Glenn Keeley: My Everton derby despair but Wembley joy with Blackburn Rovers

But, for non-Rovers supporters, the most famous moment of his distinguished career came during a spell away from Ewood Park.

Keeley was in dispute with the club over a new contract, and had not played a competitive match for more than five months, when he joined First Division Everton on loan in October 1982.

Keeley was reunited with Kendall at Goodison Park and, such was his respect for his former Rovers boss, that he agreed to make his debut in the white-hot heat of a Merseyside derby, even though he knew he was nowhere near fit enough to feature in a match of that magnitude.

It was a decision he lived to regret.

In front of the Match of the Day cameras, Keeley was sent off after 32 minutes for a professional foul on future Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish.

Liverpool, already one goal up, took full advantage to inflict a humiliating 5-0 defeat on their rivals.

Keeley would never play for Everton again.

“There were things going on at Blackburn at the time, I’d been let down by the club in terms of wages and they’d also denied me the chance to move,” said Keeley, who turned 60 last year.

 “So when Howard called I went to have a look at them at a night game. I took my wife and as we sat there, she said, ‘what you think?’ I said, ‘it’s a poor side, but the last thing he needs is a centre-half, he needs to sort everything else out first’. But I took a chance because it was a big club.

“I signed on the Thursday, played in the reserves on the Saturday, and that was the first game I’d had in six months because I’d been in dispute with the club.

“Howard was desperate to change things and we had a practice game on the Monday. It went quite well and on the Tuesday he said, ‘I’m playing you Saturday against Liverpool’. And when he said that, I thought, ‘don’t be silly’. It was miles too soon because I wasn’t match fit. I needed more games under my belt. At the time I’d had a summer break, which was longer in those times, and then when I went back, Blackburn wouldn’t let me train, I was training on my own.

“So I was nowhere near natural game fit and, although the reserve game went okay, it was a reserve team game, and there’s massive difference between that and playing in what at that time was, and still is now, an unbelievably competitive, high-level derby.

“At the time Liverpool were clearly the best side in Europe and probably the world, but Howard always said to me, ‘you’re a big game player’, which I was. I enjoyed the big games and got myself up for them. However, I just knew I would struggle.

“But I knew with Howard he wasn’t the sort of man you’d say no to, but even my wife said, ‘you can’t play in that game, you need a few more games’.

“But I took a chance and that year they brought in the professional foul. I had no knowledge of it because I hadn’t played that season and when I pulled Dalglish back, I honestly expected to get a booking. So when I get sent off it came as a shock to me.

“That was that for me at Everton, but what was most disappointing for me, was that when I got back to Blackburn, they hadn’t told me was that there’d been another six clubs who had wanted me.

“If I’d gone to one of those clubs I would have turned around to their manager and said, ‘I need three of four reserve team games, just to start to get some match fitness, then two or three games of first-team football’, because you can’t just walk away from the game for six months and expect it work it out like that.”

Keeley returned to Rovers and, with bridges built, he resumed his rock-solid centre-back partnership with Derek Fazackerley.

He went on to make 418 appearances for the club and in March 1987 lifted the Full Members Cup after Colin Hendry, the 21-year-old signed by Mackay to replace him as skipper, scored late on to seal a memorable 1-0 Wembley win over Charlton Athletic.

“I’ll always treasure winning the Full Members Cup,” said Keeley who, at odds with Mackay, Bobby Saxton’s permanent successor, left Rovers for Oldham Athletic in the summer of 1987.

“But we got lucky as I don’t think we played well throughout the whole competition, certainly not in the final. I can’t remember coming out of a game thinking we deserved to win, but by the time of the quarter-finals I began to think our name was on it, because we’d never really once performed, and never one played a team off the park, yet we kept winning.

“But we did it thanks to a goal from Colin Hendry, who at that stage was playing up front because he wasn’t ready to be a centre-half. He wasn’t a natural defender but he had natural ability times 10. He was just wonderful in the air, he had great feet, was very quick, and that’s why we stuck him up front – and it was a good job we did!

“But Bobby Saxton needs to take a lot of credit for that win. He was a dour man but a good man and in many respects a good manager because you have to remember he didn’t work with a lot of money, whereas the new manager got a lot of financial support from Jack Walker.

“And before Bobby got sacked I’d never known a manager to have a run like he had. For about 18 months, every little situation that could go wrong for him, went wrong for him, and you literally saw him in those last six months going grey before your eyes.

“I think we went to Hull City at Christmas time and I remember Simon Garner hitting a shot, it hitting the goalkeeper’s shoulder, hitting the underside of the crossbar, then coming out. And I remember thinking if that’d had gone in, Bobby would have kept his job, and on the way home we all knew what the board were going to do, which was probably what they had to do.

“It was such a shame but, as much as Don, he deserved credit for what happened next.”