The George Berry afro was one of football’s legendary haircuts.
In the same class as Barry Venison’s mullet, Jason Lee’s pineapple or Terry Darracott’s comb-over, Berry is one of few players to be noted as much for his barnet as he was for his playing ability.
The claim is one he admits. In full bloom, the Berry afro was imposing. “If I made a mistake from a corner, everybody knew who it was,” he jokes. “And in the winter when the snow fell, it got very heavy.
"But I thought it made me look like a bigger, tougher member of the Jackson Five.”
Berry, now 53, reveals that curls are long gone and he has more in common with Harry Hill than any member of Indiana’s most famous pop act.
“It happens to everyone – baldness,” he says regretfully. “I was in my mid-30s when it started. I suffered anger and denial before I came to terms with the idea.
“I’ve said it before, but if I was younger and playing today, I could have got Vidal Sassoon to sponsor my hair.”
The perceptive former Wolves centre back has considered opinions on money, racism and changing cultures in the modern game, insisting that many of his views were founded at childhood, growing up in a working-class family in Blackpool.
Born in Rostrup, Germany to a Welsh mother and a Jamaican father who was serving in the forces, the Berry family moved to the Flyde coast in the early 1960s. “We’d moved back to South Wales and my dad was fed up so he closed his eyes and put a pin in the map. So we ended up in Blackpool.”
Berry played for Bispham Juniors, a team managed by the brother in law of former Liverpool striker Alun Evans. Soon, he was on trial at today’s opponents Wolverhampton Wanderers. “Maybe Alun didn’t think I’d be good enough for Liverpool,” he chuckles. “On the other hand, he had a close allegiance to Wolves so maybe he was trying to do them a favour.”
Berry signed forms at Molineux just one day after finishing his final O-Level exam. By 1976, he was just a year away from his professional debut and Liverpool were in town for the final match of the season.
“Liverpool needed the three points for the title and we needed it to stay up. As an apprentice, it was my job to sweep the home dressing rooms after the game. Wolves lost 3-1 after leading and went down. The atmosphere was depressing. All I could hear was the Liverpool lads celebrating – and rightly so. They deserved it.”
Berry featured in the Wolves squad that earned promotion back to the top flight a year later and soon came up against Kenny Dalglish – a player who he regards as the finest he faced.
“Ian Rush was brilliant too. But Kenny was a nightmare. He never stopped talking. He taught me never to answer back because it was a ploy to make you lose concentration.
“There was one game where we were drawing 0-0. There was 10 minutes to go and Kenny was muttering to me, ‘You’ve had a great game to day – man-of-the-match – you haven’t given me a sniff.’ I turned round to say something and in that instance, the ball was played in behind me. Kenny moved the quickest and he scored.
“From that day on, I never spoke to an opposing forward during the game. Unless it was telling him to get up.”
During a 16-year playing career, Berry never won a game at Anfield.
“We were beaten before we walked onto the pitch. Any away team has to bow to the ‘This Is Anfield’ sign and walk underneath it. Watching the Liverpool players touch that sign crushed the confidence of a lot of players because we weren’t worthy to do the same. It took me a couple of years to realise, but it was psychologically damaging.”
Berry played 160 times for Wolves and helped them secure the 1980 League Cup in their greatest period of success since the 50s. Then one day in 1982, he was pulled into Ian Greaves’ managers’ office.
“He said, ‘I’m going to do you a favour – I’m going to release you.’ I said that if that’s doing me a favour, I don’t want you to do anything bad. I never thought for a minute that I’d ever leave Wolves.
“But Ian explained to me that the club was struggling financially and would be lucky to see out the year. I thought he was winding me up, because as a player you never think that things will ever get so desperate so quickly. Ian was right because they got relegated and carried on their decline until they were in the old Fourth Division. It was a travesty.”
Berry soon signed for Stoke where he remained for eight seasons before spells at Aldershot and Stafford Rangers. After retiring, the former Wales international remained in the Potteries, a place he clearly feels an affinity towards, completing a business degree and becoming the PFA's senior commercial executive.
He misses his playing days, “especially the craic,” but is adamant there is one side of the game that he doesn’t recall fondly.
“Like John Barnes, I suffered from racist abuse,” he says. “It was difficult. You can either crumble or use all that negativity and turn it into a positive. When the opposing fans had a go at me and started chanting racist chanting, I always used to say in my head, ‘I must be doing my job – because if I was playing badly, they wouldn’t care about me.’
“Thankfully, attitudes are changing but there is still some way to go.”
Berry has been impressed by Wolves this season and says Mick McCarthy is a manager he and the fans can relate to.
“I really like him. You can tell a good manager when a team is shaped in his image. They work for each other, have a strong team spirit, yet there is still room for individuality.
“They deserve to be in the Premier League. It’s where a club the size of Wolves belong.”
