Ian Rush biography

Over the years,

has risen some of the finest players to gain reputation for the Premier League. During their time in the Premier League, a ton of Welsh players have gone on to become legends, whether it was for their goal-scoring abilities, leadership skills, or intense defending in the middle of the pitch.

Ian James Rush, born October 20, 1961, is a former professional footballer from Wales who played forward. Rush was a member of Liverpool from 1980 to 1987 and 1988 to 1996. He has 346 goals in all competitions for the club, making him the club's all-time top scorer.

Rush made 73 appearances for Wales at the international level, and with 28 goals between 1980 and 1996, he held the record for most goals scored by a Welsh player until 2018. He is highly acknowledged as one of his generation's best strikers.

Now, with the introduction given, let us go down the details and find out what Ian has done throughout his football career

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This is where it all begins, thus let us get to the main points instantly.

Ian Rush information

Let us provide you a list of the most basic information about Ian Rush, in this way, even if you don’t have any idea of who Ian is, by the end of this section you would have enough information to be able to answer “who is Ian Rush”.

Personal information

• Full name

  : Ian James Rush

• Date of birth

  : 20 October 1961

• Place of birth

  : St Asaph, Wales

• Age

  : 59

• Star sign

  : Libra

• Marital status

  : Engaged

• Religion

  : Christianity

Football information

• Nickname

  : The Ghost

• Current club

  : Retired

• Last played for

  : Sydney Olympic

• Retired since

  : July 1, 2000

• Most games for

  : Liverpool

• Position

  : Forward

• Foot

  : Right

Body measurement

• Height

  : 1.80 m

• Weight

  : 79 kg

All the biographies start from the beginning of the player’s life and

Ian Rush biography

is not an exception, that’s why we have prepared the starting point of

Ian Rush life story

in the next section.

Ian Rush early life

Ian Rush childhood

was spent in a town named Flint in northeast Wales with four sisters and five brothers.

Ian Rush date of birth

is 20 October 1961. When he was 13, he was scoring for Deeside Primary Schools, which drew the attention of scouts from Liverpool and Manchester United.

, Wrexham, and Chester all offered him trials.

Ian Rush profile

Rush was voted third in the 100 Players Who Shook the Kop – an official Liverpool fan poll – and is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever Liverpool players. Chester City,

, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Sheffield United, Wrexham, and Sydney Olympic were among his other short-term clubs.

Rush was appointed as the manager of Chester City (2004–05) and has been a television football pundit since his retirement as a player in 2000.

Style of play

As compared to his peers,

, Robbie Fowler, and Alan Shearer were all capable of scoring 25 goals per season and were comparable to Rush in this regard. He was, however, a tireless worker who was continuously closing down defenders and attempting to steal the ball from goalkeepers.

When you consider that he played the majority of his career before goalkeepers were able to pick up back passes, you have to wonder how many more goals he would have scored in his prime if goalkeepers had to kick the ball while he was approaching them at such a breakneck pace.

He was efficient and confident as a finisher, similar to Jimmy Greaves, who was a great goalscorer but not as hardworking as Rush. In front of goal, I believe Ian was on par with Jimmy and could poach and score tap-ins as well as anyone, but Rush was the superior player in every other region.

The best finishers are said to be greedy, and there's no denying that Rush had a ruthless streak that he could turn on when the situation called for it, but his all-around work and selfless devotion to the team is what defined him the most. He was a team player first and foremost, even more so than any other talented center-forward.

Reception

Rush rose to prominence after scoring for Chester City in a shock 2–0 FA Cup third-round victory over Newcastle United in January 1980. Chester City went on to match their best FA Cup run by reaching the last 16, where they were narrowly defeated by Ipswich Town. He did not score in his final game for Chester City, a 2–1 victory over Southend United at Sealand Road on April 26, 1980.

Goal celebration

Ian Rush’s way of celebration was not unique as you can see a lot of footballers who would raise their hand in the air and point upwards while running to the corners. That was the exact way of him sharing his joy with the fans and his teammates.

