Player Profile

Molyneux joined Chester as a 16-year-old in 1947 after being spotted playing football with A. Monk and Co. by one of the directors of Chester who was also a director of the company. He was a regular in Chester's first team from the 1949/50 season onwards in Third Division North until he joined up for National Service at the age of 21, having been deferred as an apprentice fitter at A. Monk when he was at the usual calling-up age of 18. After only being available for 20 League games in two years Molyneux returned from the Army to play 46 League games in the 1954/55 season when Chester finished bottom of the League. Molyneux was transferred to recently-relegated Liverpool for £4,000 with £1,500 added after he featured in 12 games.

Molyneux was a powerful right-back of great physique. He was an unspectacular player, but solid. His opponents would have one hell'uva time to try to pass this ferocious tackler. Molyneux was a regular in the Liverpool side for six of the eight years the club was in the Second Division. In his last season, 1961/62, Shankly had finally found the right mixture of players to take Liverpool to the First Division. With Ron Yeats' arrival Dick White was moved from centre-half taking Molyneux' place at right-back. After featuring in only one game earlier in the season, Molyneux was given a chance at No. 2 in a 1-0 Boxing Day defeat at Rotherham United. Liverpool won the next couple of games but still conceded seven goals in the process. Molyneux was the one who paid the price for the avalanche of goals. That led to Shankly converting Gerry Byrne from the left side to the right and reintroducing Ronnie Moran who had been at the club for ten years at left-back. Liverpool finally got back into the First Division but Molyneux returned to fourth division Chester where he played couple of seasons before cartilage trouble ended his full-time professional football career and he joined New Brighton in the Cheshire County League.

When LFChistory.net asked the 81-year-old John Molyneux in the summer of 2012 what was his most abiding memory from his Liverpool career he told us: "My most outstanding memory when playing at Liverpool was watching the Spion Kop crowd coming down and up the steps like a wave in the sea whenever Billy Liddell was going down the wing towards the Kop."