Craig Bellamy’s Blackburn manager, Mark Hughes, told him not to move to Liverpool.
Craig Bellamy acknowledged that he disregarded Mark Hughes’ counsel in order to finalise his ideal transfer to Liverpool.
The former forward for Manchester City and Newcastle couldn’t say no to Rafa Benitez in 2006 because he had grown up cheering for the Reds. But looking back, after a difficult and short first stint at Anfield, he wishes he had.
If Bellamy had listened to Blackburn manager Mark Hughes, who didn’t think Benitez’s style of play would work for the quick-witted Welshmen, Bellamy would have stayed at Ewood Park. And so it turned out—he only ever played at Anfield for one season.
The most memorable incident from Bellamy’s first stint at Liverpool was his notorious golf club attack on teammate John Arne Riise prior to a Champions League match against Barcelona in 2007. Riise’s refusal to sign an initiation song and his avoidance of their Christmas celebration had displeased Bellamy. The Norwegian defender retaliated sharply when he challenged him.
He went up to Riise’s room after taking a golf club from Steve Finnan. “I knocked on his door, there’s no good way of it, certainly not proud, I don’t particularly like [it], it’s not a great moment for me at all,” he remarked, recalling his actions, on YouTube & Ange Golf Life.
