A young Johan Cruyff was once told by the coach of the Dutch national team, Rinus Michels, “If you keep up your good work, you could be like Roger Hunt.” One of English football’s most prolific strikers of the 1960s, Hunt could strike fear into the doughtiest of defenders, but he may be best remembered for a goal he didn’t score.
His moment of worldwide fame came 101 minutes into the 1966 World Cup final. England were drawing 2-2 with West Germany when Alan Ball crossed from the right. Geoff Hurst seized on the ball and, pivoting on his left foot, whipped the ball towards goal with his right.
The ball — famously or infamously, depending on whether you are English or German — bounced down off the underside of the crossbar. As it bounced up again off the pitch and out of the goal, Hunt was following up, but instead of lunging for it he turned away, his arm raised in celebration.
“People still say to me now, ‘Why didn’t you just put it in?’ ” recalled Hunt, an unfailing courteous and modest man, in 2015. “As Geoff Hurst hit it, I anticipated it, I was there, ready if it didn’t go in. I turned away because I thought it was over the line. But it went in, came back out, and by then I couldn’t get it because it came out at an angle and Wolfgang Weber headed it away. I am sure it was over.”
Goal or not, Hunt’s reaction ensured that the Azerbaijani linesman’s decision to advise the referee to award a goal became one of the most debated judgments in football history.
Had not fierce competition from Jimmy Greaves (obituary September 19, 2021) and Hurst limited Hunt’s appearances for England in the early and late 1960s, he would perhaps have been remembered as one of his country’s greatest strikers. Strong, predatory and known as the “blond bomber”, Hunt was a tireless workhorse who was gifted with pace, stamina and a powerful shot. Unselfish and sportsmanlike, he never hogged the ball, invariably retreating to help his defenders when required, and he was renowned for his gentlemanly conduct, which earned him the moniker “Sir Roger”. Even opposing defenders who did their best to “kick lumps” out of him rarely provoked retaliation. In retirement Hunt would proudly show the collection of Christmas cards he received each year from the likes of Norman “Bites Yer Legs” Hunter.
For eight seasons, from 1962 to 1969, Hunt was Liverpool’s top scorer and in the same period amassed a respectable haul of 18 goals in 34 international appearances, including three vital goals in the group matches of the 1966 World Cup finals.
Roger Hunt was born in 1938 in Golborne, Lancashire, to Richard Hunt, who ran a family haulage business, and Ellen, née Jacklin. Emulating his hero, the Bolton Wanderers centre forward Nat Lofthouse, was his earliest ambition. After leaving school he worked in the family firm and was signed as an amateur by Bury, the only club that replied to him when he wrote to every team in the area. He left when they refused to offer him professional terms.
He played for Devizes Town in Wiltshire while doing his National Service and was spotted playing for Stockton Heath in the Mid-Cheshire League by Liverpool’s chief scout, Bill Jones, by accident: Jones had come to assess two other players but was transfixed by Hunt.
After making his debut for Liverpool reserves, Hunt recalled: “All the players were pros — they were dropping a pro to play me — and I remember walking into the dressing room and one said to another, ‘I wouldn’t stand for that, being left out for an amateur.’ ” Hunt was consoled by the club’s great forward Billy Liddell, who was coming to the end of his career and could see that the club had unearthed gold.
By the late 1950s Liverpool were a re-emerging force, regularly pushing for promotion from the Second Division. Signing Hunt gave them that extra edge. He made his first-team debut against Scunthorpe United in September 1959, then in December Bill Shankly replaced Phil Taylor as manager. The charismatic Scot shipped out 24 players. Hunt was one of the few he kept faith with. He repaid Shankly’s judgment by helping to guide Liverpool back to the First Division in 1962. Travelling to matches by bus, he quickly endeared himself to the club’s fans by amiably chatting about the forthcoming match. He scored 41 goals in 41 appearances in that championship-winning season, motivated by Shankly’s distinctive kidology: “He always used to say before a game that the team we were playing were no good. After we had won the game, he would say, ‘You’ve beaten a good team there.’ ”
By then Hunt had married, in 1959, Patricia O’Brien, who he met when she was working as a handbag attendant at her brother-in-law’s club. They had a son, David, and a daughter, Julie, who survive him. They divorced in 1981 after Hunt confessed to an affair with a married woman 14 years his junior whom he had met in the local pub. Hunt later lived with Rowan Green, who became his second wife.
