ENGLAND LEGENDS - ROGER HUNT


Remember the goal: a Bobby Charlton thunderbolt against Mexico at Wembley in the 1966 World Cup finals.

Remember the reaction: "Yippee!" Commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme’s quaint exclamation summed up a nation’s joy and relief at deadlock finally being broken in England’s second, edgy group match.

Chances are, though, you don’t remember the crucial role played by Roger Hunt. The scorer does. "I would never have got that goal without Roger," insists Charlton.

"I carried the ball into their territory and he set off on a diagonal run to my right, then darted back towards the centre, pulling the defenders in all directions.They didn’t know which way to go, whether to stick with him or keep track of me.

"In the end they assumed I was going to pass to him, so I was able to shoot. Roger knew exactly what he was doing. It was absolutely typical of him to make things happen for his team-mates."

Hunt hit the second goal, too, after Jimmy Greaves saw his shot parried. Following the goalless draw with Uruguay a few days earlier, England were up and running and would never look back.

The quiet, unassuming Lancastrian forward had earned his place in Alf Ramsey’s starting XI after a title-winning season with Liverpool, for whom he’d scored 30 league goals - the first against Arsenal at Anfield in front of cameras filming the inaugural Match Of The Day.

Four years earlier, he’d travelled to Chile with England’s World Cup squad but never played. This time his outstanding form for Liverpool, followed by two goals in a warm-up home international against Scotland and another brace on a tour of Scandinavia, guaranteed him a piece of the World Cup action - even though he had to be content with the No.21 shirt in a squad of 22.

He was, he admits, a bit nervous when called up. "Alf was very formal, thanked you for coming. A strong character, but with 50 million people telling you who to pick, he had to be.

Alf’s only priority was his players and we responded to that." The year before the World Cup, Hunt had scored the first of two Liverpool goals against Leeds United at Wembley as the Reds claimed their first FA Cup - followed just three days later by a stunning early strike at a throbbing Anfield in the first leg of a European Cup semi-final with Internazionale.

On four minutes, winger Ian Callaghan’s waist-high cross had bounced once before Hunt swivelled and shot past keeper Dino Sarti. "That wasn’t a British goal," said Inter boss Helenio Herrera afterwards. "It was a continental goal."

Liverpool eventually lost that tie in controversial circumstances, but for the record - and there were many - Hunt scored in every round of what was the club’s first foray into Europe, ending with seven goals and adding another ten in continental competitions over the next five years.

He’d joined Liverpool straight from non-league football in Cheshire in summer 1959, signed by then manager Phil Taylor, but soon inspired by Mersey messiah Bill Shankly.

Two years later, he forged a thrilling strike partnership with new Scottish signing Ian St John as the Reds stormed out of the old Second Division, thanks to Hunt’s 41-goal haul. "We hit on an instant partnership," recalls St John.

"Roger had two very good feet and immense strength. It suited my style that he was always wanting to be the forward player, the one who was going to burst into the box. I arranged my game to play the ball in to him, never the reverse."

In 1963/64 the pair hit 52 goals between them as Liverpool won their first Championship for 17 years, fittingly with Hunt scoring the last goal in a 5-0 drubbing of Arsenal at Anfield that clinched the title.

In his autobiography, Shankly hailed Hunt as "a great player with a big heart who was hell-bent on scoring goals. He would never shirk anything and was as strong as a bull. Some players don’t want chances, but Roger was always hungry."

Apart from strength and shooting prowess, Hunt had blistering acceleration and superb positional sense - plus a gentlemanly conduct, which along with his trademark brown quiff, earned him poster-boy status in thousands of English bedrooms. None of which endeared him to a national press pushing for Jimmy Greaves to partner Geoff Hurst up front in Ramsey’s World Cup side of 1966.

With Greaves suffering from the after-effects of jaundice and destined to miss England’s glorious finale with a gashed shin, Hunt followed up his goal against Mexico with two against the French (the second from a cross by Reds team-mate Callaghan). He worked selflessly in the quarter-finals, semis and in the final. His failure to follow up Hurst’s shot was seen as proof the ball did cross the line for England’s third goal against West Germany.

If the wider public didn’t appreciate his efforts, the Kop did, knighting him ‘Sir Roger’ upon his return from World Cup duty. "They nicknamed me that after Bobby Moore got the OBE," he explains.

A fitting honour for a striker who scored 285 goals in 489 appearances for the Reds (surpassed only by Ian Rush in later years), another 18 in 34 games for his country (finishing on the losing side just twice), who was the unsung hero of England’s finest hour.

As his team-mate George Cohen said: "Roger and Geoff [Hurst] worked like clockwork. If it looks too easy they call you mechanical, but if it looks too easy you must be doing something right."

Not that Hunt himself minded being underrated. "Personal glory was never his thing," concludes Charlton. "He was loyal, determined and utterly dependable. If Roger said he would do something then he’d do it, no question about it."