 August 1997 three months before his 34th birthday, after 10 years at Liverpool with 407 appearances, 108 goals, and five major trophies, John Barnes left on a free transfer.
31.
John Barnes was snapped up by former teammate and manager Kenny Dalglish, who was managing Newcastle United.
32.
Pearce has since stated in his autobiography, Psycho, that he felt John Barnes was overweight by the time he joined Newcastle and that both John Barnes and Rush had less desire than himself to win at that stage in their careers as they had already won everything, and that they could have had more of an edge to them.
33.
Newcastle endured a disappointing league campaign and finished 13th, although they did reach the 1998 FA Cup Final, and John Barnes went onto the field for the fourth FA Cup final of his career.
34.
John Barnes felt that himself and others were deliberately being cold shouldered to make it known Gullit wanted his own players in; Barnes had worked briefly with Gullit during the 1998 World Cup ITV commentary team, and they had played numerous international matches played against each other in the 1980s and 1990s, but they were not friends.
35.
John Barnes left the club on a free transfer to newly promoted Charlton on 10 February 1999.
36.
John Barnes made a further 11 league appearances that season, mostly as a substitute, and did not score any goals.
37.
Defeat on the final day of the season relegated the Addicks back to Division One, and John Barnes announced his retirement as a player after 20 years.
38.
John Barnes had already planned to represent England where he had lived since the age of 12.
39.
England were eliminated with John Barnes praised for his contribution and many asked why he had not played more nor in previous games.
40.
John Barnes then became a regular starter for England at both the 1988 European Championships and 1990 World Cup.
41.
John Barnes pulled out of England's first international game after the Hillsborough disaster due to grief he felt at the time.
42.
John Barnes again rapped this time in New Order's UK Number 1, "World in Motion", tie-in song.
43.
John Barnes later believed an article attributed to Jimmy Greaves in the Daily Mirror, which cited his supposed support for the West Indies cricket team and questioned his loyalty to the England team, had influenced the crowd to boo.
44.
John Barnes earned a surprise England recall in 1994 under Terry Venables and was in the squad in the run up to Euro '96 after improved form for Liverpool, although he was not selected for the final tournament squad despite England not having an established left-sided alternative.
45.
John Barnes described Barnes as being a player of "the highest calibre" but sometimes being unable to reach for that bit extra when he or Captain Bryan Robson shouted at him to take more players on.
46.
John Barnes has since said he felt the systems England played were "rigid" focusing on speed, aggression, and attacking through the centre rather than patient, passing play.
47.
John Barnes entered discussions with the Jamaica Football Federation in September 2008 regarding the possibility of him managing the Jamaica national team.
48.
On 16 September 2008, John Barnes was appointed as manager of Jamaica announcing Mike Commane as his assistant.
49.
John Barnes guided his new Jamaican charges to a first-place finish in the 2008 Caribbean Championships, qualifying as the top Caribbean side for the 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
50.
In February 2009, John Barnes told Sky Sports that he wanted to return to club management if the opportunity arose.
51.
John Barnes was officially named as manager of Tranmere Rovers on 15 June 2009, with Jason McAteer assisting him.
52.
John Barnes got off to a disastrous start, with Tranmere only winning three of their first fourteen games.
53.
John Barnes won the PFA Players' Player of the Year.
54.
John Barnes was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of his contribution to the English game.
55.
John Barnes appears frequently as a selection in FourFourTwo magazine's Perfect XI, a choice in which current and former professional footballers select the best 11 players they have ever seen, played with or against, including selections by Michael Owen, Steve McManaman, Peter Beardsley, Ian Wright and Jamie Carragher.
56.
John Barnes was first married to and subsequently divorced Suzy, with whom he has two sons and two daughters.
57.
Barnes became a pundit on ITV and a presenter of the football coverage on Five as well as having his own weekly football discussion show on LFC TV called The John Barnes Show, every Thursday.
58.
John Barnes worked as an ambassador for Save the Children.
59.
John Barnes has appeared on several shows and media outlets to promote his charity work, including a notable appearance on Soccer AM in February 2009 performing the "World in Motion" rap and a parody of the mistimed advert by ITV in the previous week's Everton vs Liverpool FA Cup tie, with John Barnes' "Under-11 World Champion Baton-twirling" routine missed by mock commercials.
60.
In 2000, John Barnes presented a one off soccer special with Lisa Rogers entitled The Pepsi World Challenge, devised and produced by Nathan Carey and airing on Channel 5 in the UK.
61.
John Barnes was the subject of a This is Your Life programme in 2001, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel.
62.
John Barnes competed in the fifth series of Strictly Come Dancing which started in October 2007.
63.
John Barnes was the first male celebrity to receive a ten from the judges, which he got for his salsa.
64.
John Barnes agreed to run several coaching clinics across the Caribbean for young players with the possibility of them joining Premier League side Sunderland on trial.
65.
John Barnes made a guest appearance as himself in episode 10 of Series 6 of Waterloo Road that was aired on BBC One on Wednesday, 27 October 2010.
66.
John Barnes appeared on Russell Howard's Good News best bits show on Thursday, 15 December 2011, as his Mystery Guest.
67.
John Barnes has suggested the American National Football League's Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for coaching positions, should be adopted by the Premier League.
68.
In 2016 in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum, John Barnes refuted Michael Gove's claim that he wished the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, clarifying that he supports continued UK membership of the EU.
69.
In January 2018, John Barnes participated as a housemate on the twenty-first series of Celebrity Big Brother.
70.
On 21 February 2019, John Barnes was a guest on Question Time, commenting on racism and discrimination in society.