Beardsley remains at the top of the class

Picture the scene. Peter Beardsley, having ended a three-month nightmare at Bolton by agreeing a month's loan at Frank Clark's Manchester City, is three-quarters of an hour from their training ground, Rod Stewart wearing it well on his car CD player, when his mobile phone rings.

Rod is giving it such big licks that it is a while before Beardsley picks it up. When he does, his wife tells him that Clark has been sacked. Even in the Loony Tunes world of Manchester City, this is in a chart of its own.

It was such a bad omen that many people might have turned the car round, or steered into the back of the nearest lorry bearing the name F H Lee, the City chairman. Beardsley drove on to find Clark saying his farewells.

"When I heard the news, in a funny sort of way, I felt guilty," he says. "But Frank is different class. He stayed to speak to me, to tell me to look after myself. Then the new manager, Joe Royle, picked me against Ipswich that night, which was a good start."

Sadly, the story on the pitch was as familiarly predictable as the City story off it; hope of a new beginning when Kit Symons gave City an early lead, followed by despair and black comedy when Ipswich scored two late goals.

Royle did not provide any new manager's pre-match champagne, a la Vialli at Chelsea. Beardsley, however, still found a surprising amount of bubble in the dressing room before the team ran out to rejoin reality. "I don't know whether my presence made a difference or if it was because of the new manager. But there was a good buzz. I only saw the down side when Ipswich equalised and the lads may have started to think, `Here we go again'."

It was a feeling that might have hit Beardsley when he took that phone call. Having been left out, then sold, by Newcastle's Kenny Dalglish, he was dropped and ignored at Bolton by Colin Todd before being thrown that lifeline from the bridge of the Titanic.

Beardsley (37), a man of impeccable pedigree among the Bolton mongrels, was understandably affronted when Todd, who had virtually guaranteed a first team place, dropped him against Manchester United. He did so with the ominous, if bewildering words: "I'm putting out a team today to try to win the game." What does he do for the rest of the games?

Beardsley, who had played just three times, says: "How could Todd say that I wasn't up to playing in big games? If he had said I was shite, I could have accepted it. But when I tried to talk to him, he just said that it was his job to pick the team."

If Beardsley was unable to settle a verbal argument with Todd, there is an abiding lie that he could only settle his differences with Dalglish with the aid of a hatchet.

He says: "Everyone thinks I've got a problem with Kenny. But when he made me Liverpool's record signing, he acted as much as my agent as my manager, telling me what to ask for and what to expect. I was pretty poor in the first four or five months, and it was Kenny who told me not to worry, that once I was settled into my new house, everything would be okay. He didn't sell me from Liverpool, either - Graeme Souness did."

Beardsley has heard enough dispiriting words in managers' offices to drive him into a lifetime of counselling. Yet he is still intent on taking up a chair there when he finally abandons his role as the Cliff Richard of football players.

His quiet image belies a football brain which springs from behind its bushel when you ask him to analyse the problems of Liverpool and Everton, both former clubs, who meet in the Premiership on Monday.

Of Liverpool, he says: "They lack a voice in the team, someone who can organise and shape them in the way that Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson used to when I was there. Liverpool's problems are a bit like Newcastle's under KK (Kevin Keegan); they are committed to playing great attacking football and, sometimes, they forget to lock the back door. They look world beaters one week, and the next, they're all over the place."

After winning the title in his first season at Liverpool, Beardsley arrived at Goodison during Howard Kendall's second, less successful, spell as manager. He still derived so much pleasure from his two years that he reluctantly left for Newcastle.

Using a favourite expression, he declares Kendall top class. Frank Clark is top class. Dalglish is top class. KK and Rod, it goes without saying, are top class. And Beardsley himself? TC.