THE MAN WHO PUT THE RED INTO LIVERPOOL
Fondly recalled for Saint and Greavsie, Ian St John is an Anfield legend, even persuading Shanks to bring in an all-red kit
On the day in 1961 when Ian St John first set eyes on Anfield, he was taken to the boardroom by Bill Shankly and introduced to chairman TV Williams. St John recalls there was an open fire blazing. It feels like the suitable metaphor for what Shankly started at Liverpool.
Almost six decades on, Anfield is a ground transformed. Shankly called it ‘a pigsty’ when he arrived. St John remembers ‘a big sprawl, always raucous’. It became a big presence with a big reputation, a legend. It is raucous still.
It became a participant, a piece of English football and as St John explains, it became part of the very sound of Liverpool.
Tomorrow, against Manchester City, Anfield will roar again. Liverpool and City, joint top of the Premier League, both unbeaten. The stadium will pulsate as it did last season when they collided in the league and in Europe.
At 80, feeling his knees, St John is in the Shankly hotel in Liverpool. Tomorrow he can reflect with satisfaction from a seat high in the stands that he was a cornerstone in the construction of all this.
The passage of time and the sheer popularity of St John’s second career in television with
Saint and Greavsie means that sometimes St John’s contribution can be obscured. But beneath the humour, he was a major footballer and a serious football man.
As he poses before a photograph of Shankly and Brian Clough leading out Liverpool and Leeds United at the infamous 1974 Charity Shield at Wembley, it is in the knowledge that St John could have been in Clough’s place that day. What a story that would have been. Shankly described St John as ‘ my first great buy’ and, together with Ronnie Yeats, the three Scotsmen lifted Liverpool out of the old Second Division, to the League title, the first FA Cup in the club’s history and into Europe — in four seasons.
From there, Liverpool created a red empire, with the all-red kit, suggested by St John.
It required boldness, all of it, ambition of the sort that took Shankly to Motherwell in May 1961 to sign St John from under the nose of newcastle United.
Charlie Mitten, the newcastle manager, had promised St John £1,000 if he signed, which the 22- year- old Motherwell and Scotland forward assumed would be delivered in a brown envelope.
newcastle and Motherwell had agreed a transfer fee and it was all set to happen. Then Shankly turned up in a Rolls-Royce owned by a Liverpool director and strode into Fir Park ‘like a gangster’.
St John, who had never met Shankly and knew nothing about him, found himself shaking hands with this cross between Al Capone, Rabbie Burns and a whirlwind.
‘Oh aye, Shanks had presence,’ St John says. ‘He was a dominating figure. He would walk in a room like that, capture everybody’s attention. Later on, when we all knew him, we knew that he loved gangster films. James Cagney was his favourite and I think that day he was playing Cagney — in real life. He was full-on: “You’re coming to Liverpool.” no mistake. Shanks sold the club to you, everything was honest, up front, where with Charlie, he’d come at night. One thing you could say about the boss, he was honest. Ayrshire, a Burns man, he would not have got involved in anything like that.’
St John, however, had to point out that his wife Betsy had just had a baby. ‘Take the baby to the mother-in-law’s’, was Shankly’s instruction. ‘So we did,’ says St John. ‘People might think I’m making it up. We went over to Bellshill, to my mother-in-law’s and said: “We’re going to England.” “To newcastle?” she asked. “no, Liverpool,” St John replied. “And here’s the baby. Wee present for you.”
Back in Motherwell, Shankly was waiting outside St John’s club flat. ‘A Rolls, it got the whole street out.’ And then they set off, just like that, to a new life in a new city at a new club. They stopped for lunch in Carlisle, where Shankly had been manager. ‘“Great people here,” he says,’ St John chuckles.
Liverpool matched newcastle’s £1,000 and with it St John bought a car. ‘I couldn’t drive,’ he admits.
There was one training session before a debut against Everton at Goodison Park in front of 70,000. Everton won 4-3 but St John scored all the Liverpool goals. It’s 72 hours you’re not likely to forget. IT was the beginning of a red decade for St John. He would play 425 times for Liverpool and score 118 goals — 64 of them in those electric first three seasons. The pick was the FA Cup winner in
1965. Shankly had acquired his hitman, later saying of St John: ‘Clever, canny, bags of skill, made things happen. Liked a scrap too. Jesus, did he like a scrap.’
St John was a talented boxer in his youth, which Shankly will have appreciated. After all, on one pre-season US tour, Liverpool trained at Soldier Field, Chicago, when Shankly remembered it had been the venue where Jack Dempsey fought Gene Tunney. He insisted on being told where the ring had been. That’s where Liverpool trained.
‘Five-a-side, had to train where the ring was,’ laughs St John. ‘Mad. I suppose he was mad in a way. Creative madness.’
Shankly’s inspirational creativity meant that three days after the breakthrough 1965 FA Cup win — Liverpool’s first in their history — he sent out two injured players, Gerry Byrne and Gordon Milne, with the trophy before the European Cup semi-final at Anfield against Inter Milan. It was one of those nights that defined Anfield.
