Gerry Marsden, the leader of Gerry And The Pacemakers, has died at the age of 78, as The Guardian reports.

Marsden formed the group in the late 1950s and, for a time, they were neck-and-neck with the Beatles during the height of the British Invasion. Both bands were managed by Brian Epstein and played the same Liverpool show circuit. Gerry And The Pacemakers had three #1 UK hits in 1963: “How Do You Do It,” “I Like It,” and the Rodgers & Hammerstein cover “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” which has had a long afterlife as the anthem for the Liverpool FC team.

Gerry And The Pacemakers starred in their own film, 1965’s Ferry Cross The Mersey, but their popularity waned as Beatlesmania took hold and the group disbanded in 1966. Marsden maintained a television career as a children’s TV performer and revisited his Pacemakers material throughout the years, re-recording a number of his hits and performing them for charity.