Alan A'Court was best known as a Liverpool player in the 50s and 60s. He was a winger who started out at Prescot Celtic before joining Liverpool in 1953, aged 18 - he had rejected Everton and Bolton to become an Anfield apprentice. His first claim to fame is that he was part of the team that were relegated to the Second Division - a league in which he established his reputation. By the age of 24 years and 89 days Alan had played 200 league games for the Reds becoming the youngest player to do so, a record that still stands. It took until 1962 before Liverpool returned to the top league and Alan was an ever present in the promotion team under the guidance of a certain Bill Shankly.

As a player he also won the first of 5 caps playing for England manager Walter Winterbottom as a replacement for Tom Finney. His England highlight was representing England at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden - when Pele emerged as a 17 year old - he played in all 3 matches against Brazil (0-0), Austria (2-2) and the USSR (0-1), despite playing in the Second Division.

By the time injuries took hold and he had to leave Liverpool he had played 382 times and scoring 63 goals. Next destination was Tranmere Rovers before moving on to Norwich City (as player coach). Posts coaching then followed (including spells in Zambia and New Zealand) before he became Assistant Manager at Stoke City with George Eastham in 1969. He spot in the managerial sunshine came in January 1978 when, for a month, he became Stoke's Caretaker Manager, prior to the arrival of Alan Durban on 13th Feb 1978

From Stoke he moved to Crewe Alexandra, again, as an assistant before leaving the professional game to join the sport staff at North Staffordshire Polytechnic.