Football Special Edition - Part 6: Liverpool’s Best Strikers
Keegan had amazing finishing ability and Toshack’s had superior skills at controlling the ball in the air and these two were always a delight to watch. It was also a noted fact that even the commentators always enjoyed commenting on these players.
Around the time Keegan went to join Hamburg SV the German side, the player had scored exactly a hundred goals with most of these scores coming in due to Toshack.
During John Toshak’s time with Liverpool the player scored ninety six goals, he was part of the team that won the Football League Championship in 1973, 76 and 77. The UEFA Cup in 1973 and 76 and won the FA Cup in 1974.
Toshack played for the Welsh national team at the youth and the full international level. He has forty caps and scored twelve maps and this includes a hat-trick against Scotland in the British Home Championship in 1979.
In his special and unique way John Toshak will always be remembered as one of the most talented strikers that have had the honour to play for Liverpool.
Ian St. John: Bill Shankly joined the Liverpool Football club and was given the reins, he was expected to lead the club to victory.
This was the ex-Huddersfield Town bosses aim and it was expected of him to bring Liverpool out from second division English football.
At the time Liverpool was facing numerous difficulties and hurdles on their way and it was becoming increasingly difficult to move forward with the team.
The club had poor infrastructure facilities and the stadium was slowly crumbling right in front of them and all things aside the team was definitely not up to the mark yet.
Shankly made a controversial move and released twenty four players from the squad and brought in better players that the manager thought would be able to pull off moving up in the division as the boss thought that the current team was nowhere near achieving this.
Afterwards, there were key signings and one that particularly stood out was that of Ian St. John who came from Scotland.
Before this players move to Liverpool, St. John actually scored the fastest hat-trick in his former club Motherwell and the record timing was just two minutes and thirty seconds against team Hibernian in 1959.
St.John was also known as ‘The Saint’ co paid dividends for Liverpool as they moved up in the second division and won the title with eight points over Leyton Orient with ‘the saint’ netting eighteen goals and playing fourteen times in that endeavour.
Liverpool finished with a very respectable eighth position in their first season in the flight to the top, but the team surprised almost every one by winning the League Championship the next season.
They overturned a seventeen point deficient and won the title by four points and perhaps the best part for the Liverpool fans was that they won the title over their old and bitter rivals Manchester United and then reigning champions of the time Everton.
St.John scored nineteen goals in his forty appearances when getting this title. The player did go on to play many vital roles for Liverpool F.C. and this includes the famous Whiplash header that the player made, which went right past Leeds United’s Gary Sprake and this header won them the 1965 FA Cup for the first time in the Club’s history.
Liverpool finished the 1965-6 season’s European final and finished with six points over Leeds United but they how ever lose the overall title.
St. John scored ten goals from forty one appearances, Liverpool lost to Borussia Dortmund at Hampden Park with a score of two to one for the Cup.
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