Bill Shankly

[norwich stanley]

The great Bill Shankly died 25 years ago today-god that makes me feel old,was he the the greatest manager of all time?

[Bazf]

I'm biased but he was a brilliant man.



Shankly still rules Kop OK as game remembers a legend
MARTIN HANNAN

THERE will undoubtedly be a few Liverpool FC supporters who will trek to east Ayrshire later this week to pay homage to Bill Shankly at the place of his birth, Glenbuck, on the 25th anniversary of his death, which took place on September 29, 1981. Perhaps they will think his home village contains the spiritual essence of the man many Liverpool fans regard as the greatest manager of all time.

They need not bother looking for Glenbuck. It is not there any more. Yes, they will see the road sign pointing to Glenbuck. Yes, they will find the plinth with its inscription commemorating Shankly - "the legend, the genius, the man" - and Glenbuck's other footballers. But they will also find a barred and padlocked gate preventing any access to the hills and narrow glens that Shankly roamed as a boy.

For where Glenbuck stood there is now but a vast hole in the ground, an open-cast mine as ugly as any of the breed. Where once was found a village of 1,200 people, from whose population emerged 50 professional footballers in a few short decades, there is now only a hideous scar on the face of central Scotland, a wasteland some call progress.

Glenbuck and its miners made Shankly what he became - a man of the people, for the people. The second youngest of ten children and the youngest of five boys who all played professional football, Shankly went down the pit at 14. It was there he learned the ways of men and a community. There too he ingested his "gut socialism". But the mine closed in 1930. Shortly afterwards, so did (temporarily) the famous Glenbuck Cherrypickers, the local football team which nurtured so many of those 50 village professionals, including his uncle on his mother's side, Bob Blyth, who played for Rangers, and his four brothers Alec, Jimmy, John and Bob.

Alec played for Ayr United, John for Morton and other clubs, while Jimmy and Bob enjoyed long careers before the latter managed the likes of Falkirk, Dundee, Hibs and Stirling Albion. All are long since dead, John dying of a heart attack sustained at Hampden Park while watching the famous Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt European Cup Final of 1960. Bob is still a legend on Tayside, having won the league with Dundee in 1961-62 and leading the club to the European Cup semi-final the following season. He died in 1982.

One of the myths surrounding Shankly is that he starred for the Cherrypickers. In fact the club had folded at the time he was old enough to play in the first team. Instead, he began playing with nearby junior side Clonberry Eglinton, and from there he moved into the professional ranks with Carlisle United.

Preston North End soon spotted his potential and he was tempted south to join what was then one of the leading clubs in England. Shankly slotted into the right-half position behind the great Tom Finney. The two men struck up a fruitful partnership and Preston went on to win the FA Cup in 1938, the year that Shankly received his first international call up. He was to play four more times for Scotland, before the Second World War interrupted his career.

Eddie Turnbull is a survivor of that great generation of Scottish coaches who revolutionised football management in the Fifties and Sixties. Sir Matt Busby, Jock Stein, Tommy Docherty, Shankly, Turnbull and several more - the influence of these men on British and European football has never really been appreciated, even in their own homeland.

In his forthcoming memoirs, Turnbull will detail how he had several jousts with Shankly in his time as a manager at Aberdeen and Hibs, but it is Shankly's playing skills which his near contemporary remembers.

"I was actually closer to his brother Bob Shankly who did so well as manager of Dundee," said Turnbull. "But I knew Bill for many years. We once fell out when he accused me of using the offside trap at Aberdeen, and six years later he was still going on about it!

"Because of his success at managing Liverpool, people forget that he was an outstanding player himself, one of the best wing-halves of his day. He would have won many more trophies and caps, but he lost seven years out of his career in the war, and when he went back to Preston his best days were behind him."

Shankly joined the RAF and served on the ground crew at various air bases. During the war, professionals were able to play with local teams wherever they were based, and there were even war-time internationals between the countries of the United Kingdom. Shankly distinguished himself in these, scoring against England in a famous 5-4 victory at Hampden Park.

Shankly married Agnes 'Nessie' Fisher in July 1944 and theirs was a long and happy partnership. The date of the marriage also led to one of the most famous stories about him, that he took Nessie to a football match for an anniversary present.

"Of course I didn't take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present," he said. "It was her birthday. Would I have got married during the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves."

To be nearer his dying father, Shankly was posted north of the Border at Bishopbriggs, where he hoped to join Rangers temporarily, but instead the Scottish FA assigned him to Partick Thistle. One can only wonder what would have happened had he indeed ended up at Ibrox after the war.

But Shankly played on at Preston until February 1949 when he was offered the chance to become manager at Carlisle United. Given his later extraordinary achievements it is remarkable that Shankly had such an unsettled start to his coaching career. In quick succession he joined clubs, improved the team but then fell out with the directors and moved on. Which is why he found himself at Grimsby Town, and Workington, before joining Huddersfield Town as reserve coach under manager and old friend Andy Beattie.