Ian Rush outside football

Outside of the green field, Ian is a very religious man. Considering

Ian Rush religion

, he is a Catholic Christian. According to what he has said to the interviewers he would drive to the church after his training every Saturday.

Ian is in a very good relationship with Neville Southall and their friendship started in the 1989 FA Cup finals. Rush's autobiography, Rush: The Autobiography, was published by Ebury Press on August 21, 2008.

Ian Rush personal life

Francis and Doris Rush, who lived in Flint, North Wales, had ten children, Ian being the ninth. He and his five older brothers ,Francis, Stephen, Graham, Peter, and Gerald, had one single room.

With hindsight, Ian claims that six young men in one bedroom was irritating when he and the five brothers were at school, but "it was next to impossible" once the older brothers started going out to work.

He recalls one brother getting up at 5 a.m. for his morning shift at the steelworks, "waking us all up, especially me because I had to get up for school!".

Francis Rush, a long-serving member of the steel industry, died in July 2003 at the age of 78. Doris Rush died at the age of 82 about seven years later.

Family, children and relationships

In 1987, Rush married Tracy. In 2015, the couple divorced. Jonathan and Daniel were their two sons. Ian Rush is currently engaged with Carol Anthony. They've been together for five years, and Carol said after saying 'yes' to the proposal, "there's nothing in this world that makes me happier."

Anthony, 35, is a former Irish singer who previously performed in Havana and had a single called Dance Like That that failed to chart. She now owns a business called Home-run Productions and has just released her first fashion line. She's from Cork, and she joked that Rush had been introducing her to people as his wife, despite the fact that the two have yet to marry.

Philanthropy

After discovering that he will be honored with the inaugural Legends of Sport Award, Liverpool's all-time leading goal scorer started up the Ian Rush Foundation. Rush told Sky Sports News, "My desire to build the foundation was because I wanted to give something back to grassroots football."

Legal issues

Regarding this football legend, no criminal record was found. We are glad that this is the part in

Ian Rush biography

which is completely empty.

Ian Rush career statistics

The lean Welshman was one of the deadliest strikers in football history, combining sublime anticipation with deadly finishing to become Liverpool's all-time scoring king. His attack duo with Kenny Dalglish is generally regarded as the finest in British football history. When Bob Paisley charged £300,000 to sign Rush from Chester in 1980, he became Britain's most expensive teenager.

Rush scored 346 goals in 660 senior appearances during his two-part Anfield career, which was split by a season with Juventus in 1987-88 when he left and returned for a combined £6 million, although he was just 16 goals shy of Roger Hunt's club record.

He has won five championship medals and one European Cup, as well as receiving the MBE. Rush set an all-time Mersey derby record with 25 goals against

in 1984 when he also won Europe's Golden Boot with 32 League goals and captained Wales, for whom he scored a record 28 goals in 73 games.

He began his career with Leeds in 1996 and went on to play for Newcastle, Wrexham, and

Now, let’s get down to the details in the next section of

Ian Rush biography

.

Club

We have reached the most important and lengthy part of Ian Rush biography.

In May 1980, just before becoming a Liverpool player, Rush made his international debut. On the 13th of December of that year, he made his Reds debut against Ipswich Town at Portman Road in a First Division match.

He was filling in for his future strike partner,

(who was out with an ankle injury but was one of the best strikers in the world at the moment), and wore his No 7 jersey. Liverpool was defending the league title and competing for the European Cup at the time, while Ipswich was emerging as a surprise title contender.

Liverpool finished fifth in the Premier League (with Aston Villa winning the title), but they did win the European Cup and the League Cup for the third time.

Rush spent much of his first season at Liverpool in the second team rather than being pushed into the first team. His first goal for the club took a long time to come, but it finally did on September 30, 1981, in a European Cup first-round second leg tie against Oulun Palloseura at Anfield.

Liverpool had already defeated Raatti Stadium 1–0 in the first leg. They won 7–0 in the second leg, with Rush scoring in the 67th minute after replacing David Johnson three minutes earlier.

