HALL OF HEROES: Roger Hunt

WORLD Cup winner Roger Hunt has told how his career could have taken a very different path if it wasn’t for the advice of a former Crosfields winger.

Hunt got the chance to impress his suitors at Liverpool while he turned out for Warrington Town, then known as Stockton Heath Albion.

And it was while he was playing with the Mid Cheshire League outfit in the late 1950s that he was offered some career-changing advice from boss Freddie Worrall.

Thanks to Worrall’s guidance, Hunt - who later played all six games of England’s glorious 1966 World Cup campaign - opted for a transfer to Liverpool and not Swindon.

It proved a canny move that helped propel him to international status.

Worrall himself had a winners’ medal on his CV, having served Portsmouth as an outside right.

During his time at Pompey, they won the FA Cup in 1939.

Worrall was also capped twice by England, before a 13-year stint as manager at Stockton Heath.

He became famed for his ability to spot talent - and he soon knew Hunt was destined for bigger things.

Having completed his National Service, Hunt failed to impress during a trial at Bury. But he was later offered tryouts at Swindon and also Liverpool, then a second division side.

“Bury decided they were going to give me a trial for a month, but I had only played two games and they said they hadn’t seen enough of me,” recalled Hunt.

“I thought I might as well go back to Warrington and play for my local club. I didn't want to sit on the bench.”

Hunt’s admiration for Worrall led him to confide in the former champion Warrington RLFC trainer before making a decision to head to Anfield.

“It’s ironic as I was stationed near Swindon and coached by a guy who was with Bury,” added Hunt.

“He said he would offer me the chance to stay at Swindon after my National Service.

“But I asked Freddie Worrall about the offer with Swindon, and told him I had another from Liverpool too.

“He was very knowledgeable about the game and did a lot of good there with the lads of that era.

"He told me he thought I would be better off going to play football with Liverpool.”

The modest Hunt, a childhood Bolton fan who would later play for the Burnden Park outfit, admits he was surprised to impress Worrall when he first arrived, never mind Liverpool.

“I was living in Culcheth,” said Hunt, who scored 286 times for the Merseyside giants.

“I went to Warrington Town when it was Stockton Heath. Not on the ground they are on now, it was just to the side of the river.

"They were asking if people wanted to go down and have a trial.

“I played there for four years and went to the army halfway through.

"I was playing with Devizes, but every three or four weeks I’d get leave and came back to play with Warrington.

“There was a man from Liverpool, who was supposed to be watching someone else.

"He decided he would give me a trial. I came out of the army a few months later and they offered me terms.”

Hunt had turned 21 by the time he signed with Liverpool in 1962.

He went on to help the club to promotion four years later and he was part of Reds’ sides that won two Division One titles and the FA Cup before moving on to Bolton in 1969.

However, the World Cup-winning hero admits it would be unlikely he would be spotted at such an age in the modern game.

“People miss the chance if they go over a certain age," he said.

“You have to get picked up very early now, but it wasn’t like that in my day.

“We would still have a chance even at 19, 20 and 21.

“It was fantastic after coming out of the army. But I had a good time with Warrington and had four enjoyable years there.”

If you have any pictures, information or stories about Warrington sporting legends we have already covered or those you feel should make the Hall of Heroes, then please send them to mike.parsons@nqnw.co.uk