I’d put Peter up there with greats like Best, Finney and Matthews
BILL SHANKLY ON LIVERPOOL LEGEND PETER THOMPSON
IT WAS Bob Paisley, the fabled Liverpool manager, who best articulated the challenge Peter Thompson faced to become a professional footballer.
‘How do you take over from a living legend?’ Paisley asked in his book, My 50 Golden Reds.
Thompson was an England schoolboy star of the late 1950s and was wanted by clubs from north to south but chose Preston to launch his career. The shirt he was given to fill at Deepdale was that of Tom Finney.
Rather than find the task impossible, Thompson did so with such distinction that Bill Shankly signed him for Liverpool in 1963. He had initially come to Shankly’s attention 12 months earlier when dazzling in an FA Cup tie in which Preston won after two replays.
Thompson, who died yesterday aged 76, was deemed by Shankly to be the ‘final piece’ missing from his side. Shankly believed his £40,000 signing would make Liverpool title contenders and so it proved.
Born in Carlisle, Thompson was a flying winger who scuttled down the left flank to supply the ammunition for Roger Hunt and Ian St John. His name might not be as widely remembered as those two strikers or the colossal captain Ron Yeats but make no mistake, he has a place in the pantheon.
Liverpool supporters of a certain generation know exactly how good he was. This observer was not born when he was in his pomp but his name always meant something special — my grandfather carried his boots for him when he got off the bus ahead of his Anfield debut.
That match against Nottingham Forest in 1963 ended in a 2-1 defeat but come the end of the campaign, Shankly’s words about Thompson had proven prophetic as Liverpool were crowned First Division champions with four games to go after demolishing Arsenal 5-0.
He was the star of the show that day and to give you as idea of what influence Thompson had on that fixture, the Liverpool Echo’s report on April 18 described him as a ‘champion performer in a team of champions... a footballer supreme who tore the heart out of Arsenal’.
During 10 years at Liverpool, he was remembered by Paisley as being ‘genuinely two footed... one of the most talented players to turn out for the club’ and he played his part in helping them to unprecedented run of success, winning two league titles and one FA Cup. His story, though, has an element of misfortune. Thompson won 16 England caps, the first of which came against Portugal in 1964, but there was no place for him at a World Cup finals. ‘If he had a little bit more venom he would have got more caps for England than he did,’ Paisley wrote. ‘I have a theory that he could have been remembered as one of the true wizards of the wing — throughout the world! He was probably too nice a person.’
Injury cut short his Liverpool career and in 1973 he moved to Bolton for £18,000 and, after retiring four years later having helped them win the Second Division title, he established a successful caravan park in the north west.
Thompson’s time with Shankly at Liverpool ended in acrimony but not to the point that the relationship was ruined. Shankly, of course, always had a unique way with words and in Thompson’s testimonial brochure, he told everyone how he felt.
‘If Peter Thompson would not have taken up football he could have competed in the Olympic games — that’s how good an athlete he was,’ said Shankly. ‘He could run forever, but more importantly in football he could run with the ball — probably the hardest thing to do. He could run every minute of every game, every week, every year better than anybody else. His work rate was outstanding, his fitness unequalled, his balance like a ballet dancer.
‘I have no hesitation in placing Peter up among the all-time greats — alongside such players as Tom Finney, Stanley Matthews and George Best.’
It was a fitting eulogy, one that showed just how much he rose to that initial challenge.