Angela Barnes Husband: Former footballer John Barnes has had a great career on and off the field, but how much money is he worth?
Many people remember John as a football player from the 1980s and 1990s. If you were born in the 1980s, you might have no memory of “Digger” during his peak.
Our first interview with Kate Garraway’s Life Stories is with John, a legendary player, and former England winger. On November 7, 1963, John was born in Kingston, Jamaica. He has already reached the age of 58.
Barnes grew up on a military installation in Jamaica with his parents, Ken and Frances, stationed there.
John’s family relocated to London when he was 12 years old. Watford FC recruited John in 1981 after they saw him play for the club’s youth team while he was still in high school. Over the next two decades, John became a household name in football, representing the England club and international levels.
John earned the moniker ‘Digger’ during his playing days in the NFL. But how did it get there?
In 2020, John described why he was known as “Johnny” in a feature for Express.
Then he responded, “Digger, after Digger Barnes from Dallas,” and he laughed. Any player nicknamed Barnes in the early 1980s was named after this figure.” Jamaican-born John represented England on the international scene despite being born there.
There is no way that John will represent Jamaica at the international level. It used to be that British passport holders could play for any British organization, even if they had no blood connection to Britain, according to FIFA eligibility standards.
Later, Barnes admitted that he had played for England for 18 months without even having a British passport in his possession.
Throughout a 12-year career, John made 79 appearances for England and scored 11 goals. John came to Liverpool FC in 1987 after six years at Watford FC for £900,000 (about £2.7m today).
Angela Barnes Husband
John spent ten years with Liverpool, establishing himself as a long-standing member of the club’s history. He scored 106 times in 403 appearances for the Reds.
He won two league crowns, two FA Cups, and a League Cup during his stint in Merseyside.
In 1997, John signed a free transfer with Newcastle United and departed the team. The 35-year-old John retired from the game in 1999 after 20 years on the field.
However, he didn’t stop playing football after that. After retiring from playing, John was appointed manager of Celtic in the Scottish Premiership.
Additionally, he has managed Jamaica’s national team and Tranmere Rovers in the English Football League. John is a divorced man with two prior marriages under his belt. Suzy was his first wife. In 1991, they married and had four children together: Jamie, Jordan, Jemma, and Jasmine. In 2001, they called it quits.
Andrea became John’s second wife in 2006. Since then, John and Andrea have had three children.
Isabella and Tia are their daughters, while Alexander is their son. According to some estimates, John has a net worth between $7 and $10 million (about £7.3 million) from his time as a professional soccer player, as well as his work in the media thereafter.
The name of Barnes’s first wife is unknown.
Jamie, Jordan, Jemma, and Jasmine Barnes are the four children he had from his first marriage to and subsequent divorce from Suzy. In addition to Isabella and Tia, John’s second wife is Andrea, and they have a son named Alexander. In his early years, Barnes was the son of a Trinidadian military officer and a Jamaican woman. With his family, he made the journey to London, England, when he was twelve years old. When Barnes first joined Watford in 1981, he was only 17 years old, and he went on to play 296 competitive games and score 85 goals. He was Watford’s runner-up in the 1984 FA Cup Final. In 1983, he made his England debut, and in 1987, he signed for £2,000,000.00 with Liverpool. Liverpool won the First Division and the FA Cup twice in his ten seasons there. It took him 403 appearances to score 106 goals. He has the most appearances for England as a black player at the time of his last cap in 1995. In 1999, he completed his playing career with Charlton Athletic after two years with Newcastle United. It was in a 1–1 home tie with Oldham Athletic on September 5, 1981, that Barnes made his professional football debut at the age of 17. Watford was only eight months away from completing a five-year ascent from the Fourth Division to the First with Graham Taylor as manager. During the same close season that England teammate Peter Beardsley came to Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool, Barnes joined new recruits John Aldridge and Ray Houghton to form a formidable front three. Barnes and Beardsley made their Liverpool debuts on August 15, 1987, in the Reds’ 2–1 league victory against Arsenal. Barnes and Beardsley set up Aldridge’s goal after nine minutes of play. On September 12, Barnes scored his first goal for Liverpool in a 2–0 victory against Oxford United at Anfield.
When did Barnes officially call it a day?
1999
Barnes remade himself as a deep-lying midfielder towards the conclusion of his career with Liverpool, and he also played for Newcastle United and Charlton Athletic in the Premier League before retiring in 1999. When Barnes made his England debut against Brazil at the Maracana Stadium in 1984, his most remembered goal was a spectacular mazy run that proclaimed him as a player of great international pedigree. Gary Lineker scored one goal and came agonizingly close to securing the victory after being introduced as a substitute in the quarterfinals of the 1986 World Cup against Argentina. Kenny Dalglish made him one of Liverpool’s most popular players after his 1987 move, and he was recognized as one of the greatest players in the team at the time because of the racism he had to deal with. In addition to Peter Beardsley, John Aldridge, and Ray Houghton, he played a key role in the team’s success under Dalglish. Barney was “the finest player I ever had the pleasure of playing with, bar none,” according to Peter Beardsley. His first season with Liverpool saw him win both England’s and the FWA’s Player of Year honors, with a third triumph in 1990. In 1988 and 1990, Liverpool won the First Division title, and Barnes won the FA Cup in 1989 and 1992.
What’s with the nickname “Digger” for Barnes?
His remarkable ability to detect oil in the earth earned him the moniker “Digger.” Over time, this term grew more popular, even among Willard’s own children (who called him “Daddy” and “Digger” interchangeably). In the American television series Dallas, Willard “Digger” Barnes is a fictitious character. Actors David Wayne, Keenan Wynn, and (as a younger man) David Marshall Grant have all portrayed Digger in the series. Digger Barnes was the father of Cliff Barnes and Pam Ewing as the head of the Barnes family. On his deathbed, Digger revealed that Hutch McKinney was Pamela’s real father but that he had always loved her as if she were his own. They were able to start generating a fortune because of Digger’s extraordinary ability to detect oil and Jock’s savvy commercial acumen. However, Jock would always stick up for Digger throughout this time. Digger and Jason had many arguments and did not get along. It wasn’t long before Jason left Texas for Alaska, where he married the lady he’d met there, Nancy Shaw; they had two children together: Jack and Jamie. When Digger and Jock returned to Dallas, they were immediately at odds over Digger’s new girlfriend, Ellie Southworth, whom they had met there in the first place. As Miss Ellie became more aware of Digger’s drinking, gambling, and unreliability, she realized that he was not the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and she ended their relationship. In the autumn of 1935, Jock and Ellie began dating, and in 1936, Jock married a pregnant Miss Ellie, putting an end to Digger and Jock’s relationship for good.