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At number 87 in our exciting '100 Players Who Shook The Kop' countdown is striking starlet of the sixties Alun Evans, the one-time most expensive teenager in British football
Four years after our ground-breaking '100 Days That Shook The Kop', we are delighted to invite you to enjoy our new '100 Players Who Shook The Kop' series – the definitive countdown of the 100 players who have made the biggest impact at Liverpool.
Over 110,000 supporters have all nominated their own personal Top 10 players in order of impact made and now the definitive top 100 countdown is underway.
Every player who has made the top 100 – and there are some surprises in there - will be honoured on this website via the e-Season ticket console with a specially produced video clip, including archive footage and exclusive interviews.
Since 1892 hundreds of players have represented this club but everyone has their own particular favourites so don't expect this list to be based solely on talent. The greatness of a player can be measured in many ways – obviously, his ability on the pitch is the most important, but 100 PWSTK is much more than that. It's about the impact the individuals chosen have had on this club, be it for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was because of their unique rapport with the crowd, a specific incident that has never been forgotten or anything else that has left a lasting impression.
Name: Alun Evans
Years at Liverpool: 1968 to 1972
Position: Forward
Date of birth: 30/4/1949
Birthplace: Bewdley, Worcestershire
Signed from: Wolves (September 1968)
Games: 110
Goals: 33
Honours won: None
Looking more like a movie star than a footballer livewire striker Alun Evans, with his fashionable blonde mop-top, breezed into Anfield as British football's first £100,000 teenager when Bill Shankly signed him from Wolves as a prodigious 18-year old in September 1968. The son of a Welsh-born former West Brom wing half of the same name, Evans had gone to Molineux after impressing as a schoolboy for Mid Worcester, Birmingham and England, later earning youth and under 23 recognition by his country. Strong, skilful, quick and courageous, he first came to the attention of Shanks as a 16-year old when giving Ron Yeats a torrid time while playing against Liverpool for Wolves. His capture was viewed as a major coup by the Reds boss and Evans added to the excitement by making an explosive start to his Anfield career. He scored on his debut - a 4-0 defeat of Leicester – and then netted twice more a week later in a 6-0 rout of his previous employers at Molineux. But sadly his massive potential was never fulfilled. A catalogue of knee injuries halted his progress and his confidence suffered following a much-publicised nightclub incident that left him facially scarred. He bounced back spectacularly to plunder a famous hat-trick that sunk Bayern Munich in a 3-1 Fairs Cup victory at Anfield and also opened the scoring in the 1971 FA Cup semi-final against Everton at Old Trafford. By the following season though, with a young striking sensation by the name of Kevin Keegan now at the club, Evans was allowed to leave and moved on to Aston Villa for £70,000. In a world far removed from his days as the pin-up boy of Anfield he went on to work as a fish market delivery driver and painter and decorator upon retiring from football, but will always be fondly remembered at Liverpool for his dashing performances as a young starlet in the late sixties/early seventies.
Sold to: Aston Villa (1972)
Claim to fame: Becoming British football's first £100,000 teenager
Did you know? He was dubbed 'Der Bomber' by the German press after his goalscoring heroics against Bayern in 1971
Where is he now? Living in Australia
John Bishop on Alun Evans: "Alun Evans, you know what Alun Evans was to me? Alun Evans is like those fellas on Star Trek, who get sent down on the planet first. When Captain Kirk says we've got a new planet to explore, no-one wants to go first because they always get killed. Alun Evans is one of the few who would have gone to that planet and come back!"
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