talkSPORT looks back at the signing of John Barnes by Liverpool on this day, 9 June 1987.

When Liverpool signed John Barnes 28 years ago today, they didn’t just buy one of the best players ever to pull on a red shirt. For the first time in the club’s history, Liverpool FC – then the undisputed kings of English football – had spent big money on a black player.

These days, the colour of a player’s skin means nothing at Anfield, but back in 1987 racism – be it overt or more subtle – was more widespread in English society and, by extension, English football.

While Barnes wasn’t the first black player to pull on a red shirt. That honour befell Howard Gayle, whose handful of appearances included a star cameo in a European Cup semi-final win against Bayern Munich.

But Barnes’ Anfield career would go on to easily eclipse Gayle’s as he carved his name into Liverpool folklore as an attacker whose skill could be mentioned in the same breath of Kop idols like Billy Liddell, Kenny Dalglish and latterly Luis Suarez.

Jamaican-born, Barnes made his name as a mesmeric winger for Watford in the mid-1980s, as the Hornets rose from the Fourth Division to a second place finish behind Liverpool in 1983, and an FA Cup final in 1984.

It was in that year Barnes scored a goal for England that would serve as both a catalyst and a millstone for his career, dribbling past half the Brazil team to score a wonder goal against the home side in Rio.

Three years later, following an impressive, if fleeting substitute display against eventual winners Argentina at the 1986 World Cup, 23-year-old Barnes helped Watford reach another FA Cup semi-final.

By then, his skills were crying out for a more cultured platform than the more prosaic long ball football that Taylor had honed at Vicarage Road.

With his boss on the move to Aston Villa, Barnes’ time at Watford was up and Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish took his chance.

The Reds had endured a rare trophyless campaign in 1986/87 and with the departure of key goal scorer Ian Rush to Italian giants Juventus for a then British record fee of £3.2m, their Scottish boss took the opportunity to shrewdly reinvest and reinvent his attacking line up.

Barnes was snapped up for £900,000, along with £750,000 goal poacher John Aldridge from Oxford United and £1.9m record signing Peter Beardsley, a diminutive forward whose close control and ability to shimmy past defenders had made him a firm favourite at Newcastle United.

The trio formed one of the most lethal front lines in Liverpool history, having Kopites purring from day one. It took just nine minutes in a Liverpool shirt for Barnes to create a goal for Aldridge on the opening day of the season away to Arsenal, with a 2-1 win setting the tone for a sensational title-winning season.

Barnes was crowned PFA Player of the Year as Liverpool won the title with four games to spare, going unbeaten in their first 29 matches and playing a brand of fluid football that has arguably only be rivalled in its beauty by the legendary double-winning Tottenham team of 1960/61 and Arsenal’s unbeaten ‘Invincibles’ of 2003/04.

A highlight for Barnes came early in the campaign, as Liverpool took on then table-topping QPR at Anfield in the autumn. The England winger was in full flow that day, scoring twice in a thumping 4-0 win.

In April 1988, Barnes was part of a masterclass 5-0 victory over title challengers Nottingham Forest.

For the first goal, he played a beautiful one-two with marauding midfielder Ray Houghton to set up the opener.

The fourth goal saw a cornered Barnes untangle himself from the corner of the pitch with a nutmeg, surge into the box at the Kop end, then lay a perfect ball back towards the edge of the area for Beardsley to strike first time.

The following season brought further success for both Liverpool and Barnes, albeit overshadowed by the horror of the Hillsborough disaster.

After making the decision to play on in the FA Cup, following the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters in the abandoned semi-final against Nottingham Forest, the Reds reached the final against neighbours Everton.

On an emotional day at Wembley, Barnes created two goals for the now returned Rush, clinching the final in extra-time.

The title was relinquished in dramatic style against Arsenal in the final game of the season, when Barnes lost possession with moments left and the Gunners pounced to score a stunning, decisive title-winning goal. But coming so soon after Hillsborough, never did the Bill Shankly adage that football was more important than life and death seem quite so wide of the mark.

Barnes was sensational again in the 1989/90 season, playing more of a forward role and top scoring with 22 league goals as the Reds regained the title, scoring the championship-winning goal against QPR in April. His performances earned a second Football Writers’ Player of the Year award, joining Kenny Dalglish, Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews as double winners.

But the following campaign saw Dalglish dramatically depart from Anfield in February, followed by Arsenal pipped Liverpool to the title again.

His successor, Graeme Souness, flopped badly as Reds manager and his awful transfer dealings – including the premature sale of Beardsley to Everton – precipitated a decline at just the moment Manchester United were on the rise, with the dawn of the Premier League in 1992.

Despite helping the Reds reach another FA Cup final in 1992, a series of injuries ruled Barnes out of the Wembley showpiece and much of the 1991/92 and 1992/93 seasons.

By the time he returned to regular action in the side, Souness was on borrowed time and Liverpool had gone from perennial title-challengers to also-rans.

Long serving Liverpool coach Roy Evans was promoted to manager in 1994 and managed to restore some of the traditional pass and move qualities to the Reds’ play, while reinventing Barnes’ role.

Now entering the latter stages of his career and less mobile than in his flying winger heyday, Barnes’ supreme skills were in evidence as he was shifted to central midfield, dictating play with a sublime range of passing.

It was in this position that Barnes helped Liverpool claim the 1995 League Cup and in 1996 and 1997 they flirted with a title challenge, only to fall short of Manchester United on both occasions.

Perhaps his defining performance in this period was the thrilling 4-3 win against Newcastle United in April 1996, when Barnes played a perfectly weighted pass to Stan Collymore to seal the win in injury time in what is often cited as the greatest Premier League game ever.

But a 1996 FA Cup final defeat to Manchester United and the failure to knock the Red Devils off their Premier League perch led to a changing of the guard at Anfield, as Barnes and his younger midfield partner Jamie Redknapp appeared too powderpuff by comparison with the tenacity of United’s Roy Keane and Paul Scholes.

The arrival of Paul Ince – a double title winner with United – from Inter in the summer of 1997 was designed to remedy this situation, and heralded Barnes’ departure on a free transfer.

But while Liverpool have still to land that elusive top spot, memories of the brilliance John Barnes produced in a red shirt live on.