EUROPEAN Cup-winning Liverpool and England skipper Emlyn Hughes, nicknamed Crazy Horse, died today in 2004.

Hughes joined Liverpool in 1967 as a marauding midfielder after just 28 appearances for Blackpool, as Bill Shankly spotted his early potential and splashed out £65,000 for him.

When Shanks first drove Hughes to Liverpool he was stopped by the police but told the boys in blue that: “Don’t you know who’s in this car? The future captain of England!” And he wasn’t wrong.

It didn’t take long for Hughes to settle in at Anfield and after he rugby tackled Newcastle winger Albert Bennett he was given the nickname ‘Crazy Horse’ which would stick for the rest of his career.

His impressive performances for the Reds drew the attention of Sir Alf Ramsey, who included him in the 1970 World Cup squad, although Hughes never made the pitch.

Later that year Shankly reacted to a loss by lowly Watford in the FA Cup by clearing out a number of ‘Pool old heads, and Hughes became an integral part of the team and the medals would soon come pouring in for Hughes and his teammates.

Hughes won four titles at Anfield between 1973 and 1979, as well as an FA Cup, two Uefa Cups and Liverpool’s first two European Cups in 1977 and 1978.

A year after lifting the big one in Wembley in 1978 Hughes found his place in the Liverpool under threat from a young Scottish defender by the name of Alan Hansen and left Anfield for Wolves. In his first season at Molineux he won the League Cup, completing his set of domestic medals and was also given the OBE for services to football.

Crazy Horse retired in 1984 and hit the airwaves as a pundit and also as a captain on A Question of Sport, where he once , much to his horror, identified a picture of a heavily muddied jockey as John Reid, only for it to be revealed as Princess Anne. That, and the fact he named his daughter Emma Lyn are the only blots we can find on this Liverpool legend’s copybook. Hughes died at his home in Sheffield in 2004 following a brain tumour at the age of 57.

See a tribute reel for the man voted Liverpool’s tenth greatest-ever player below and check out what one of his Liverpool teammates was up to to today here.

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