Liverpool’s ascendancy in the 1960s owed much to Shankly’s eye for spotting talent. One of his canniest signings was the centre forward Ian St John (obituary, March 2, 2021), who worked alongside Hunt to help Liverpool win the First Division title in 1963-64 and again in 1965-66. “We had a telepathic thing going on — I knew what he was going to do and vice versa.” In August 1964 Hunt became the first goalscorer on a new BBC programme called Match of the Day.
Liverpool continued to rise and in 1965 they won the FA Cup for the first time. In a 2-1 victory over Leeds United, Hunt scored Liverpool’s first goal in extra time with a low, stooping header.
The Liverpool side of 1965-66 were particularly impressive. Aided by defenders such as Tommy Smith and Ron Yeats, assisted by the wingers Peter Thompson and Ian Callaghan, and abetted by St John up front, Hunt scored 30 times, making him Liverpool’s top scorer for a fifth season running and the division’s top scorer. In 1969 he broke Gordon Hodgson’s record as all-time top scorer for Liverpool.
He had marked his England debut while still a Second Division player by scoring in a 3-1 victory over Austria in April 1962. He appeared sporadically in that decade, but he could not secure a regular place in the first team. After scoring twice in a 4-3 victory over Scotland at Hampden Park in the build up to the 1966 World Cup he kept his place in the team. During the group stages of the tournament he scored in a 2-0 victory over Mexico and both goals against France in a 2-0 win.
When Hunt arrived back at Liverpool for pre-season training after England’s World Cup victory, Shankly, ever the proud Scot, told him, “Well done, son, but we’ve got more important things now.”
Hunt was perceived by some to have robbed the nation’s favourite, Jimmy Greaves, of a place in the final (even though Hurst was actually the stand-in for Greaves, having replaced him for the quarter-final against Argentina after Greaves’s injury in the final group game). In truth, and despite the fact that he withdrew the wingers on whose service Hunt thrived and played with a four-man midfield instead, Alf Ramsey never considered dropping Hunt, whom he regarded as the archetype of the selfless team player. Hunt was appreciated by team-mates who benefited from his tireless running off the ball, but not by a section of England’s fans who never forgave him for playing in the World Cup final instead of Greaves and took to booing him when he appeared at Wembley in later years.
Ramsey sought to reassure him, once telling him, “You wouldn’t be in this side if you weren’t good enough.” However, after playing against Romania in 1969, Hunt told Ramsey that he no longer wished to be considered.
That year, aged 31, he moved to Bolton Wanderers in the Second Division, a homecoming to the club he supported as a boy. In ten years with Liverpool, he scored 285 times in 492 games, a total surpassed only by Ian Rush.
He retired in 1972 to run the family haulage business and was given a testimonial match at Liverpool in front of a 56,000-strong crowd, with thousands locked out. He was also a long-time sitting member of the Pools Panel that predicted results when games were postponed because of bad weather. He remained a regular attender of Liverpool matches, but unlike other ex-players he refrained from sniping at the club’s later managers. A clubbable man, he enjoyed a beer at players’ reunions and was a more than competent golfer.
Of those who helped England to that 4-2 victory in 1966, Hunt’s name, like Ray Wilson’s and George Cohen’s, slid into relative obscurity — except in Liverpool — overshadowed by Gordon Banks, Bobby Moore, Hurst and the Charlton brothers, Jack and Bobby.
However, “Sir” Roger received his first official personal honour in 2000 when the last five living, undecorated members of the 1966 World Cup side (Hunt, Ball, Wilson, Nobby Stiles and Cohen) were appointed MBE. Of the team, only Hurst, Bobby Charlton and Cohen now survive. The MBE was a reminder of the surge of adrenaline Hunt felt when Ramsey sidled up to him on the eve of the greatest day in the history of English football and said: “Keep it to yourself, Rog, but you’re in tomorrow.”
Roger Hunt, MBE, footballer, was born on July 20, 1938. He died after a long illness on September 27, 2021, aged 83
