One of the things I loved about Beardsley was his 'economy' of doing things. Despite scoring some amazing goals, most of the time he just did things in a very simple way, to the extent that you might initially think "he's a pretty basic sort of player, he just got a bit lucky there with that pass/shot/dribble. (Again)." But actually it was a sort of minimalist perfection.
It brings to mind the Shankly quote,
"Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple." After seeing Beardsley trick his way past someone and almost apologetically pass the ball into the net for the umpteenth time, you realised this was actually a type of modest zen-like genius. He wasn't so much dribbling a ball around a defender, as using some kind of Jedi mind trick on them. You could see opposition players sag their shoulders, mentally kicking themselves, in that split second when his body weight shifted into a direction that, puzzlingly, no-one else could ever quite anticipate. He was a sort of footballing Escher, or perhaps an ordinary office commuter who had somehow acquired access to Harry Potter's platform 9¾.
I would definitely recommend watching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLdRuLZNvgg&t=0m56s to see him in action. It's also got his trademark "pickpocket tackle" at 01m:55s, which again he seemed to do regularly in the most nonchalant way possible, but apparently no-one else has quite figured out before or since.
And he always seemed a really decent and unassuming fella too. The fact he ended up playing for so many different clubs (as the clip shows), rather than being kept at all costs, is a total mystery to me.
