Liverpool title winner and the man who scored against England and Italy
FootballRay Houghton is the answer to two of the best pub quiz questions in British and Irish football. Who scored the goal that beat England in Stuttgart in 1988, and who lobbed Gianluca Pagliuca in Giants Stadium in 1994? The same slightly built Glaswegian with an Irish passport and a Liverpool medal collection.
Born in Glasgow in 1962 and qualifying for the Republic of Ireland through his father, Houghton came through West Ham's youth system without playing a first team game. He made his name at Fulham, then at Oxford United where he won the League Cup in 1986, before Kenny Dalglish paid £825,000 to take him to Liverpool.
At Anfield he was part of one of the great English club sides, winning the First Division title in 1988 and 1990 and the FA Cup in 1989. Neat, quick, a relentless runner, he scored in the 1988 FA Cup Final and again in the famous 9-0 rout of Crystal Palace. On the international stage his header past Peter Shilton in Stuttgart in 1988 is one of the iconic moments of Irish sporting history, a goal that kicked off the Jack Charlton era.
Six years later he did it again, chipping Pagliuca from 25 yards to beat Italy 1-0 in New Jersey at USA 94. He won 73 caps for the Republic, played in two World Cups, and finished his playing career at Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Reading and Stevenage.
Today he is one of talkSPORT's most familiar voices, an articulate, opinionated pundit with a bottomless pit of stories from the Liverpool boot room and the Irish team bus.
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