Peter Barnes Profile

A tal­en­ted flanker, Pe­ter Bar­nes was voted Young Play­er of the Year af­ter win­ning the Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup wi­th Man­chester City in Feb­ruary 1976. At Wemb­ley Sta­dium, the Maine Road out­fit went in­to the lead when a well taken free-kick from Scot­tish mid­fielder Asa Hart­ford fou­nd cap­tain Mi­ke Doyle who head­ed the ball across the New­castle goal­mouth to give Bar­nes an easy tap in to make the score 1-0 in fa­vour of The Cit­izens af­ter el­ev­en min­utes of open­ing ac­tion. The Mag­pies equal­ised when for­mer Man­chester Uni­ted and Hud­dersfield To­wn front­man Alan Gowl­ing steer­ed ho­me a low cross ball from his strik­ing part­ner Mal­colm Mac­don­ald in the 35th min­ute of the en­counter, on­ly for Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Den­nis Tue­art to hit the win­ner wi­th an as­ton­ish­ing over­head kick which bounced pa­st be­wildered St Ja­mes’ Park shot stop­per Mi­ke Ma­honey and in­to the bot­tom left cor­ner of the goal on 46 min­utes. Af­ter con­trib­ut­ing 15 Fir­st Di­vi­sion goals dur­ing 115 ap­pear­ances for Man­chester City, Bar­nes joi­ned West Brom­wich Al­bion for a club re­cord trans­fer fee of £750,000 at the be­gin­ning of the 1979-80 term, and he was han­ded his com­pet­it­ive de­but for the Black Coun­try si­de by lar­ger than life man­ager Ron Atkin­son in a goal­less draw wi­th Der­by Coun­ty at The Haw­thorns on the 18th of au­gust 1979, and he hit his fir­st goal for The Throstles in a 3-1 de­feat ag­ainst Liver­pool at An­field a week la­ter. As the sea­son went on, he con­tin­ued to score goals and he re­gistered a hat-trick in a 4-4 Lea­gue Di­vi­sion One draw ag­ainst Bol­ton Wan­derers at The Haw­thorns on the 18th of Mar­ch 1980, fin­ish­ing the cam­paign as the club´s lead­ing scor­er wi­th 15 top flight goals dur­ing 38 mat­ches. Fol­low­ing a total of 23 hits dur­ing 77 Di­vi­sion One out­ings for Al­bion, the rock­et-heeled wing for­ward went on to ap­pear for Leeds Uni­ted for whom he de­b­uted in a sur­prise 5-1 de­feat ag­ainst Fir­st Di­vi­sion new­comers Swansea at Vetch Field on the 29th of Au­gust 1981, and would make 30 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ap­per­ances for The Whi­tes dur­ing the 1981-82 sea­son. Then, in an at­tempt to ac­cel­er­ate his play­ing ca­reer, he de­cided to make a move to Span­ish La Liga out­fit Re­al Bet­is in 1983, the year which Wat­ford Chair­man Re­gin­ald Dwight ruled the charts wi­th “I´m Still Standing”.

Pe­ter Bar­nes re­turned to Leeds Uni­ted the fol­low­ing year, tho­ugh, and ap­peared in 27 Fir­st Di­vi­sion mat­ches for the West York­shire out­fit dur­ing his sec­ond spell at El­land Road. Whi­le wi­th Leeds, Bar­nes was shipped out on loan to Ron Atkinson´s Man­chester Uni­ted in 1984, but he re­turned with­out hav­ing made any fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances. Then fol­lowed a move to Cov­entry City where he stayed for one year un­til join­ing Man­chester Uni­ted at the start of the 1985-86 cam­paign, and this time on a per­man­ent basis. A flank­man wi­th a nose for the net, he sco­red on his Uni­ted de­but in a 3-1 Fir­st Di­vi­sion tri­umph over Not­ting­ham For­est at Coun­ty Gro­und on the 31st of Au­gust 1985, and fol­lowed up by net­ting in a 3-0 top flight win ag­ainst Ox­ford Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford on the 7th of the fol­low­ing month. His Man­chester Uni­ted days were numb­ered wi­th the ar­rival of new man­ager Al­ex Fer­guson in the au­tumn of 1986, how­ever, and he was sent back to his for­mer club Man­chester City partly in­to the 1986-87 sea­son af­ter hav­ing ac­cu­mu­lated 20 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances for The Reds of Man­chester. Fol­low­ing loan spells wi­th Bol­ton Wan­derers, Port Vale, and Wim­bledon, the no­tori­ous wan­der­er sig­ned wi­th Hull City where he made 11 Sec­ond Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances for The Ti­gers be­fore team­ing up wi­th Por­tuguese si­de Far­ense in the sum­mer of 1988. The like­able char­ac­ter la­ter played for a num­ber of te­ams, in­clud­ing Sun­der­land, Tampa Bay Row­dies, North­wich Vic­tor­ia, and Ham­run Spartans. An in­ter­na­tion­al for Eng­land, Pe­ter Bar­nes was giv­en his seni­or de­but by re­cently ap­poin­ted head coach Ron Green­wood in a 2–0 Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier vic­tory ag­ainst Italy at Wemb­ley on the 16th of Nov­ember 1977, and would ac­cu­mu­late a fine total of 22 full caps for The Three Li­ons. Al­bert Camus: “Every­thing I know about mor­al­ity and the ob­lig­a­tions of men, I owe it to foot­ball.” Pe­ter Bar­nes Play­ing Ca­reer: Man­chester City, West Brom­wich Al­bion, Leeds Uni­ted, Re­al Bet­is, Leeds Uni­ted, Man­chester Uni­ted, Cov­entry City, Man­chester Uni­ted, Man­chester City, Bol­ton Wan­derers, Port Vale, Wim­bledon, Hull City, Far­ense, Bol­ton Wan­derers, Sun­der­land, Stock­port Coun­ty, Footscray, Bury, Drogheda Uni­ted, Tampa Bay Row­dies, Stafford Ran­gers, North­wich Vic­tor­ia, Wrex­ham, Rad­cliffe Bor­ough, Moss­ley, Ham­run Spartans, Far­ense, Clifton­ville. Man­aging Ca­reer: Gibral­tar, Runcorn.

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