When it comes to testimonials, few deliver them with such colour as the late Johnny King, who signed John Aldridge for Tranmere Rovers in the summer of 1991. “Aldridge is like a gunslinger, he shows no emotion. He kills people and goes away,” said the Birkenhead club's greatest manager of all time.
If King was speaking about you in such tongues, you must have been doing something right. Not that the 32-year-old had returned to Merseyside short of pedigree of course. Having scored goals for fun, for both Newport County and Oxford United, Aldridge enjoyed a relatively short but successful stint at boyhood club Liverpool, helping the Reds to clinch the league title before scoring in the 3-2 FA Cup triumph over Everton at Wembley 12 months later.
The return of Ian Rush to Anfield saw Aldridge leave his beloved Reds for a new adventure in Spain with Real Sociedad. Here, he proved that such a natural goalscorer can do the business home or abroad, netting 40 goals in 75 appearances for the Spanish side - a feat made more significant by the fact he was the club's first non-Basque signing for a number of decades.
But not all in San Sebastian were appreciative of having an English striker on their books and as his family struggled to adapt to life in southern Europe, Aldridge put in a transfer request to former Liverpool great John Toshack, who was by now manager at Sociedad. There was perhaps then some fortune about the opportunity Tranmere found themselves in when they managed to convince Aldridge to return to Merseyside, but in the white shirt of the Birkenhead club. Rovers paid Sociedad £250,000 for the 32-year-old. It would turn out to be one of the best investments that they ever made.
With Rovers on the up in the football league, the charm of chairman Peter Johnson and King was enough to get their man, as he later admitted. “It was a lovely place (San Sebastian) but I just could not settle. I had to do it for my family,” said Aldridge. “Peter Johnson sold me the club. The selling points were there; manager Johnny King, where the club wanted to go, and Peter had money, Prenton Park was being redeveloped, so I thought, yeah, it would be nice to try and get back into the Premier League.”
Manager King had promised Tranmere's loyal supporters a 'trip to the moon' and in Aldridge he surely had his Neil Armstrong to pilot the rocket. On signing his man, King said: “Aldridge is like a pair of shoes in a shop. You look at them over and over again and then you find you have enough money to buy them.” Tranmere were in English football's second division, when their new gun-slinger made his debut against Brighton & Hove Albion on August 17, 1990. He scored twice in a 2-0 away win that filled supporters with boundless optimism. They were right to get excited. Aldridge would go on to score an incredible 40 goals in all competitions for the club in his debut season, scoring nine in his first five appearances.
