John Beresford, whose father’s 101 League appearances had been shared between Chesterfield and Notts County, started his own career at Manchester City, as they progressed from the Second Division to the First under Billy McNeill. Although good enough to win England Youth caps in both 1984-85 and 1985-86, John never made it into City’s first team. McNeill didn’t rate him and the feeling was mutual. But then City captain, Mick McCarthy, recommended John to his former club, Barnsley of Division II.

John was regular enough in his first two seasons at Oakwell, when not out with a fractured ankle, but wore six different shirt numbers.

Naturally left-footed, he was speedy, passed well and had a good engine.

So he was happy to settle at left-back, where he figured he would see more of the ball, and he made that position his own in 1988-89. Until March 1889, that is, when he joined Second Division Portsmouth. The £300,000 fee enabled Barnsley to install new floodlights. “If you ever see those lights,” says John, “they’re mine.” Portsmouth reached the 1992 FA Cup semi-finals. They drew with Liverpool – twice. Despite being the club’s regular penalty-taker, John missed his spot-kick in the shoot-out. That aside, he had caught the eye of Liverpool manager, Graeme Souness. A transfer to Anfield was scuppered, however, allegedly on medical grounds, with Liverpool citing the ankle injury sustained at Barnsley. Dismissing that injury, Newcastle’s manager, Kevin Keegan, invested £650,000 to take John to St James’ Park. In his first season, 1992-93, Keegan’s side not only entertained – “it wasn’t a job, really, “ John reckons, “you just turned up and enjoyed yourself” – but they won promotion to the Premiership, where they finished runners-up to Manchester United in both 1996 and 1997. Then Kenny Dalglish took over and it was time for John, twice capped at “B” level in 1994, to move on. Dave Jones broke Southampton’s record outlay for a defender when a fee of £1.5 million brought Beresford to The Dell.

Things could hardly have started better than with a 3-2 win at Anfield. A decent run-in took the Saints to 12th in the table, a place above Newcastle, so the 1998-99 season began with John, now nearing 33, all set for a glorious final chapter with the Saints. Liverpool were the opening-day visitors to The Dell, but John’s participation was short-lived: he left the field with ruptured cruciate ligaments (see scrapbook for further image) after only seven minutes and, despite his best efforts to regain fitness, would never start another game for Southampton.

A loan to Birmingham resulted in only one outing and Jones’s successor, Glenn Hoddle, refused to entertain the possibility of limited training between games. Beresford’s professional career was over but, because he “couldn’t bear not playing,” he turned out “for some mates, for nothing,” in a few non-league games, before he settled for running a shop-fitting business in his native Sheffield, whence has commuted to Newcastle to help out on the corporate side at St James’ Park. In 2018 he was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours for services to education thanks to his work supporting Show Racism the Red Card.

At the time of writing (2020), he is the managing director of a joinery and shopfitting group, having also held investments in an interiors business and a number of websites. He has also travelled the world working as a Premier League pundit for ESPN, venturing as far afield as Singapore. He supplements his income with a number of speaking engagements.