In those days, reserves were very much more important than they are nowadays and many clubs often did not distinguish salary-wise between reserve players and first-team regulars. In the days of the maximum wage for footballers, clubs could afford to have large squads and pay the players buttons. At Huddersfield, Shankly's reserves soon outshone the first team and when Beattie resigned he took over as manager in November, 1956. One of the players to whom he was to give a debut was a young Denis Law.

Again he faced the same problem of not being given the resources to build the club that he had in mind. That opportunity came his way in 1959 when Liverpool came calling. The Reds were then languishing at the lower end of Division Two and showed no sign of breaking out of the rut of mediocrity into which they had fallen. Yet the club's directors, especially the chairman, TV Williams, and the wealthy Eric Sawyer, possessed ambition and money, and in Shankly they found the man to drive Liverpool forward, even if he was permanently disdainful of people whose role in football was "just to sign the cheques," as he once put it.

Shankly soon set about acquiring the players he needed and two of the most important came from Scotland, Ron Yeats, the giant centre-half of Dundee United, and striker Ian St John from Motherwell. But he inherited and improved the likes of Roger Hunt, who was to become Liverpool's top goalscorer during the Shankly era and who won the World Cup with England in 1966.

"He had such tremendous enthusiasm for the game," Hunt recalled last week. "He changed the way we trained completely, with the emphasis always on working with the ball. He was always telling us to do the simple thing, to make the passes and keep control, and never worry about tactics. I remember him being given one of those boards with 22 magnetic 'men' on it and he just threw it aside.

"There were already good people on the coaching side at the club like Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan, but he persuaded the club to buy players and he spent the money wisely, going up to Scotland for Ron Yeats and Ian St John."

Now retired from the family business in Cheshire, Hunt chuckled as he recalled the fiercely patriotic Shankly's reaction to the events at Wembley in 1966. "He was not happy at all about England winning the World Cup," said Hunt. "When I came back to Liverpool with my winner's medal, he did say 'congratulations' but it was very brief and then he added 'right, let's get down to the important work... playing for Liverpool'."

By then Shankly had already transformed the club, taking them from the depths of Division 2 in 1960 to the championship of England in 1964. The following year Liverpool won the FA Cup for the first time in their history, then reached the final of the European Cup Winners Cup, losing to Borussia Dortmund at Hampden in 1966.

By this time he was a virtual God on Merseyside, his name chanted over and over by the fans. The Beatles might have been world famous, but in the red half of Liverpool, one man counted above all. And he revelled in the adoration, coining ever more outrageous sayings and once even going high onto the Kop terracing and being passed over the heads of the fans to reach the pitchside.

His passion, his pawky humour, his man management skills and above all his identification with the fans at Anfield made him a unique and much-loved figure, revered as the builder of a club as happened with Busby at Old Trafford and Stein at Parkhead.

The glory days of the mid-Sixties could not be sustained and if Shankly had a fault, it was perhaps over-loyalty to players who should have been shipped out. After several seasons of failing to win anything, Shankly set about rebuilding Liverpool in the early 70s with the likes of Kevin Keegan, John Toshack and the late Emlyn Hughes plus a host of great characters who made Liverpool once again a feared side. Shankly's managership culminated in the UEFA Cup victory in 1973 but at the end of the following season he shocked the football world by announcing his retirement at the age of 60. No one could understand why this still fit man wanted to walk away from the club he had almost single-handedly built. He possibly did not know himself - he just said he was "tired."

Bob Paisley took over as manager and went on to enjoy far greater success than Shankly in terms of trophies, but Paisley himself never ceased to acknowledge the debt he and Liverpool owed to Shankly. Sports firm Adidas wanted to present Shankly with a Golden Boot in recognition of what he'd achieved. Paisley took the call and said, 'They want to know what shoe size you take'. Shankly shouted back, "If it's a gold boot, I'm a 28."

In his retirement, Shankly liked nothing better than to play with or coach youngsters at a local school as Scotland On Sunday journalist and Liverpool FC fanatic Martin Allen recalls: "The road where he lived in Sandfield Park was close to my old school, St Edward's College, and was also a short cut frequently used by the lads (it was then an all-boys school) on cross country. The chance to bump into Bill in his garden, washing his car or whatever, made the short cut all the more attractive and he was always willing to engage in banter with us - no matter how cheeky Scouse teenagers can be.

"After his retirement he spent more time around our school too - he asked the games master, Mr Gibbons, if it would be all right to use our athletics facilities for training. The sight of Bill Shankly jogging around our playing fields and track, always in his bright purple tracksuit, was a common one.

"He'd often stand at the side of a pitch to watch us playing football or rugby and shout encouragement - and they were always words of encouragement, never anything negative. He was truly one of us, an adopted Scouser but as Scottish as they come."

