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Ian St John

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I think that video was filmed a year or so ago, but I hope he's well. He was awful during 'The Frenchman's' era, but he's been a great servant to the club. (And that left hook of his - fabulous!)
 
I think that video was filmed a year or so ago, but I hope he's well. He was awful during 'The Frenchman's' era, but he's been a great servant to the club. (And that left hook of his - fabulous!)

Thanks, that was it! I knew there was a point when he was very vocal in his criticism of the club. I thought it was the Souness era, but yeah, it was under Houllier. I think it was Tommy Smith who didn't like Souness.

I remember seeing that footage of St John fighting years ago. It came as a bit of a shock, as my only image of him then was of him spending an hour every Saturday lunchtime laughing with Jimmy Greaves on ITV.
 
Tommy Smith, God rest him, didn't like anybody as far as I could tell. Mind you he wasn't the only one who didn't like Souness as Liverpool manager.

I was a "Saint and Greavsie" habitué as well. Ah, the memories. :)
 
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Thanks, that was it! I knew there was a point when he was very vocal in his criticism of the club. I thought it was the Souness era, but yeah, it was under Houllier. I think it was Tommy Smith who didn't like Souness.

I remember seeing that footage of St John fighting years ago. It came as a bit of a shock, as my only image of him then was of him spending an hour every Saturday lunchtime laughing with Jimmy Greaves on ITV.

I like St John, especially in latter years and back in the 80's on TV. During Houllier's reign though I guess he was just old fashioned and stuck in tradition, he was unkind and disrespectful to him from the off.

I remember being on the way back from our 1-0 defeat against Watford at Anfield, I think it was Ged's first home game in sole charge and St John said that Houllier had brought in all these players no one has heard of, and basically asked one of the pundits if they thought the likes of Sami was any good. "Who's this Smicer lad?" blah blah. We were dreadful in that game, just very flat and couldn't get a goal, but Sami played really well and didn't put a foot wrong. Carragher spent the game saying "Sorry Sander" and Matteo was typically one dimensional. It was going to take a bit of time, but it didn't take long. The best players on the park that day were Sami and David Thompson, Gerrard was woeful and was for a few more games.
 
I remember a suggestion back in the day that Houllier and St.John had had some kind of falling-out behind the scenes and that that was why St.John had it in for him.

Incidentally, while I never saw it myself I also remember a story about a notice outside a church in Liverpool saying "What would you do if Jesus came back?", underneath which someone wrote "Move St.John to inside-left".
 
Was it some kind of loyalty to Evans? I mean, I can understand that, but if he had an issue then it should have been with the club rather than Houllier.
 
Was it some kind of loyalty to Evans? I mean, I can understand that, but if he had an issue then it should have been with the club rather than Houllier.

I heard it was because Houllier curtailed his access privileges. Maybe he did so after St.John began to snipe at him, in which case loyalty to Uncle Roy might well have been the original reason for that.
 
Tommy Smith, God rest him, didn't like anybody as far as I could tell. Mind you he wasn't the only one who didn't like Souness as Liverpool manager.

I was a "Saint and Greavsie" habitué as well. Ah, the memories. :)
Did you feel sorry for Greavsie that time they were on the ferry and his hat blew off*?

*It might not have been a ferry, and there's a chance I remember this from It'll Be Alright on the Night.
 
Anyone remember Jimmy holding the punch bag for Tyson?

I don’t recall that, sadly.

I do however recall (probably only because I have been reminded of it in recent years) that Saint and Greavsie once had Donald Trump on as a guest to help do the draw for the Rumbelows/Littlewoods Cup!
 
I don’t recall that, sadly.

I do however recall (probably only because I have been reminded of it in recent years) that Saint and Greavsie once had Donald Trump on as a guest to help do the draw for the Rumbelows/Littlewoods Cup!
Was it a rigged draw?
 
I love that fight. Partly because the Fulham (?) guy falls down like in a cartoon, and partly because of the beauty of teamwork - I think it's Peter Thompson who thoughtfully holds the lad so St john can really get a clean hit:


 
Ian Callaghan down the right wing, crosses for St John to score the winner with a diving header. 1965 FA cup final. The day i started supporting Liverpool F.C.
 
Thanks, that was it! I knew there was a point when he was very vocal in his criticism of the club. I thought it was the Souness era, but yeah, it was under Houllier. I think it was Tommy Smith who didn't like Souness.

I remember seeing that footage of St John fighting years ago. It came as a bit of a shock, as my only image of him then was of him spending an hour every Saturday lunchtime laughing with Jimmy Greaves on ITV.

It wasn't Souness that Tommy despised. It was Emlyn Hughes to whom he lost the captaincy.
 
It wasn't Souness that Tommy despised. It was Emlyn Hughes to whom he lost the captaincy.

Oh it was definitely Hughes that he hated the most. I think his dislike of Souness started when Souness was manager. Smith was writing for the Echo and was slagging Souness off every week.

