Geoff Twentyman

ARTICLE BY SUPERSUB

Ray Clemence – Phil Neal – Alan Hansen – Gary Gillespie – Alan Kennedy – Steve Nicol – Terry McDermott – Jimmy Case – Kevin Keegan – Ian Rush – Steve Heighway. 

As starting XIs go, you could look at this one & discuss whether the defence/midfield/attack is appropriately balanced (or whatever), or you could look at it & think that there’s 11 decent footy players there……  For the purposes of this, I’m gonna go with the latter.

When we look back at the history of this very special football club & particularly the post second world war period, certain names leap out at you as being ‘legends’.  I mean proper legends.

In an era where (pre-Covid lockdowns) the word ‘legend’, which had once been used to describe someone pulling a sword out of a stone & ruling a country, had been reduced to using for someone coming back from the bar with crisps. ‘Legend’ is, most definitely, a word which is used all too easily at times. 

Nobody with any sense though, would argue about names like Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Kenny Dalglish, Rafa, Kevin Keegan, Ian Rush, John Barnes, Steven Gerrard etc being touted as Liverpool ‘legends’.  Each one of them, in their own way, played a key role in previous successes that we’ve had as a club, as did many others.

One name, however, is all too often overlooked……   And that name is Geoff Twentyman.

A Liverpool player between 1953 & 1959, Geoff Twentyman returned to be a scout for the club between 1967 & 1986 & was responsible for ‘discovering’ some of the best players ever to pull on a red shirt, including all of the ‘starting XI’ named above & many, many others.   Something which isn’t as commonly known as it really should be imo, is that no fewer than 6 players from our 1977 first European Cup winning side (Clemence, Neal, Jones, McDermott, Heighway & Keegan) were all signed on GT’s recommendation.

The brief given to Twentyman by Shankly upon his arrival at Anfield was simple (in it’s description at least) –  ‘make Liverpool successful by the cheapest way possible’. That was it. That was his job description, so off he went & did whatever he could to do his job to the best of his ability.  A job that, when all’s considered, he was very, very good at.

Geoff Twentyman spent most of his time as a scout for Liverpool travelling to various faraway football grounds across the nation, more often than not in a pre-owned Ford Cortina, given to him after Shanks had finished with it.  When he arrived at whatever far flung destination he’d chosen to visit, Geoff paid his own way into the stadium.  Whilst most other scouts chose to spend their time in the relative comfort of whatever was available for ‘hospitality’ visits, Geoff stood amongst the paying supporters on the terraces.  There, he’d find out all he could about whichever player he had his beady eyes on, asking questions & listening to what was being said, finding out about the person as much as about the player.   It was an effective working practice & certainly FAR more reliable than what watching a 5 minute YouTube compilation clip is these days.

There’s so many (imo) interesting spin-offs from this…………

How these scouts went about their jobs WAY before mobile phones, the internet etc etc. 

The number of ‘small clubs’ we’ve lost, or are in danger of losing (e.g. Alec Lindsay came from Bury).

Gut instincts & keen observations – vs – stats etc.

I’ve witnessed (and been involved in) several discussions & debates trying to imagine how successful Shanks & Bob (particularly) would’ve been, if it wasn’t for Geoff Twentyman & the players that he ‘discovered’ for the Club. My personal opinion, is that we probably would’ve still been ‘successful’, but not to the extent that we were specifically in the 1970’s & 1980’s.  But that’s pure speculation based upon my own personal opinion & to quote Dalton in one of my ‘guilty secret’ watchable films…  “opinions vary”.

What is a FACT however, is that Geoff Twentyman played a MASSIVE part in this club’s success over the years, right up there with Shanks & Bob & some of the great players that he helped discover, and it wouldn’t be any misuse of the word at all, to describe him as a proper Liverpool Legend. 

If people want to find out more about Geoff (and there’s a LOT more to know), there’s plenty of resources available to them. I’d start with the book, ‘Secret Diary of a Liverpool Scout’ by Simon Hughes, which is available on Kindle for 99p, or from ebay for around £4.