Club Career
Born in Golborne, Lancashire, Hunt played for Stockton Heath, Bury, Stockton for a second time, Devizes Town and Stockton again before manager Phil Taylor signed him for Liverpool on 29 July 1958. He made his debut and scored his first goal for the club on 9 September 1959 in a Second Division fixture at Anfield against Scunthorpe United; Hunt scored in the 64th minute to give the Reds a 2–0 victory. This goal was the first of many - he would go on to score 286 goals for the club, 245 of them in the league, which remains a club record.
After Bill Shankly replaced Taylor, Shankly and his fellow 'Boot Room' coaching staff embarked upon a clear out of 24 players. Hunt however was retained and was a major factor in the Reds success in the 1960s. Liverpool gained promotion to the First Division in 1962, after the club had finished 3rd or 4th, and thus just outside the promotion spots for five consecutive years from 1956 to 1961.
Hunt appeared in 41 of the 42 league games and scored 41 goals in season 1961–1962, averaging one goal per game. His goals helped propel Liverpool to a comfortable eight point title win over runners-up Leyton Orient and included five hat-tricks, coming against Leeds United, Walsall, Swansea Town, former club Bury and Middlesbrough.
It was a similar story in 1963–64 and 1965–66 as Liverpool were English League champions. Hunt again the top scorer (as he was for eight straight seasons) scoring 31 goals from 41 games and 30 goals from 37 appearances respectively.
In between the two titles, in 1965 he was instrumental in the side winning the FA Cup for the first time. Hunt scored four times in a cup run that saw West Bromwich Albion, Stockport County, Bolton Wanderers, Leicester City and Chelsea all defeated as Liverpool reached the final for the first time since 1950. In the final, after a goal-less 90 minutes, Hunt scored the opening goal in the 93rd minute and strike partner Ian St. John scored the second as the Reds recorded a 2–1 victory over Leeds United at Wembley. He would also score Liverpool's only goal in the final of the Cup Winners Cup the following year as they went down 2-1 after extra time to Borussia Dortmund.
On 22 August 1964, Hunt scored against Arsenal after 11 minutes in a 3–2 home win, the first ever goal seen on the BBC's flagship football highlights programme Match of the Day.
He became Liverpool's record goalscorer on 7 November 1967 in an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup tie against TSV Munich of West Germany, in which he scored his 242nd goal for the club. His final tally for the club was 286 goals by the time he left the club in 1969 to join Bolton Wanderers, a record which was not broken until Ian Rush 23 years later.
Read more about this topic: Roger Hunt
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