Similar to Houllier and St John, Souness didn't take too kindly to it and banned Smith from being behind the scenes at Anfield (he politely requested it, according to Souness, which seems unlikely for the 1992 version of Souness).

As has been said, I think the list of people Smith didn't care for at one time or another was quite long.
 
I love that fight. Partly because the Fulham (?) guy falls down like in a cartoon, and partly because of the beauty of teamwork - I think it's Peter Thompson who thoughtfully holds the lad so St john can really get a clean hit:




I was there!

My mate and I set off to hitch hike to London on the Friday afternoon but we were too lucky with our lifts, so that we arrived quite early on Friday evening. We tried sleeping in various places such as Kensington Gardens and Victoria Station, but it was impossible.

As you can see in the video Fulham's Mark Pearson pulled St. John down by his hair - yes he had hair then - and Saint floored him with a great punch. Even then, this was considered a serious offence and St. John was sent off. Liverpool lost.

After the game we were looking for a lift back to Liverpool. A football coach driver said two people had not turned up for the return journey, and he accepted a ten shilling note from each of us. Unfortunately, just as the coach was pulling off, the two latecomers arrived and claimed their seats. We spent the return trip standing up by the driver. Every so often I would fall asleep, but woke up as my legs were buckling under me.
 
Off at a tangent, but about Tommy Smith: we were losing a Cup Winners' Cup game away, and one of the home fans threw a bottle on to the pitch. As far as I recall, it landed nowhere near Smith but, sensing an improbable chance to have the opponents banned for crowd trouble, he collapsed holding his head. It made Rivaldo's play-acting seem like something from the Method School.

Edit: Blimey, I found film of it - first time since then I've seen it. It happens 3.37 in:

 
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Haha. I love that you can literally see the bottle go right past him, he's not remotely bothered and then there's a second where the penny finally drops - "oh, opportunity here".

I assume he didn't get away with it?
 
Haha. I love that you can literally see the bottle go right past him, he's not remotely bothered and then there's a second where the penny finally drops - "oh, opportunity here".

I assume he didn't get away with it?

Ha ha, no. Amazingly Paisley said he wanted to get film of it for an appeal - a pretty embarrassing little episode. Mind you, by all accounts the game was really dirty, with all kinds of tricks being played on our players, helped by a dodgy ref, but Smith's, er, contribution was widely ridiculed by those who actually saw it!
 
Off at a tangent, but about Tommy Smith: we were losing a Cup Winners' Cup game away, and one of the home fans threw a bottle on to the pitch. As far as I recall, it landed nowhere near Smith but, sensing an improbable chance to have the opponents banned for crowd trouble, he collapsed holding his head. It made Rivaldo's play-acting seem like something from the Method School.

Edit: Blimey, I found film of it - first time since then I've seen it. It happens 3.37 in:



When men were men! No play acting or faffing about back then like they do now!

Really surprised me that. And the fact that it was Tommy Smith, no less.
 
When men were men! No play acting or faffing about back then like they do now!

Really surprised me that. And the fact that it was Tommy Smith, no less.

I think this probably backs up the claim that play acting wasn't anywhere near as common back then. If it was then Smith probably wouldn't have done such a laughably poor job of it.
 
I was there!

My mate and I set off to hitch hike to London on the Friday afternoon but we were too lucky with our lifts, so that we arrived quite early on Friday evening. We tried sleeping in various places such as Kensington Gardens and Victoria Station, but it was impossible.

As you can see in the video Fulham's Mark Pearson pulled St. John down by his hair - yes he had hair then - and Saint floored him with a great punch. Even then, this was considered a serious offence and St. John was sent off. Liverpool lost.

After the game we were looking for a lift back to Liverpool. A football coach driver said two people had not turned up for the return journey, and he accepted a ten shilling note from each of us. Unfortunately, just as the coach was pulling off, the two latecomers arrived and claimed their seats. We spent the return trip standing up by the driver. Every so often I would fall asleep, but woke up as my legs were buckling under me.

So "rinse and repeat" has been the pattern ever since? :p
 
I think this probably backs up the claim that play acting wasn't anywhere near as common back then. If it was then Smith probably wouldn't have done such a laughably poor job of it.

Who would've thought Tommy Smith was the pioneer of diving and play acting!
 
He was coming to the end of his career and there were a number of things he tried for the first time during that period. Notice in the clip he's wearing no.2, which in those days invariably denoted the RB, a position he played (rather well) in his final spell with us and had hardly ever, quite possibly never, played before. There was also that nifty headed goal which helped us beat Moenchengladbach in our first European Cup Final. Basically I reckon the guy was demob-happy but, being who he was, there had to be an edge to it. :vamp:
 
The worst and earliest bit of play-acting I remember came from Rodney Marsh. I think he was playing for City. He stood near a centre back and suddenly leapt up in the air, did a sort of somersault and landed on the ground holding his face. It was extraordinary. I remember it because they showed it again and again on MOTD, with Chinny Hill getting more and more outraged by it. Marsh had no shame whatsoever!
 
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