ITS A RUSH FOR THE RHINO

Ian Rush MBE, now 52 years old, was named today on Talksport as Danny Murphy's ninth choice best footballer he has ever known.

Rush was born in St Asaph, Wales. St Asaph has a cathedral and therefore qualifies as a city for about 3,500 population.

As a youngster he became an Everton fan. He played for Chester City and was soon signed by Bob Paisley, at Liverpool, where he played from 1980-87 and again from 1988-96, scoring 346 goals in these two spells at Anfield, proving to be a legendry striker.

Between these two spells, Rush had an unhappy period at Juventus, an experience he described as “Like living in a foreign country”.

He also had short spells at Leeds United, Newcastle United, Wrexham and Sydney Olympic. He played centre forward for Wales 73 times and is his country's record goal scorer with 28 goals scored between 1980-1996.

Overall he played 675 games with 284 goals.

He was manager at Chester for a year 2004-5 and works as a TV pundit. In his career he became PFA Player of the Year, BBC Wales Sports' personality of the Year inn 1984 and also

Football Writers' Footballer of the Year. He came 3^rd in the “100 players who shook the Kop” vote, an official Liverpool Fan Poll. He retired from playing in 2000.

In 2010, as part of an outdoor installation in Chester, he had a life sized fibreglass rhino named after him. It was painted with a "Rush" moustache and Chester City football kit. When it was sold off, the Chester FC bought it and had it displayed by the entrance of the stadium.

With Carol Anthony, his 30 year old girlfriend, he obviously has his hands full in “retirement”. After her, he rates Ronnie Whelan as his best mate, Bob Latchford as his hero and Franco Baresi and Paul McGrath as the hardest men he played against.