On the 20th July 1938, former professional footballer Roger Hunt, MBE, was born in Glazebury, Lancashire. He spent eleven years at Liverpool Football Club, and was the club’s record goal scorer with 286 goals, until that number was surpassed by Ian Rush.
As a boy Hunt attended Leigh Grammar School between 1950 and 1956 before signing for Liverpool in July 1958. He made his debut for the club in 1959 in a Second Division fixture at Anfield against Scunthorpe United, and scored his first goal for the club in the 64th minute to give the Reds a 2–0 victory.
Regarded as one of Liverpool’s greatest players, Hunt was known as ‘Sir Roger’ by the club’s fans. He won two league titles and an FA Cup under manager Bill Shankly, and was ranked 13th in an official fan poll of the ‘100 Players Who Shook the Kop’,
Hunt was capped 34 times for England, and made his debut, under Walter Winterbottom, when he was still a Second Division player in , in a friendly against Austria at Wembley, scoring in England’s 3-1 win.
Although he was part of the England squad at the 1962 World Cup in Chile, he was not selected to play. However, Hunt played in all six England games in the England team that won the 1966 World Cup, scoring three times.
After retiring from football in 1972, Hunt joined his family’s haulage company and in 1975 became a sitting member of the Pools Panel, which predict the results of games affected due to adverse weather]
He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2006.
20 July, 2019