Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of William Shankly. Better known as Bill or more simply as “Shanks”, the man is of course a legend in the eyes of everyone associated with Liverpool football club.
When he took over in 1959 as boss of the club we now know as the most successful in English football history, Liverpool were just another struggling Division 2 side. That’s the original Division 2, nowadays known inappropriately as “The Championship”. By the time he called it a day, 15 years later in 1974, he’d turned Liverpool into a side well on the way to long-term success.
In 1962 he won the Division 2 title for Liverpool, following it just two years later with the league title itself. 1965 saw him bring the FA Cup back to Anfield for the first time. That allowed the Reds to enter the Cup Winners’ Cup, a competition they got all the way to the final of. They lost the final and it was to be a cup never won by Liverpool by the time it was scrapped thirty-odd years later. That season saw him win his second Division 1 title with the Reds. In 1973 he brought the UEFA Cup home and how nice it looked alongside yet another league title. His final season was 1974, when he won the FA Cup for his and the club’s second time. When he announced his departure the football world was shocked, the Liverpool part of it was devastated. Liverpool were just lucky that they had another great man in “Sir” Bob Paisley waiting in the wings to build on what Shankly had started. Shanks was awarded the OBE a few months after retiring.
Shankly had planned to build Liverpool into something special, one of his most inspirational quotes has him explaining what he had in mind: “My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. Napoleon had that idea. He wanted to conquer the bloody world. I wanted Liverpool to be untouchable. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up until eventually everyone would have to submit and give in.” With the work started by Shanks and carried on by Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish Liverpool were to remain practically untouchable all the way until the end of the eighties. The nineties saw things ticking over in many respects, the last league title the Reds won being right at the started of that decade. It looks like things are on the mend now, but only time will tell if Rafael Benítez has worked his own version of the miracles that Shanks performed.
Shanks is probably the most quoted person in football, his one-liners are well-known to many, especially those who were on the receiving end of one of his rebukes. His most famous quote is possibly: “Someone said 'football is more important than life and death to you' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'.” This was uttered in 1981 on a Granada TV show, the year he died of a heart-attack. Football was Shankly’s life, his passion for the game and his beloved Liverpool was what he lived for. He once said, “My life is my work. My work is my life.”
It was Shanks who gave us our all-red strips, using them to scare the opposition. Ian St John played a part too, as he recalls in his autobiography: “He thought the colour scheme would carry psychological impact — red for danger, red for power. He came into the dressing room one day and threw a pair of red shorts to Ronnie Yeats. ‘Get into those shorts and let’s see how you look,’ he said. ‘Christ, Ronnie, you look awesome, terrifying. You look 7ft tall.’ ‘Why not go the whole hog, boss?’ I suggested. ‘Why not wear red socks? Let’s go out all in red.’ Shankly approved and an iconic kit was born.”
Shanks once explained what the famous “This is Anfield” plaque above the steps out to the pitch was for: “It's there to remind our lads who they're playing for, and to remind the opposition who they're playing against.”
Today in some ways is a sad day, because it’s the anniversary of someone passing, but Shanks was someone quite capable of a quip even on sad days – like the day of Dixie Dean’s funeral: “I know this is a sad occasion but I think that Dixie would be amazed to know that even in death he could draw a bigger crowd than Everton can on a Saturday afternoon.” He loved to have a go at Everton and his comments after we beat them in the 1971 FA Cup final were classic Shanks: “Sickness would not have kept me away from this one. If I'd been dead, I would have had them bring the casket to the ground, prop it up in the stands and cut a hole in the lid.”
In many ways it feels that Shanks is in the stands, propped up watching us play. He’s part of Anfield; his spirit is entwined into the ground in a way that is hard to explain. It’s how Anfield is, and I hope that the whole of that spirit can be taken the 300 yards down to Stanley Park as we move to our new ground. Whatever they call the new ground, whatever they call the replacement for the Kop, they need to make sure it remains something Shanks would have been proud to be watching a game from. As he once said: “I'm just one of the people who stands on the Kop. They think the same as I do, and I think the same as they do. It's a kind of marriage of people who like each other,” and another time: “The fans here are the greatest in the land. They know the game and they know what they want to see. The people on the Kop make you feel great – yet humble.”
What Shanks would have made of the current board we’ll never know, but he just considered them a minor tool in his plans for building Liverpool up into that invincible force: “At a football club, there's a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.” Going to the chairman of the board was what he had to do when he wanted to resign. He hated it, as he recalled later: “It was the most difficult thing in the world. When I went to tell the chairman, it was like walking to the electric chair. That's the way it felt.”
If he wasn’t happy to be in the company of the occupants of the board room, he was even less happy to be with those who officiate at the games. “The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.” Nothing changes in football really then.
Two of his other most famous quotes are capable of raising a smile still after all of these years: “If Everton were playing at the bottom of the garden, I'd pull the curtains,” and the classic: “Of course I didn't take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present, it was her birthday. Would I have got married in the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves.” Also his words to Tommy Smith when the defender arrived for training with his knee strapped up: “Take that poof bandage off, and what do you mean 'your' knee, it's Liverpool's knee!”
Motivating players was never a problem to Shanks; he’d not have stood for players wanting to earn huge wages in return for sitting in the reserves. He said: “Fire in your belly comes from pride and passion in wearing the red shirt. We don't need to motivate players because each of them is responsible for the performance of the team as a whole. The status of Liverpool's players keeps them motivated.”
It’s not just huge wages that have come along since Shanks left the game, there’s also the addition of various bits of technology to supposedly help managers, but in reality the game is still a very simple thing. Shanks, as ever, put it so well: “Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.” He’d also be dealing with foreign journalists a lot more nowadays, but he’d probably still try to use this trick – speaking to an interpreter once when faced by Italian journalists he simply said: “Just tell them I completely disagree with everything they say.”
He loved Liverpool, he loved the people of Liverpool, saying once: “Although I'm a Scot, I'd be proud to be called a Scouser.” Most scousers, certainly the Red ones, are unbelievably proud of Shanks. He certainly had the famous Scouse wit down to a tee, with comments like: “It's great grass at Anfield, professional grass,” and on the offside rule: “If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be.”
He’s had so many great quotes, it’s difficult to know when to stop, including this one to Tommy Lawrence after the keeper had let a ball go in through his legs. Lawrence apologised saying, “Sorry, boss, I should have kept my legs together.” Shanks replied: “No, Tommy, your mother should have kept her legs together!”
Psychology was important to Shanks, and that included making sure the opposition knew just how good his players were. On Ron Yeats he said: “With him in defence, we could play Arthur Askey in goal.” On Ian Callaghan: “He typifies everything that is good in football, and he has never changed. You could stake your life on Ian.” On Ian St John: “He's not just the best centre-forward in the British Isles, but the only one.”
To finish we’ve a couple of quotes from him that say what it was he wanted as the manager of Liverpool, and what he wanted to be remembered for: “I was only in the game for the love of football – and I wanted to bring back happiness to the people of Liverpool.” He certainly did – and still does – make a lot of people happy. How did he want us to look back on him? “Above all, I would like to be remembered as a man who was selfless, who strove and worried so that others could share the glory, and who built up a family of people who could hold their heads up high and say ‘We're Liverpool’.”
Well we can hold our heads up high, and that’s thanks to the man who built our club up into what became eventually the most successful ever English club.
Thanks Shanks – Rest in Peace, You’ll Never Walk Alone.