‘They were looked on as the team in Europe then,’ St John says of Inter. ‘They were horrible and they could play — but they got a bit of a fright that night when they saw Anfield. That was a fantastic atmosphere. “Go home to Italy”, the Kop were singing. The Beatles and all the groups, Gerry Marsden, they were around by then and it was called the “Liverpool Sound”.
‘Anfield adopted that, turned it into its own. So the crowd becomes part of the Liverpool Sound.’
Liverpool won 3- 1, St John scored. It was the night the great Inter manager Helenio Herrera said: ‘We have been beaten before. Tonight we were defeated.’
St John recalls a previous match — Liverpool 5-0 Arsenal — in April 1964, when the league title was clinched at an Anfield smitten by its revolutionary manager and catalytic striker, who scored the first. “Crowd Sway To The Music” was a headline in the Liverpool Echo. ‘That was great, to win the league to win it on your own ground,’ St John says. ‘Anfield developed a reputation then.
‘Liverpool had always had big crowds, raucous crowds. The problem was, they didn’t have a winning team. Billy Liddell was the hero but they never had a team until Shanks came. Then he got his first team together and it was always attacking football. The honesty he brought to it. They love their heroes and you become one. ‘That made you play harder, run harder. Don’t let them down. They expected things from you. That expectancy came from them to you and you to them. Oh, it has an effect.’ IT was not all glory. St John can recall the death of Jimmy McInnes — the former Liverpool player turned club secretary who hanged himself by a turnstile at the Kop End the day after the Inter victory. And St John’s relationship with Shankly soured.
St John was given a testimonial only after he had left Anfield and broken his leg in a training session with Tranmere Rovers.
He went into management back at Motherwell and in 1974 received a call from Celtic manager Jock Stein saying Don Revie was about to leave Leeds after 13 years. Leeds had asked for recommendations, Stein put forward St John and the interview went well.
‘I thought I had the Leeds job,’ St John says. ‘Leeds United were a serious club and I knew a lot of the players personally — Eddie Gray, Billy [ Bremner], Big Norman [Hunter], Big Jack [Charlton]. These were players who had played at the top, had pride in their performance. I wouldn’t have needed to do much — “same team as last week”.
‘I’ve thought about it over the years. In life you don’t get everything. It didn’t happen. Cloughie got Leeds – the Damned United. I liked Clough, I had played against him, and we got on well on television later. He was eccentric, mad as a hatter. But a great football manager.’
St John had been the only Liverpool player of his era to go to Lilleshall to take coaching badges and while he is adamant ‘a certificate doesn’t make you a coach’, it shows planning, awareness.
Real Madrid made him think. There is a photograph of St John speaking to legendary Real coach Santiago Bernabeu before the Madrid-Eintracht Frankfurt European Cup final in 1960 in Glasgow.
St John was a 21- year- old Motherwell forward still working in the local steelworks. He went to watch Real train, ‘to see Puskas, Gento, Alfredo di Stefano, he was the man. The ball was always under control, always a prisoner.
‘Real Madrid wore all white. Shanks was changing our strip, bringing in red shorts. I said: “Why don’t we go red socks too, all red?” I was thinking, Real Madrid allwhite, Liverpool all-red.
‘ Shankly says: “Aye, son, I’ll mention it to Jim Terris at Umbro.” Terris was a Scot. Jim brought some red socks to the club and a few of the lads put them on for training. “Christ!” says Shankly.’
Liverpool first wore all- red against Anderlecht. St John scored the first goal in that kit. TOMORROW he will rely on Mane-Salah-Firmino. Liverpool’s attacking trio provokes St John to mention Bell, Summerbee and Lee of the great Manchester City team of the late 1960s – ‘three players of top calibre. Liverpool’s front three are like that. There’s a spark about it. Mane, Salah, Firmino, they’re terrific. Little flicks, one-touch. Reuben Bennett (Liverpool coach) used to call mine “fed-up flicks”.
‘He was fed up with them. But I love them. Manchester City as a team are ahead of Liverpool — as a team. Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne, lovely players.’
And for Jurgen Klopp, St John has the highest compliment: ‘The fans know a bullsh***** and he’s not one. He’s the genuine article. Like Shanks. Different men, different times, but similar. Klopp’s got a natural exuberance, energy. Klopp’s got charisma. He shows his delight. It’s great. That’s a great thing for a player to see.’
In Virgil van Dijk, St John sees a hint of Ron Yeats. He also likes the goalkeeper Alisson. ‘Klopp has assessed the team, brought in Van Dijk, brought in a keeper.
‘Then it’s about the way you play. The game deserves to be played the right way. Shanks felt that, there was a moral way.’
Bill Shankly, his first great buy, Ian St John and Anfield. What catalysts they turned out to be.
ON LEEDS I thought I had the job. In life you don’t get everything. Cloughie got it ON LIVERPOOL’S FRONT THREE Mane, Salah, Firmino’s flicks are terrific. The Liverpool coach called mine ‘fed-up flicks’. He was fed up with them! ON KLOPP The fans know a bullsh***** and he’s not one. He’s the genuine article, like Shanks ON SIGNING FOR SHANKLY We went to my mother-in-law and said: ‘We’re off to England. And here’s the baby. Wee present for you’