Johnny King and Tranmere: A voyage into uncharted waters

Daniel Storey

Eric Cantona’s notorious nautical analogy wasn’t nearly as enigmatic as it wanted to be, but it did have a certain visual poetry and Gallic flair. It painted a picture of choppy seas and a violent chill in the air. Cantona created a vision of a bleak and repetitive life atop the waves. A world of graft and grimness that few in professional football have ever known.

Another merchant of maritime metaphors, former Tranmere Rovers manager Johnny King, was born in inner-city London in 1938 and spoke with no little panache of his own. But King was an optimist whose marine rhetoric was bursting with life and colour.

Former Tranmere captain Eric Nixon once told journalist Nick Hilton about being called into King’s office and subjected to a typical battle cry: “I have seen a bird, Nico, on the end of my ship,” raved King. “The best thing about the bird is that it has a twig in its mouth. You know what that means? It means we are near land. What I want you to do now is go back to that squad and tell each and every player to grab an oar and row as hard as they can for the shore. I want them all to be like Kirk Douglas in that movie, The Vikings.” With a dance to demonstrate, the rallying call was over. Just another day at the Rovers, and not a sardine in sight.

King was the son of a cowman-turned-chauffer who moved his family to Merseyside at the start of the Blitz. He made his debut at Everton at the age of 18 and had a brief spell at Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic before Walter Galbraith took him to Tranmere in 1960. He played nearly 250 matches for them, mostly as captain, in an eight-year spell that began with relegation to the Fourth Division in 1961 and ended with promotion in 1967. King departed for Port Vale the following year. A month into his time at Vale Park, King so impressed Brian Clough in a friendly that he was the subject of an offer from Derby County. He refused.

His first job in management was back at Tranmere, where he was appointed in April 1975 and won promotion from the Fourth Division a year later. Before even that first success he was reportedly recommended for a vacancy at Sheffield Wednesday by Bill Shankly, commenting that, “It’s not for me…I haven’t enough experience.” They were relegated back to the Football League’s bottom tier in 1979 and King was sacked in September 1980, but he is revered in Birkenhead. They’ve not forgotten him at Caernarfon Town either.

The 1986/87 season was notable for both clubs. King navigated Caernarfon to their best ever FA Cup performance, and a famous Second Round victory, before returning to Prenton Park with Tranmere threatened by relegation from the Football League. He didn’t have to move far; he was living in Birkenhead while he masterminded Caernarfon’s voyage into uncharted waters.

Tranmere hired him in April 1987 and their late fight for survival was scrappy rather than triumphant. They came closer to the drop than King would have liked. The last afternoon of that season in the bottom tier was an infamous relegation free-for-all but Tranmere did what they needed to do. A goalless draw would have seen them safe by a single goal, but they kicked off against Exeter City at Prenton Park knowing that a win would save them regardless of what happened elsewhere. Thirteen minutes from the end Tranmere’s record goalscorer Ian Muir outfoxed Exeter’s defenders and crossed to Birkenhead-born Gary Williams, whose third goal of the season paved the way to his team’s survival. The pitch invasion that followed was as much an outpouring of relief as a celebration. King was back and his first task had been achieved. Little did the Rovers faithful know that his “trip to the moon” had begun.

King’s second spell at Tranmere was full of entertaining football and pioneering spirit. The rise to their historical peak under King was meteoric. They took a big stride into mid-table in 1987/88 and then finished second in 1989 to secure promotion to the Third Division. The next year they stormed through the third tier to finish in the playoff places, missing out on successive promotions in the playoff final against Notts County. But 1990 did bring a win in the Leyland DAF Trophy, Tranmere’s first major honour. In 1991 they lost the Trophy final but went on to win the playoffs, beating Bolton Wanderers to win promotion to the Second Division for only the second time in their history.

What followed is remembered by Tranmere Rovers supporters like it happened yesterday. They’ve had no finer team than the one studded with experienced names that repeatedly came within a whisker of the Premier League in the mid-1990s. Between 1993 and 1995 they defied their pedigree to become a relentless force in the fight for promotion to the top flight. For three consecutive seasons King and Tranmere finished in the playoff places. For three consecutive seasons they fell short in the semi-finals.

Tranmere had progressed enormously in just a few years and they were also an impressive cup team. As well as those Football League Trophy finals, they came heartbreakingly close to a League Cup final in 1994, the middle year of their sustained assault on the top division. But in April 1996, with chairman Peter Johnson having departed and Rovers’ fortunes on the slide, Tranmere moved King upstairs and replaced him in the dugout with John Aldridge, a player he’d been elated to sign in his twilight, and who did him proud in his years on the Wirral.

Aldridge was the jewel in the crown, the ultimate manifestation of King’s nous in the transfer market. But that team was something else. Experienced players like Muir, John Morrissey and long-serving goalkeeper and captain Nixon were joined by King’s new signings. Their number included Pat Nevin, who played for Tranmere between 1991 and 1997. Tony Thomas, Kenny Irons and John McGreal all graduated into the Rovers first team under King in the 1980s and went on to rack up the better part of a thousand appearances between them.

But King’s Tranmere wasn’t about personnel as much as style. The tactical approach they deployed made their successes all the more impressive. King seldom compromised. Tranmere’s football was, appropriately, swashbuckling. They knew how to pass and play through the lines, and they often played effectively with a front three. They certainly weren’t a soft touch but they were ambitious going forward. It isn’t surprising to see the eyes of Tranmere supporters glaze over at the mere mention of King’s name.

It’s impossible to visit Prenton Park without seeing his impact. In 2002 the stand on Borough Road was named after him. Twelve years later a statue of King in his trademark pose was unveiled at the corner of the ground. He was there, sporting a club blazer and a flat cap, to take part in a tribute from supporters he adored.

Liverpool Echo journalist Hilton described what King meant to Tranmere when he passed away in 2016: “Johnny King was more than just the most successful manager Prenton Park has ever known. He was Tranmere’s Bill Shankly, a football manager who built exciting and successful football teams and won the hearts as well as the respect and admiration of supporters.”

After Shankly died in 1981, King kept a portrait of him on his office wall. He once said that Rovers could never compete with Liverpool and Everton, the “big liners like the Queen Mary” of football on Merseyside. With reliable boardroom backing he got them closer than anyone could have dreamed of.

King was a one-off. His infectious optimism was legendary and lovable, and he was a man who was modest and dignified to the last. He was down-to-earth and yet wonderfully eccentric in front of the cameras. That, along with his systematic destruction of every barrier Tranmere supporters thought they faced, is why he’s loved on the Wirral.

Chris Nee