New Delhi, July 22 (IANS) Former Liverpool and Wrexham defender Joey Jones passed away in the early hours of Tuesday morning after a battle with illness. Former Wales international Jones represented Wrexham across three spells with the Club, before a long association with the Club off the pitch – as a first-team coach, youth coach and ambassador, and a brief spell as interim manager, which earned him the nickname, ‘Mr Wrexham’.

A league, European Cup, and UEFA Cup winner with Liverpool, the Welshman made exactly 100 appearances for the club during the second half of the 1970s.

The tough-tackling left-back was signed from Wrexham by Bob Paisley as a 20-year-old during the summer of 1975 and featured on 14 occasions in all competitions during his debut season.

He unfortunately missed out on a league winner’s medal by just one match, with his 13 appearances in the top flight insufficient to qualify at that time, though he was on the bench for both legs of the UEFA Cup final win over Club Brugge.

Paisley’s charges successfully defended their championship crown – Jones played 39 of 42 fixtures – while simultaneously making history as the first Liverpool team to lift the European Cup.

The defender was involved throughout the run to the final and started in Rome as Borussia Mönchengladbach were beaten 3-1 to clinch Old Big Ears.

Jones’s attitude and commitment had long earned him the affection of the Liverpool supporters, and he reached a century of games in January 1978. He also scored three goals while at the club.

Later in the same year, having been displaced in the Reds’ XI, he said farewell to Anfield and returned to Wrexham for a second spell. Joey subsequently spent time with Chelsea and Huddersfield Town before wrapping up his playing career with a third Wrexham stint.

–IANS

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