Try to envisage what it would be like to follow your team week in week out around the backwaters of English football’s lowest echelons, forced to live miserably in the shadow of your closest rivals in a ramshackle stadium where an ever dwindling crowd had long been affected by the club’s general malaise.
For the modern day Liverpool fan, and indeed a generation or two before them, it’s an unthinkable scenario. But it’s one that could have well befallen this club had it not been for what Bill Shankly and his Liverpool class of 1961/62 achieved 50 years ago this weekend.
Think S*unthorpe United, Rotherham, Walsall, Bury and Bristol Rovers, to name just a few teams who, half a century ago, were competing on a level playing field with the Reds. And compare how our paths have differed in the intervening years.
Could Liverpool Football Club have plummeted in a similar direction? If it hadn’t been for the story that’s about to be told, lower league mediocrity may well have been something Liverpudlians had long grown accustomed to.
Thankfully it’s a hypothetical question that we’ll never know the answer to. Because in April 1962, after eight years in the Second Division wilderness, Liverpool finally hit on a winning formula once again and escaped the shackles that had been threatening to strangle this once proud club.
This is how they achieved it...
When Bill Shankly took charge at Anfield in December 1959 promotion was his number one goal. Champions of England just 12 years previous, Liverpool had fallen on severely hard times. A rapid return to the top-flight had been expected following relegation in 1954. Instead, the club and its followers were handed a sentence much longer than ever imagined. Shankly came to set them free but was well aware of just what a massive task he had on his hands. By drawing on the passion of the crowd he knew the potential was there for the club to reclaim its place back among the elite. All he had to do was provide them with a team to be proud of.
The new man immediately laid down his blueprint for the future by ridding the payroll of what he perceived to be ‘dead wood’. Within 12 months 24 players had been shown the door. Successive near misses in their quest for the ‘Promised Land’ though was the cue for much stronger action to be taken. ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ was becoming an all too familiar saying around Anfield at the time.
Tommy Leishman, Gordon Milne and Kevin Lewis had already been recruited to his ranks and together with the likes of Alan A’Court, Dick White and Jimmy Melia plus a promising crop of youngsters in Gerry Byrne, Ian Callaghan and Roger Hunt the foundations were in place for another attempt to breach the top two in the division.
It was clear for all to see, however, that in order to take that next vital step, more quality reinforcements were needed. Attempts to bring in players of such calibre as Jack Charlton and Dave Mackay had been thwarted by the club’s reluctance to spend big and Shankly was becoming increasingly agitated.
It had long been mooted on the terraces that the club’s directors were seriously lacking in ambition; the belief being that promotion would ultimately involve more expenditure on their part. And while there was no tangible evidence to support this claim the manager was slowly beginning to think along these lines too.
Fortunately, future hopes changed for the better when Eric Sawyer, a good friend of Everton Chairman and Liverpool shareholder John Moores, was co-opted onto the board. Crucially, he shared Shankly’s vision for the club and soon persuaded his fellow directors that the Anfield purse strings needed to be loosened in the pursuit of success.
Scotland forward Ian St John was immediately targeted and a club record £37,500 fee agreed with Motherwell in May 1961. St John became an instant crowd favourite, scoring a hat-trick on his first appearance in a Liverpool Senior Cup Final defeat to Everton. Yet he had to overcome Melwood’s ‘Scouse Mafia’ before being fully accepted by his new team-mates. Arriving with such a huge price tag around his neck meant he was initially treated with some suspicion by Liverpool’s local contingent who far outnumbered his fellow Scots. That was soon put right though, helped by a sweetly delivered left hook on the training pitch and the arrival of a partner in crime.
Having strengthened his forward line, solidity at the back was the next priority and Shankly set his sights on Dundee United defender Ron Yeats. Following protracted negotiations with the Tannadice club a further £22,000 was eventually splashed out. At one point of this drawn-out transfer saga it looked as though Liverpool may miss out their man and when finally given the green light to complete the deal Shankly dashed to Edinburgh in a director’s Rolls Royce to seal the transfer of the man who would become his ‘colossus’.
As usual around Anfield, hopes were high that the coming season would finally be the one. This, of course, was nothing new. But on the eve of the of the 61/62 campaign St John, writing in his new weekly Daily Post column spoke about the possibilities of a Super League sometime in the near future and the importance of Liverpool being part of that. While the Reds were once again fancied to be among the front-runners for promotion, however, they were not considered the favourites. The bookies and pundits declaring that Newcastle United and Sunderland would be the teams to beat – a claim Liverpool soon made a mockery of.
On a baking hot afternoon in the West Country Liverpool started the season with a more than satisfactory 2-0 win over Bristol Rovers and didn’t drop a point until their seventh fixture, a goalless draw away to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Ten of the first eleven games were won, most at a canter, and the press were unanimous in their belief that Liverpool were already bound for promotion. Especially considering that during this run both Newcastle and Sunderland had been defeated home and away. Writing after the 3-0 home victory against Sunderland, Horace Yates in the Daily Post commented that this ‘was the finest team Liverpool have had in years’.
The two news signings had certainly made a big impression and writing about St John, Yates added: ‘If ever a man has breathed life back into a forward line it is this talented Scot.’ Following the equally impressive 2-1 win at Newcastle, it was the turn of Yeats to take the plaudits. ‘I doubt if Liverpool will ever make a more valuable signing than this giant of a Scottish centre-half,’ wrote the Daily Post correspondent.
