Alan was a Ball of energy - Yeats

Former Liverpool hard man Ron Yeats has paid tribute to Alan Ball by recalling the future England World Cup winner's league debut at Anfield as a slight 17-year-old.

Yeats - nicknamed 'The Colossus' due to his physical presence - admitted he was baffled by Ball as his Blackpool team tore up the formbook to secure an unlikely 2-1 win on the opening day of the 1962 season.

Ball died suddenly in the early hours of Wednesday morning at the age of 61, after battling to put out a bonfire at his home in Hampshire, and Yeats said: "We couldn't believe such a small and light lad could withstand so many hard tackles."

He added: "He would get up and brush himself off and come right back at you. I couldn't believe it. When we came up against young lads we used to get in hard, just to tell them there was more to come.

"But it didn't unsettle Alan at all. He didn't treat the game like he was a 17-year-old and he made an impression on everyone."

Yeats' Liverpool team-mate Roger Hunt, who played alongside Ball in the 1966 World Cup final, recalled: "We had just got promoted and it was our first game back in the top division.

"Blackpool had a little ginger-haired lad on the right wing and that was my first viewing of Alan Ball.

"You could see then that he wasn't scared. There were 60,000 people there and it would be a bit daunting to make your debut in those kinds of conditions but it didn't seem to affect Alan at all.

"It was the same throughout his career. He was the youngest player in the World Cup final but he was so enthusiastic. He seemed to gain more energy as the game went on, an his performance was fantastic."