It was destiny for Roger Hunt to live a life less ordinary. During the course of an emotional service at Liverpool cathedral, we learnt how his mother, Ellen, believed greatness would come her son’s way after a remarkable incident as a little boy.
When Hunt was four, he became obsessed with football. He would practice with a tennis ball around his family home in Golbourne, Lancashire, but one day he kicked it out of the front door, chased after it and ran straight into the path of an oncoming bus.
‘Miraculously, he only had bruises,’ Bill Bygroves, Liverpool’s club chaplain, told a congregation that had come to pay its respects to one of English football’s giants. ‘Ellen felt he had been ‘protected’ for a reason – how right she was.’
Liverpool and England football legend Roger Hunt was laid to rest on Thursday
She was indeed. Hunt, one of the boys of 1966, died late last month aged 83 after a long illness. This funeral was to be a celebration of all that he achieved, to recognise how he helped England conquer the world and set standards to which every Liverpool striker in the last 50 years has tried to aspire.
Ian Rush, John Aldridge, David Fairclough and David Johnson – four men who followed in his path at Anfield – sat solemnly alongside some of Hunt’s former team-mates Ian Callaghan, Gordon Wallace and Gordon Milne, as they listened to his life and times.
The stories were rich and varied. Callaghan, Liverpool’s record appearance holder, was also in that England squad 55 years ago and told how he sat with “Nobby Stiles’ front teeth in my pocket” while his great pal Hunt led the line alongside Sir Geoff Hurst in the 4-2 win over West Germany.
Hurst did not travel to Merseyside nor did Sir Bobby Charlton or George Cohen, the other surviving members of that England team. The Football Association were represented by Jane Bateman, the Head of International Relations, who works closely with the families of those heroes.
Hundreds of fans gathered at Anfield as the funeral cortege paused outside the ground
Still, there was a message from Hurst at the beginning of the service.
‘What a player he was,’ said Hurst. ‘Up there with Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Kevin Keegan and Mo Salah. We always had great banter. I said once: “Did you ever score any goals with your head?” He responded months later and systematically went through games he had scored with his head!
‘One of his favourite lines to me was: 'While you were scoring goals and making the headlines I was tracking back and doing the defensive work'.
