Player Profile

A great goalscoring defender if there ever was one. Lawler boasts an astonishing record of 61 goals in 549 games, especially considering he was not the club's penalty kick-taker or a free-kick specialist. He ghosted into the opponent's penalty area, having the "brain of a striker" as termed by Paisley, and cooly dispatched the ball past the 'keeper. His most memorable goal of all came in a Merseyside derby in November 1970 when after being two goals down Lawler scored the winner for Liverpool six minutes from time. Local lad Lawler came through the junior ranks at Anfield and signed professional forms on his seventeenth birthday in October 1960. The cultured centre-half had his way into the team blocked by the great Ron Yeats and had to wait patiently until March 1963 before Bill Shankly gave him his debut in a home fixture with West Bromwich Albion. Lawler made six League appearances in 1962/63 and took Yeats' place in all the six matches the Scotsman missed the following year. Lawler's talent was too great to keep him out of the team and a spot had to be found for him. Ronnie Moran, who had been playing left-back with Gerry Byrne on the right, was reaching the end a successful career. Lawler was brought in as right-back and Byrne moved to the left. By the end of the 1964/65 season Lawler was a regular and a proud member of the Liverpool team that won the FA cup for the first time in the club's history. He played 316 consecutive games from 2 October 1965 to 24 April 1971, a quite remarkable 'attendance record', helping his side win the Championship in 1966, reach the Cup winners' Cup final the same year and another FA Cup final in 1971.

Lawler and Tommy Smith were roommates and despite being very different characters they worked well together on and off the field as Lawler explained. "Tommy and I had an understanding. I’d try and force them inside and then Tommy would sort them out! I’d let him do the tackling. There weren’t many that got the better of us. Best, Charlton, yes, they were good. But we usually had the beating of them." Lawler was nicknamed "The Silent Knight" because of the quiet, uncomplicated way he just got on with his job on the field described in one report as "sauntering through games with all the apparent urgency of a man out walking his dog." He was very quiet off the field and a source for one of the best anecdotes concerning Bill Shankly, as told by Bob Paisley. "Bill used to take training sessions very seriously when it got round to the 7–a-side matches and this day we were playing without proper goals. Bill hit a shot and claimed a goal which everyone else knew would have gone over the bar. Anyway, to try and get some support for his view that he had scored he turned to Chris and asked him whether it was a goal or not. Chris said that it wasn’t and would have gone over the bar and Bill had everyone in stitches when he turned round and told anyone who would listen: 'He doesn’t say a word for years and then when he does he tells a lie.'”

Approaching his thirtieth birthday Lawler still retained the fitness and stamina to play in every single one of the 66 competitive games the club played in four different competitions during the 1972/73 season, his reward being further winners' medals in the Championship and UEFA Cup. Lawler underwent a cartilage operation after suffering an injury against Queens Park Rangers in November 1973 and was never quite the same player afterwards, as his kneecap continued to give way.

Having only played one match in the last five months Bill Shankly still picked him as the 'twelfth man' for the 1974 FA Cup final. Lawler only featured in 17 matches in a season and a half following Bob Paisley's appointment. On a personal level Chris and his wife, Geraldine suffered a horrible tragedy in 1975 when their oldest child Christell Rose died. They have three other children; Jane, Christopher and Leon. Chris moved to Portsmouth in October 1975 who were managed at the time by his former teammate, Ian St John. In the summer of 1976 Lawler played on loan at Miami Toros where he faced Pele and Eusebio. In 1980 Lawler wound down his playing career in a much colder climate in Norway as a player-manager with Raufoss, then competing in the second division. He later managed Bodø for two years before returning to Liverpool in 1982 as reserve-team coach. Lawler remained in that role for four years before Kenny Dalglish took over as manager, replacing him with Phil Thompson.