Bill Shankly - He Made The People Happy

"That I've been basically honest in a game in which it is sometimes difficult to be honest. Sometimes you‘ve got to tell a little white lie to get over a little troublesome period of time. I'd like to think that I have put more into the game than I have taken out. And that I haven‘t cheated anybody, that I've been working for people honestly all along the line, for the people of Liverpool who go to Anfield. I'd like to be recognised for trying to give them entertainment.

I'd played at Anfield and I knew the crowd was fantastic. I knew there was a public just waiting. So I fought the battles inside and outside. I was interested in only one thing, success for the club. And that meant success for the people. I wanted results for the club, for the love of the game, to make the people happy."

-Bill Shankly, when asked how he would like to be remembered-

29 September 1981 was the day Bill Shankly passed away. For those who don’t know, he is the man responsible for what Liverpool Football Club is today (before the two owners Hicks & Gillet got their fangs on the club that is). How we could use someone like him right now.

This post is my little tribute to him. A great man, the greatest ever Liverpool manager and a great servant of football in general.

Mr Bill Shankly, you made the people happy.

"I am very pleased to and proud to have been chosen as manager of Liverpool FC, a club of such potential. It is my opinion that Liverpool have a crowd of followers which rank with the greatest in the game. They deserve success and I hope, in my own small way, I am able to do something towards to help them achieve it. I make no promises except that from the moment I take over I shall put everything into the job I so willingly undertake."

-Bill Shankly to the press when he took over at Liverpool in 1959.

"Before the game, in the dressing room, Bill talked to the lads. He said, 'You've read about Anderlecht having all these internationals and how good they are. They can't play. They're rubbish. I've seen them and I'm telling you. You'll murder them, so go out there and do it.' The boys went out there and murdered them. They won 3-0. And after the game, Bill burst into the dressing room and said 'Boys, you've just beaten the greatest team in Europe."

-BOB PAISLEY on beating Anderlecht in 1964

"Its a conspiracy. A war of nerves."

-In Bucharest before an away European tie Shankly was raging because the hotel had no Coca-Cola for his players.

"Of course a player can have sexual intercourse before a match and play a blinder. But if he did it for six months, he'd be a decrepit old man. It takes the strength from the body."

-Shanks had clear ideas on sex before a game

'Ladies, tonight is your night. And if the men perform half as well as they did this afternoon, you're in for a bloody good night.'

-Bill Shankly to the wives of the players. He had phoned the players earlier asking them to refrain from sex before playing Manchester United. Liverpool won 3-0.

"Shanks had a knack of making his players feel special. One night before a particularly big match he phoned my wife and told her to lock me away on my own all night. He said that sex was out of the question because he wanted his most vital player at his peak the next day. I felt ten feet tall, until I found the next day that Shanks had also rung up Ian St John’s and Roger Hunt’s wives and told them exactly the same thing!"

-PETER THOMPSON

"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."

-Attending the funeral of Everton legend Dixie Dean, Shanks was amazed by the size of the crowd outside St James' church.

"I've never seen any of the Beatles standing on the Kop and any tickets I have spare will be going to my mates on the Kop."

-Bill Shankly response to Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein's request of getting tickets for the 1965 Cup Final

"When I married Bill I married a man to whom football was a fierce passion. And it had its benefits; whenever Liverpool lost, which wasn't very often, he'd be so upset he'd come home, go straight into the kitchen and clean out the oven over and over again until it was spotless. It was the only way he knew to relieve the frustration."

-NESSIE SHANKLY

"He was infectious, got you buzzing, kept you interested in the club. Nothing else but football though. You could mention something and he’d equate it to football. You’d say something about the weather, 'Aye son, good day for skidding the ball across the grass'."

--TOMMY SMITH, LIVERPOOL 1962-1978

"We were staying and playing in Belgium one time, and this night Chris Lawler and I had gone to a casino just opposite the hotel but the rest of the lads had gone down to the village for a drink after the game. At twelve o'clock Shanks stormed into the casino and dragged us back to the hotel. We knew he was in a foul mood, and we were up in our rooms, looking down the road, when we heard the rest of them coming back.. there was Gerry Byrne, Roger Hunt, Geoff Strong, Tommy Lawrence, Gordon Milne, all singing and kicking a few beer cans along, that sort of thing.

There was a small playground in front of the hotel and they were mucking about on the swings. We knew Shanks was waiting downstairs, so we tried to tell them to quieten it a bit, but they didn't pay any attention. Too far gone for that! It was about half-past one, and they came falling into the lobby, shouting and bawling, and Shanks was so flabbergasted he didn't know what to do or where to start, and of all people he picks on Cally. 'You, Callaghan... ', he says, and you can see he's reaching for the right thing to say. 'You... I'm going to tell your wife on you!' Everybody just collapsed!"

