Sean Dundee: I wasn’t fit enough at Liverpool; I should’ve worked harder

More than 20 years since he signed for Liverpool, everyone still remembers the name Sean Dundee. But not for the reasons he would have hoped…

When Dundee joined the Reds in June 1998, hopes were high. He had scored 36 goals across three seasons for Karlsruher in the Bundesliga and in 1995 was fast-tracked a German passport having been personally convinced by national team boss Berti Vogts to snub an international debut with South Africa, the country of his birth.

Yet he never made it beyond the Germany B team, suffering an injury just before his planned debut, and failed to start a single game during his solitary year at Liverpool, making only five substitute appearances.

Over two decades on, he is rarely left off any list of Liverpool or even the Premier League’s worst ever players.

Signed initially by Roy Evans, Dundee said upon leaving Anfield that he felt “very harshly treated” by Gerard Houllier, who had been appointed as joint-manager alongside Evans and later took sole control, but today the former striker acknowledges he has only himself to blame.

“As a young boy I had a dream,” he says. “My dream was to become a footballer and to play in Europe, and I achieved that.

“But after that I didn’t set my next goal. I’m not a (Cristiano) Ronaldo fan, but I completely respect his work ethic. He can enjoy his life when he finishes, and I should have worked more, I should have done more.”

Born in Durban in 1972, Dundee played alongside his friends as a youngster and first started to dream of playing in Europe when a friend of his father, who was also a footballer, visited.

“The important thing in my career was the moments,” Dundee says. “When I was 10 I was playing somewhere and my dad’s best friend was here. He was from