Complete TOSH

John Toshack's remarkable career took him from Wales, Liverpool and Real Madrid to Azerbaijan, Morocco and Iran. After a brush with death in 2022, he tells his story to FFT

- Dani Gil

Bill Shankly knew how to make an instant impact on players. The year was 1970 and John Toshack had just joined Liverpool from Cardiff for a club-record £110,000 fee, when he was greeted by his new manager. The Welshman has never forgotten Shankly's first words to him.

"I was only 21 and didn't have a driving licence, so I travelled from Cardiff by train," Toshack recounts to FourFourTwo.

"Bill Shankly was waiting for me at the station, with his trilby on his head. The first thing he said to me was, 'Welcome to Liverpool, son: you've come out of school to come to church'." Over the next eight years, Toshack's religious experience would develop him from a highly promising forward into an Anfield legend. That day at Liverpool Lime Street station, his extraordinary life in football was just getting started.

"KEEGAN WAS SCARED"

Today, 55 years later, following a career that took him to a dozen countries, he lives in Besalu - a village of medieval architecture in Catalonia, not far from the French border - with his wife, Mai, and several dogs they've adopted. As a manager, Toshack had seven spells in Spain: three at Real Sociedad, two with Real Madrid, plus stints at Deportivo La Coruna and Real Murcia.

He welcomes FFT into his rural home, telling us he used to read the magazine when he lived in the UK. Time hasn't eroded a single detail of his extensive career, right back to his school days in his home city of Cardiff. "I'd take my sandwich with me so I didn't have to go home for lunch - it meant I could stay and play football in the playground," explains Toshack with a smile. Not just football, either: "I played cricket during the week, rugby on Saturday mornings and football in the afternoon," he adds.

Then the first scouts appeared. At 15, he received an offer from Tottenham to go to London for trials. "I went with two other team-mates to a residence next to the old White Hart Lane," he recalls.