The 1963-1964 Championship season

Gordon Banks with Shanks in front of the adoring fans

The next game was against Leicester City who had a player who was to become in turn, Public Enemy No 1 and then, shortly afterwards, the most popular visiting player ever at Anfield.

Gordon Banks was, quite simply, a truly magnificent goalkeeper, one of the top 5 that I have been privileged to see in my time. The trouble was that he reserved many of his best performances for games against the reds and, time after time, he defied the best that we could manage and once again he held firm to enable Leicester to sneak away with a most unlikely 1-0 victory to make it 4 home defeats by the beginning of November. His unpopularity stemmed from an unfortunate photograph that appeared in the press after the previous season’s FA Cup semi final in which Leicester defeated the reds 1-0 thanks to another heroic performance by the Leicester keeper. A picture that appeared in the following morning’s papers appeared to show Banks laughing at Ian St John’s reaction at the final whistle. The truth was that he was merely celebrating his team’s victory with his team-mates but the press made a lot out of it at the time and Banks became the unwitting victim of a bit of a hate campaign for a couple of seasons. All was forgiven when, in our subsequent run to the final in 1965, we played Leicester in a replay of the 6th round at Anfield. As usual Banks defied us time and time again until Roger Hunt eventually beat him in the 72nd minute at the Kop end to put us into the semi-final.

When the final whistle blew that night Banks turned to the Kop and applauded us for our vocal contribution to our victory. He instantly became a Kop hero and rumours persisted for many years that Shankly was about to sign him. It never happened but every time he visited Anfield thereafter he was accorded a reception that only the Kop could offer to a member of the opposition.

The author in good company!

Another run of 4 consecutive victories and a creditable draw away to Arsenal saw us, almost unbelievably, top of the league. Things were looking good but Blackburn Rovers came to Anfield on the day before my birthday and I remember saying to my mates that all I wanted for a present was a victory. Incredibly Blackburn inflicted a 5th home defeat – and we had yet to reach Christmas!

There were further shocks and surprises as the New Year dawned. The FA Cup had never really been high on our schedule. We had had 2 losing appearances in the Final (1914 and 1950) but for the most part we had never really thought of ourselves as potential cup winners.

Having disposed of Derby County in the 3rd round and then being drawn against Port Vale at home in the 4th round there were stirrings that this might be our year for FA Cup heroics as none of us really thought that the League Championship was a realistic proposition, particularly with our erratic home form.

Port Vale were having none of it and left Anfield with a very creditable draw. Down to Port Vale we trooped two days later for the replay. But where was Port Vale? Indeed where is Port Vale?

The answer, of course, is that there is no such place as Port Vale. The area is a suburb of Stoke-on-Trent and we travelled down expecting to find a run down stadium with few facilities (Anfield didn’t have many in those days – some would say it still doesn’t!) but how wrong we were. There were 42,000 there to see Peter Thompson grab a winner for Liverpool 2 minutes before the end of extra time.

A resounding defeat to Everton at Goodison did nothing for morale but fortunately there were no further losses at Anfield. At least not in the league. The 6th round of the FA Cup saw us draw Swansea at home and we really started to think that Wembley might well become a target.

We had been denied many times by the aforementioned Gordon Banks but I imagine that few will remember the heroics of Noel Dwyer who played in goal for the Welshmen that day. He was absolutely unbeatable and his day of triumph was completed when he saved a Ronnie Moran penalty with 10 minutes to go. We lost 2-1 and the League Championship became our sole target.

Seven victories in the next 9 games, included a hat-trick by Roger Hunt at White Hart Lane vs. Tottenham and a 3-0 victory over Manchester United. At that time the Man U fixture was nothing like as big as it is now. We didn't play them, of course, during our 8 years of obscurity in Division 2 and the fixtures in the last couple of seasons before our relegation drew attendances well below capacity at both Anfield and Old Trafford. This game was a triumph for Alf Arrowsmith who scored twice during a golden spell that season when he couldn't stop scoring goals.

John and Bill with their cricketing team in 1965. John Martin is 2nd from the left in the front row and his pal Bill is fourth from the left in the front row.

This victorious run meant that if we beat Arsenal in our last home game we would, incredibly, be champions but a terrible moral dilemma presented itself to myself and my best mate, Bill. We had followed our heroes all over the country for the past 7 months but the moment of potential triumph coincided with the first match of the new cricket season and I was our club captain and Bill was our front line bowler. What a decision we had to make!

Bill left it to me, saying that he would go along with my decision (chicken!!) and I, reluctantly, decided that my responsibilities as club captain had to take precedence over my allegiance to LFC.

Bill and I went to play cricket at Helsby as 50,000 were gathering at Anfield to see Tommy Lawrence save a penalty against Arsenal and Ian St John, Alf Arrowsmith, Peter Thompson (2) and Roger Hunt took us to a famous victory.

The League Championship was ours – And our cricket match was rained off!!!

Copyright - John Martin for LFChistory.net