Alun Evans was a teenage sensation moving to Anfield from Wolves in 1968. The transfer fee was £110 000 and at that time the highest fee paid for a teenager in Britain. Evans made the move after one single season in the Wolves first team.
The move to Liverpool looked good in his first season ending runners-up to Leeds in the league and scoring on his debut, a 4-0 win v. Leicester. He finished that season with 7 goals, playing 33 league games in total.
His next two seasons was a bit up’s and down’s and with injuries and off field incidents his place was firstly under pressure and finally it was game off with a certain Kevin Keegan moving into that top position alongside John Toshack.
But before his bow, he had a sensational game v. Bayern Munich in the Inter City Fairs Cup, scoring a wonderful hat trick in a 3-0 win, seeing Liverpool through to the next round with a 4-1 in total. It showed that Alun Evans had a grand top level and that his potential never hit the highest heights.
Embed from Getty ImagesAnother point to notice was Alun’s appearances in the 1971 FA Cup, scoring in the semi’s v. Everton and playing in the final later on against Arsenal who we all know ended as winners and took home magic and historical 70/71 “The Double”.
Bill Shankly didn’t see a future for Alun Evans, and at the age of 23 he was sold to Aston Villa. It all ended with 69 league games and 21 goals scored on his league outings for Liverpool. Aston Villa, newly promoted to the 2nd tier, paid £72 000 for his services and a new lease of life looked close.
Embed from Getty ImagesHe stayed at Aston Villa for two and half years before making a new move, this time to Walsall, and ironically leaving Villa Park in a season that the club clinched promotion back to the top flight, and also being a sub in the League Cup final 1-0 win v. Norwich City.
After a run of games at Walsall, Evans moved to Australia and played down under for a few seasons before hanging up his boots after a leg injury. He started a life in different trades.
Sometimes you see young players with a huge potential just fading out of the limelight and certainly Alun Evans never really fulfilled the life of being a top flight footballer through out his career and had to see him fall down the divisions, and fading off to Australia, being at one time the most valuable asset in British football.