Ian St John was key to Liverpool's emergence as a football superpower
Ian St John was a gifted broadcaster. He was the perfect straight man for Jimmy Greaves: he clearly found him hilarious and his chuckle was infectious. It seems almost incredible that Saint and Greavsie ran only between 1985 and 1992; to those of us of a certain age, it seemed eternal, ITV’s lighthearted sibling to the BBC’s more earnest Football Focus. But the oddity of those sportsmen who have successful second careers is what made them famous in the first place is often obscured.
Say Ian St John today and, for most who know the name, the picture that will come to mind is of a clubbable grey-haired man in a sports jacket, but it shouldn’t be forgotten what a good player he was or how important in the emergence of Liverpool as a superpower of English football.
By the spring of 1961, Bill Shankly was becoming frustrated. He had taken over as manager of Liverpool in December 1959 and, although he triggered an almost instant improvement, they finished third in the Second Division, eight points behind second and promotion.
The following season they lacked consistency and finished third again. He needed, he decided, two players: a centre-half and a centre-forward. Before the transfer deadline he had made an offer for Brian Clough, whose perennial dissatisfaction at Middlesbrough had finally reached the point of departure, but Clough opted for Sunderland instead.
Who else had the attributes he re