-TOMMY SMITH

"In his retirement Shanks used to help out with the schoolboys at Everton and I'd never seen anything like it. There he was, well into his sixties, mixing it with the kids, playing his heart out and motivating his side to do the same, moaning if there was a free kick against him and shaking hands and patting lads on the back whenever his side got a goal. He was just like one of the kids himself.

He used to come to me and give me a match report afterward. He once said 'Great game today Mick. We won 19-17!' It was almost as if he were back in the school playground. Most importantly he enjoyed himself and I always got a kick when I saw that."

-MIKE LYONS, Everton captain of the 1970s

"The decades have drifted past, yet still I recall those Sunday afternoons when Nessie Shankly's kindly voice would come crackling down the line. "I'm sorry, Bill's not here," she would say. "He's over the park, playing football with the kids. When will he be back, you say? When he wins, of course." And you could hear the chuckle as she put down the telephone.

Half-an-hour later the man himself would come on, a touch breathless, to tell of his part in the nine-goal thriller and of how he had laid on the winner, with the park-keeper tapping his watch and the mothers calling them in for their tea. And then Bill Shankly would talk football. And I, the rawest of rookies, would listen, scribble and revel in the tutorial.

The results of the scribblings would appear in a weekly magazine. A senior colleague, a trusted friend of Shankly, had approached him to write a column. Bill mulled it over for a moment and then, suddenly, he beamed. 'I'll do it, on one condition,' he said. 'I don't want any payment.' We waited for an explanation.

'I had to pay a lot of tax last year,' he said. 'Next year, when I see the tax man, he'll say: 'You reckon you've declared everything, Mr Shankly, but you haven't told us what you earned from this football column. So I reckon we've got you.' And I'll say: 'I never took a bloody penny for it, so who's got who, son? Eh?' And he cackled triumphantly, as we attempted to interpret the economics of his prank."

-PATRICK COLLINS, Daily Mail reporter

"Adidas wanted to present him with a Golden Boot in recognition of what he'd done. Bob [Paisley] took the call and said, 'They want to know what shoe size you take'. Shanks shouted back, 'If it's gold, I'm a 28."

-TOMMY DOCHERTY - [Adidas wanted to honour Bill just after he had announced his retirement]

I have a few memorable personal recollections of the great man. Immediately after the never-to-be-forgotten European Cup win in Rome in 1977 Tommy Smith had his testimonial game at Anfield, which was a match between Liverpool (who had just returned from Rome to an open topped bus recepti n through the streets of
the city) and an England XI. I can’t remember the result but, because my best mate was the organiser of Smithy’s testimonial committee, I was in the directors box for the game and had access to the trophy room afterwards. Talk about a kid in a candy store!! I caressed both the League Championship trophy and the European Cup and got stuck into the scotch whilst having a conversation with Bobby Charlton (I kid you not). Eventually I saw the great man standing in a corner of the trophy room, totally alone, traditional white mac draped on his shoulders. I felt compelled to speak to him but had difficulty summoning up the bottle to do so. Eventually, after a couple more large drams I plucked up courage to pass him on my way to the toilet. “This is all down to you Mr Shankly” I blurted out. “Thank you, son” he replied. I went to the toilet and cried my eyes out. I should maybe point out that I was nearly 40 at the time so his reference to me as ‘son’ and my lachrymose reaction were indicative of the way that football transcends normal human responses.

--John Martin, a Liverpool fan

"I don't believe everything Bill tells me about his players. If they were that good, they'd not only have won the European Cup but the Ryder Cup, the Boat Race and even the Grand National!"

-JOCK STEIN, Legendary Celtic and Scotland manager

"I don't think there has ever been any character in sport with so many stories told about him like Bill Shankly. And the amazing thing about it is a lot of people don't believe that they're true, but nearly every story people tell about him is true. This is the man."

-COLIN WOOD, Daily Mail reporter when Shanks was manager

"They say he was tough, he's hard, he's ruthless. Rubbish. He's got a heart of gold, he loves the game, he loves his fans, he loves his players. He's like an old Collie dog, he doesn't like hurting his sheep. He'll drive them certainly, but bite them, never."

-JOE MERCER, Everton and Arsenal legend

"One man transformed Liverpool from a run-of-the-mill Second Division team into the greatest team in the world. That man, of course, was Bill Shankly. His philosophy was simple; If you are going to to play football, you play to win. While he was the making of Liverpool, there is no doubt that Anfield was the making of Bill Shankly. His character, his own enthusiasm, his will to win were so infectious."

-BOB PAISLEY

"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"

-Bill Shankly

You'll Never Walk Alone



**edit - Oops sorry, forgot to credit Shankly.com for all the stories & quotes. Great site, check it out.