Liverpool’s exciting brand of football – 31 goals scored in those first eleven games and just four conceded – not surprisingly attracted big crowds. Gates at Anfield regularly topped 45,000, occasionally 50,000, and never dipped below 30,000, while the full-house signs were commonplace when the Reds rolled up at the smaller opposition grounds elsewhere in the division.
Despite the earlier friction between the Scots and the Scousers there was a great sense of togetherness about Shankly’s team and the starting eleven of Slater, White, Byrne, Milne, Yeats, Leishman, Lewis, Hunt, Melia, A’Court and St John remained unchanged during the this eleven-game unbeaten start. But with Yeats on the injured list and St John away with his country the boss was forced to reshuffle his side for the trip to Middlesbrough in early October and a first defeat ensued. Dick White suffered the misfortune of becoming the first ever Liverpool player to put through his own net twice in a game and so bemused was keeper Bert Slater that he came out for the second half with his jersey on back-to-front!
Fortunately, it proved to be nothing but a minor blip. Liverpool bounced back to record what would be their biggest win of the campaign – 6-1 at home to Walsall – the following Saturday and although a further four defeats followed before the New Year the Reds remained top of the tree, a position they would indeed occupy for the entire season. Yeats captained Liverpool for the first time during one of those defeats – 1-0 away to Rotherham on Boxing Day – but it was Slater who found himself in the firing line. Shankly believed he was at fault for the Millers’ last minute winner and the diminutive stopper was on borrowed time.
Having opened up a healthy lead in the race for promotion thoughts turned to the FA Cup in the New Year and an exciting run saw First Division Chelsea beaten 4-3 at Anfield in round three, an incredible game in which the Reds had to survive a late onslaught after being 4-1 up at half-time. Kopites were certainly getting full value for their three shilling (15p) admission fee as the next week another high-scoring thriller saw Norwich beaten 5-4, a match also memorable for the fact that Terry Allcock netted all four for the visitors.
Interest in the FA Cup was eventually ended by Preston North End in a fifth round second replay, with future Red Peter Thompson striking the all-important only goal of the game at a freezing Old Trafford. In the immediate aftermath of that cup exit it was announced by Chairman Tom Williams that Liverpool had swopped to sign Burnley goalkeeper Jim Furnell, placing a huge question mark over Slater’s future at the club. Furnell was pitched straight in for his debut in a 1-1 draw at Walsall just five days later and the man he replaced never played the club again.
Revenge over Preston came in a league meeting between the two sides at Anfield towards the end of March and it was a game notable not only for Roger Hunt’s club record equalling 36th goal of the season but also for St John receiving his marching orders following a 47th minute fracas with North End centre-back Tony Singleton.
St John was not instantly suspended though and celebrated scoring a hat-trick - his first in the Football League and first at Anfield – at home to Rotherham. Prior to this game Roger Hunt was called up by England and he marked the occasion by scoring Liverpool’s other goal to break the record for most Liverpool goals in a season set by Gordon Hodgson back in 1930/31. He was to finish the campaign with 41, including five hat-tricks.
That win left the Reds on the brink of promotion and despite taking just one point from the next two games nothing was going to stop them. With six games to go just two more points were required to confirm the seemingly inevitable. Southampton were the visitors to Anfield on Saturday 21 April and Liverpudlians prepared to party. The weather was atrocious with heavy rain falling throughout the day and while it restricted the attendance to just over 40,000, when a full-house had been expected, it failed to dampen supporters’ spirits.
St John missed the game through suspension as a result of his sending off a few weeks. Football League rules of the time stipulated that he wasn’t even supposed to be in the ground but the man who had replaced Billy Liddell as the new idol of the Kop, was never going to miss this and sneaked in alongside the fans.
The Saint’s replacement was Ellesmere Port-born Lewis and he duly delivered, scoring twice before half-time to ease any nerves. Although there was no further scoring it was time for the parties to begin and wild celebrations greeted the final whistle. The jubilant crowd invaded the pitch and refused to go home until the victorious players came back out for a final curtain call. When they did many were thrown high into the air, with the previous year’s two pivotal signings Yeats and St John ending up on the Kop.
As the news sunk in that Liverpool were finally back in the Promised Land, congratulatory telegrams poured in from all corners of the country, some from the most unlikely of sources. Matt Busby, a popular Liverpool captain of the pre-War era and now manager of Liverpool’s soon-to-be intense rivals Manchester United, said: ‘A club like Liverpool deserve to be playing in the highest class.’
Even those in the blue half of Merseyside seemed to welcome their return: larger-than-life local MP, and staunch Evertonian, Bessie Braddock, admitted it would be good for the city to have two clubs competing against each other in the top flight again.
Victory over Southampton not only secured promotion but also the title and following the final home game of the season against Charlton Athletic there were more celebrations as the team proudly displayed the first piece of silverware won by the club for 15 years.
It had been a long barren spell but this was to be the start of a glorious new chapter in Liverpool history. Speaking at the time, Bill Shankly described leading Liverpool to promotion as his proudest moment in football and while there was much greater glory to come it must never be forgotten that it all began with the Second Division title-winning season of 61/62. If Liverpool hadn’t have gone up then, maybe the rest wouldn’t have followed.
Don’t miss ‘Going Up – the story of Liverpool’s promotion winning season of 1961/62’, featuring Ron Yeats, Ian St John & John Keith. Watch it now on demand here http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/latest-news/on-demand-going-up-documentary
Or on LFC TV Saturday April 21st at 9pm and Sunday April 22nd at 8pm
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