It is said that any Liverpudlian who was alive and sentient in 1981 can recall exactly where they were when they heard that Shankly had died after suffering two heart attacks within hours of each other. "I was called at home by a newspaper," said Roger Hunt. "I was utterly shocked, I just couldn't believe it. He was only 68."

Shankly received what was one of the largest funerals ever held in the city. Giving the eulogy, Canon Arnold Myers said: "He refined civic pride and lifted us to a loyalty and unity greater than ourselves. Bill Shankly did not do this all for himself, but for a team, a vast family, for a city, and for an ideal."

Though it was Paisley who actually won the European Cup, no one seriously argues about Shankly being the creator of the modern Liverpool FC. His influence is still strong - present manager Rafa Benitez often mentions Shankly as an inspiration.

In 1973, when he and the team were showing off the League Championship trophy to the Kop, a young fan threw his scarf towards Shankly, only for a policeman to kick it away. The manager reproached the policeman, saying: "It's only a scarf to you, but it's the boy's life." He then picked up the scarf and draped it round his neck.

The incident has been perpetuated in the bronze statue of Shankly sculpted by Tom Murphy which stands near the Shankly Gates at Anfield. The statue was unveiled by Nessie in 1997. On its plinth are written the words: "He made the people happy."

It is not just in bronze that Shankly has been immortalised, but in the folk memory of a city and wherever a passion for football is evinced. Like Glenbuck, Bill Shankly is gone but will never be forgotten.
The wit and wisdom of Bill Shankly

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

"There are only two teams on Merseyside - Liverpool and Liverpool reserves."

"It's great grass, it's professional grass."

"We were so good, they were lucky to get nil."

"The difference between Everton and the Queen Mary is that Everton carry more passengers."

"Don't worry, Alan. At least you'll be able to play close to a great team." (To Alan Ball after he had just signed for Everton.)

"The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game."

"At a football club, there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They're only there to sign cheques."

"We canna play these defensive football sides." (After Ajax Amsterdam had beaten Liverpool 5-1.)

"The end of the season." (On being asked what he disliked most about football.)

"With Ron Yeats in defence we could play Arthur Askey in goal."

"If you're not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we'll discuss your options afterwards." (His instructions to Ian St John.)

"I told this player, 'listen son, you haven't broken your leg, it's all in the mind.'"

"Get back out there - you're Pele." (To a Liverpool player who had taken a head knock and complained he couldn't remember who he was.)

"You've got to admit though, Bill, he was good in the air," said Tommy Docherty about Tony Hateley, after the player underachieved at Anfield. "Aye, so was Douglas Bader... and he had a wooden leg," came the reply.

"Me having no education, I had to use my brains."

"The socialism I believe in is not really politics; it is humanity, a way of living and sharing the rewards."
Life & times

BORN: Glenbuck, September 2, 1913.

PLAYING CAREER: Junior side: Cronberry Eglinton, 1930-32; Senior debut: For Carlisle United, Dec 31, 1932; Preston North End: Signed for £500 in July, 1933. Debut Dec 9, 1933. Played 297 games for Preston, scoring 13 goals; 1933-34 Div 2 runners-up; 1936-37 FA Cup finalist; 1937-38 FA Cup winner. Scotland (1938-39): Five caps, v England (two), Wales, N.Ireland and Hungary. Played seven wartime internationals, captain v England in 1941.

MANAGERIAL CAREER: Manager of Carlisle Utd, Mar 1949; manager Grimsby Town, Jun 1951-Dec, 1953; Workington Town, Jan 1954-Dec 1955; joined Huddersfield Town Dec 1955 as reserve coach; manager Nov 1956-Nov 1959.

LIVERPOOL RECORD: Nov 1959-July 1974. 1961/62 Div 2 champs; 1963/64 Div 1 champs; 1964/65 FA Cup Winners; 1965/66 Div 1 champs, Euro Cup Winners' Cup finalists; 1970/71 FA Cup finalists; 1972/73 Div 1 champs, UEFA Cup winners; 1973-74 FA Cup winners, Div 1 runners-up.

HONOUR: Awarded OBE in 1974.

DIED: Sept 29, 1981, aged 68.


RIP Bill

You'll Never Walk Alone

[Wynonie Harris]

A great manager indeed, but even great managers have their bad days. On Nov 12th 1955, we walloped Workington (who he was managing at the time) 5-1 at Peel Park. Apparently, he wasn't too happy afterwards!

[mani]

5live asked a great question

wud bill shankley have succeeded as a manager today?

[Oggy]

Originally Posted by Bazf

"It's great grass, it's professional grass."

Wasn't that Bob Marley?

No, thanks for that, Bazf. As a toffee who spent half of his time on the Kop during the great man's reign he's as important, if not more, so than the Beatles.

If not the greatest manager ever, he's certainly in the top one .

Can't believe it's 25 years.

[Keep the avatar BTW, it's what Liverpool should be all about.]