His first two league goals came in a 3–0 home victory over Leeds United on October 10, 1981, and a month later in a 3–1 win over Liverpool in the Merseyside derby at Anfield. Rush and Liverpool, on the other hand, rose from tenth to first place after Christmas.

On January 26, 1982, he scored a hat-trick in a 4–0 away league victory over Notts County, and he also scored in the next two games. He scored eight goals in the League Cup (one in the final victory over Tottenham Hotspur) and three in the FA Cup campaign, which ended with a fifth-round loss to Chelsea.

He finished the season as the club's best striker, with 30 goals in 49 matches in all competitions, a goal average of one per 1.6 games. He scored 17 goals in the Premier League to help Liverpool reclaim the title from Aston Villa. He also scored in Liverpool's 1982 Football League Cup Final victory over Tottenham Hotspur.

Liverpool's first trophy drought season in ten years happened in 1984–85, but they did reach their fifth European Cup final against Juventus in the wake of the Heysel Stadium tragedy. Before the match started, rioting football hooligans destroyed a retaining wall, killing 39 Juventus fans.

Juventus won the game by a score of 1–0. Liverpool was beaten to the Premier League title by Everton, who won it with four games to spare. Following the Heysel tragedy, all English clubs in European competition were suspended permanently, with Liverpool expected to serve an additional season until the ban on other English clubs was lifted.

Rush received an offer to join the Italian club Juventus for a British record transfer fee of £3.2 million on July 2, 1986, after receiving a lot of interest from top European clubs. However, he remained on loan at Liverpool for one season before making his Juventus debut.

With 30 First Division goals, he was the second-highest goal scorer in the Football League for the 1986–87 season, but the Reds finished second to Everton in the league and were defeated by

in the League Cup final, despite Rush's opening goal, which ended a long run – Liverpool had not lost any of the previous 144 games in which he had played.

Rush's exit from Liverpool prompted the signing of new strikers John Aldridge and Peter Beardsley, and when he returned to the club, he was paired with these players in a 4–3–3 formation.

Kenny Dalglish, the man that Rush had played previously with (who had been elected player-manager in 1985), was still registered as a player, but he was in his 37th year and barely appeared in the first team by that time, retiring entirely in 1990.

Rush published "My Italian Diary", 1989, a diary of his turbulent time in Italy. In it, he discussed his struggles to fit into Juventus and adapt to the Italian style of play.

Rush faced tough competition for a place in the new-look Liverpool attack when he returned to Anfield, with John Aldridge joining the club shortly before Rush's transfer to Juventus and Peter Beardsley joining shortly after.

Rush and Aldridge's styles were considered too close to allow them to play together. Aldridge began the season ahead of Rush and scored goals regularly, holding the Welshman on the bench. Rush started to take shape as the season progressed. Rush had scored twice against Everton in the 1989 FA Cup Final, a dramatic 3–2 victory.

Rush won his fifth and final League title in 1989–90, as Liverpool finished nine points ahead of

, with Rush scoring 18 times in 36 games.

Even though Rush had given the Reds the lead with a goal in the 14th minute, another attempt at the League–FA Cup double fell short as the Reds lost a shock FA Cup semi-final to Crystal Palace. The game ended in a 4–3 defeat, which was even more incredible given Liverpool's 9–0 league victory over the newly promoted South Londoners earlier in the season.

Rush's contract with Liverpool was set to expire on June 1, 1996, and it was announced in late February 1996 that he would leave on a free transfer. Several clubs showed an interest in signing him right away. Everton,

, Oldham Athletic, Swansea City, Leeds United, and Tranmere Rovers were among them.

Rush parted ways with Liverpool on May 20, 1996, when he agreed to join Leeds United. Rush spent a season with Leeds, scoring three times in 36 Premier League games before being released at the end of the 1996–97 season on a free transfer.

Howard Wilkinson, who was sacked a month into the season and replaced by George Graham, had taken him to Elland Lane.

