One of the footballing greats has gone. Jimmy Greaves might be termed a pure goalscorer. His record of 357 goals in the top flight of English football may not ever be surpassed. He also scored nine in Serie A with A C Milan.

He began his career at Chelsea then moved to A C Milan in 1961. He did not settle there and was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for £99,999 (the £1 less than 100,000 supposedly to avoid the pressure of being the first £100,000 player. I doubt that would have bothered him.) He is the highest ever goal scorer for Spurs where he won several trophies. His League career ended at West Ham United.

He also scored 44 goals in 57 international appearances for England but missed out on a World Cup Final appearance in 1966 – and therefore his country’s greatest (only?) football triumph – due to being injured in a group game and the form of his replacement Geoff Hurst. This disappointment reportedly subsequently preyed on his mind. Sadly he became an alcoholic after his League career ended.

In later years, the alcoholism overcome, he became a Saturday lunchtime fixture in the TV prgramme Saint and Greavsie and earned himself a whole new legion of fans some of whom had never seen him play in his heyday.

Here are some of his goals for Spurs:-

James Peter (Jimmy) Greaves: 20/2/1940 – 19/9/2021. So it goes.

So now it’s Ian St John who has died.

Having made his name at Motherwell he became an integral part of the first great Liverpool team of my lifetime, the first Shankly-managed one, and also played what now seems a paltry 21 games for Scotland, scoring nine goals for the national side, including two in that great sliding-doors match, the play-off with Czechoslovakia for the right to go to the World Cup in Chile in 1962. Scotland were ahead with a few minutes to go but lost a goal before the final whistle then two more in extra-time. Czechoslovakia went on to reach the World Cup final. What if indeed.

St John’s great years as a player were a bit before my time but I do remember the possibly apocryphal story of a Church billboard in Liverpool asking, “What would you do if Jesus came to Liverpool?” to which some wag had added below, “Move St John to inside-left.”

After his retirement I remember a TV competition to find a new commentator for televised football matches in the run-up to the 1970 World Cup. The competitors were anonymous before the voting. However I knew I recognised one of the voices but couldn’t place it. Then came the reveal of the runner-up (who I now see but hadn’t remembered till looking it up actually tied with the winner) – Ian St John. The winner was a Welshman named Idwal Robling who apparently did go on to commentate on games for Match of the Day (never broadcast at the time in Scotland so I never heard any of them) and later mostly for Welsh games.

But it was as co-presenter of Saint and Greavsie, an ITV equivalent of the Football Focus of today but with a more light-hearted approach (and which was broadcast in Scotland) that St John was more familiar to my generation. The banter between St John and the other presenter Jimmy Greaves was always good-natured and entertaining.

John (Ian) St John: 7/6/1938 – 1/3/2021. So it goes.