Shanks for the memory

By Kate
September 29 2005

Today is the anniversary of the death of the great Bill Shankly. Bill was the architect of Liverpools ascendancy in to being the most successful club in Britain.

. The creator of a dynasty that although presently at it’s lowest period for 40 years as regard Shanks, the fans and the clubs holy grail,… the title,…. they are still the winning club that Shanks set out to make them.
They still have the same dignity, ethos, class and world admiration that they’ve had since Bill first set foot in Anfield and started the club on it’s greatest historical journey.

‘I was made for Liverpool and they were made for me’ he said.

How true that was, worshipped till the day he died by Reds all over the world and still spoken of with great love and affection today by old and young fans (who never even had the luck to see the great man at work)


I read a book once called ‘The Life and Times of Mohammed Ali’, one of the best biographies I’ve ever read because it concentrated on what other people thought of Ali the man as well as a boxer. The part that’s always stuck in my mind was something that was said at the beginning of the book which was (the gist is right but maybe not verbatim) that anyone who thought about Ali would do so with a smile on their face. I can pay Shanks no bigger compliment than by using the same maxim.


On this the day of his passing, let’s celebrate his life by a smile using his own words and thoughts.

"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 checks."
Though he finally fell out with the check signers his love of all things Liverpool stayed with him till the day he died in 1981.

"The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game."
After a 0-0 draw at Anfield:
"What can you do, playing against 11 goalposts?"
"He has football in his blood," said a scout who was trying to sell a player to Liverpool. "You may be right," Shanks said, "but it hasn't reached his legs yet"
Shankly to a Liverpool apprentice:
"The problem with you son, is that your brains are all in your head."
"I told this player, 'Listen Son, you haven't broken your leg. It's all in the mind.'"
"A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are. In my time at Liverpool we always said we had the best two teams on Merseyside, Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves."

"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.'
"If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing."
When asked what aspect of the game he disliked most, Shankly replied:
From .tv…………………

His spirit lives on at Anfield to this day, where a statue to the great man stands before his beloved Kop and the Shankly Gates bear the immortal words "You'll never walk alone". Certainly Shankly never walked alone and he is revered by all Liverpool supporters to this day.
This was no better demonstrated than on 18th December 1999 when the 40th anniversary of Shankly's arrival at Anfield was celebrated in a manner that took the breath away. Nearly the whole of the 1965 and 1974 F A Cup winning teams reassembled to view the exhibition commemorating Shankly and then paraded onto the pitch, where they stood in silence as two bagpipers played "Amazing Grace".
12,000 voices on the Kop gently sang the word 'Shankly' to the tune as they held up a mosaic bearing his face and the Saltire. The version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" that followed rivaled any previously heard before. His spirit and his legend is clearly set to live on well into the new Millennium.


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