He then signed a one-year deal with Kenny Dalglish at Newcastle United but lost his starting spot after Christmas when Alan Shearer returned from a long-term injury. Rush did, however, score an important goal in a 1–0 FA Cup win over Everton in the third round, his 43rd in the competition (a 20th-century record). In a League Cup match against Hull City, he scored another goal for Newcastle.

Later in the season, he went on loan to Sheffield United before leaving St James's Park in the summer of 1998 to join Wrexham amid much fanfare. Rush, 37, was moved to midfield at the end of the season after struggling to score in 18 Division Two starts for the North Wales club.

He made a brief return to the game with Sydney Olympic in Australia, scoring one goal in three games before retiring in 2000 at the age of 38.

International

Considering

Ian Rush nationality

, Rush made his Welsh debut before making his first appearance for Liverpool, playing against Scotland in Glasgow on May 21, 1980, in a 0–1 defeat. On January 24, 1996, he played his final international match, a friendly against Italy in Terni, in which Wales lost 0–3.

Rush was a starter for the Welsh national team for over 15 years, appearing in 73 games and scoring 28 goals.

On 4 June 1988, he scored the only goal in a friendly against Italy in Brescia, resulting in a dramatic victory. While scoring the winning goal in an unforgettable Euro 1992 qualifier against Germany on June 5, 1991, the team never qualified for a major tournament during his career.

In 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification, he scored a hat-trick in a 6–0 victory over the Faroe Islands at Cardiff Arms Park, the first Welsh hat-trick in over 13 years and one of only 14 in the country's history. Rush was Wales' all-time leading goalscorer before Gareth Bale broke his record of 28 goals in 2018.

Managerial

August 2004 was when

Ian Rush bio

took a sharp turn and he was appointed manager of his first professional club, Chester City after serving as a part-time striker's coach for

under Gerard Houllier in 2003. Chester had had a poor start to their first season back in the Football League, and Rush was struggling to keep the team together.

They went on a two-month unbeaten streak after losing 3–1 at Boston United in his first game in charge, and he led the club to the FA Cup third round. Rush seemed to be responding to his detractors, such as former Liverpool teammate Mark Lawrenson, who questioned whether his tactical and coaching skills could equal his illustrious past.

But things didn't seem to go as well after Rush ruled himself out of contention for the vacant Welsh manager's job on November 1, 2004. Rush was chastised for his managerial team's long-ball tactics, which resulted in some heavy defeats.

Rush declined to resign after a humiliating 5–0 defeat to Shrewsbury Town in February 2005, despite pressure from chairman Stephen Vaughan. Rush resigned on principle after Vaughan sacked Rush's assistant Mark Aizlewood without his knowledge in April, following a 1–0 loss at Darlington. Chester was practically secure from relegation by the time he resigned.

During his time as manager, players including Robbie Booth, Michael Walsh, and Shaun Whalley all made their Football League debuts, while Michael Brown, George Elokobi, and Robbie Foy all spent time on loan at the club.

Soon after, Rush was evaluated for the Peterborough United manager's post but was defeated by Mark Wright, who had previously managed Chester and had played in the same Liverpool squad as Rush from 1991 to 1996.

Ian Rush honors!

As the last part of the Ian Rush biography, we would like to list down all of his awards and trophies that he has earned throughout his football career.

It might come as a surprise to realize that despite the fact that Ian has played for numerous teams, his team awards are all related to Liverpool.

While Ian was playing for Liverpool, the team managed to win 5 league titles as well as 3 FA cups. 5 League cup victories on Liverpool’s name and Ian’s honor list. Liverpool claimed 1985-86 Football League Super Cup and European Cup for 2 years with Ian being amongst the players.

Ian himself managed to win a lot of awards individually. 8 Liverpool Top Scorer awards are just enough to put him amongst the football legends list. 2 golden boots, one for the First Division and the other for players of Europe.

The professional football association was kind enough to nominate Ian once for the PFA Young Player of the Year and second for the PFA Players' Player of the Year.  BBC chose Ian as Wales Sports Personality of the Year in 1984.

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