'Well, I never wanted the bloody job anyway'

[fyds]

..and with those words, began the most successful era in this or any British Club's history when Bob paisley took up the reigns 34 years ago today.

 

THE greatest English/British manager ever, bar none - no matter what the red tops say.

 

RIP 'Sir' Bob.

[Lolo]

Amen to that....I remember it well, which in effect means I'm an old bugger now.

[muleskinner]

Legend

[chrisbonnie]

i have a few old dvds with him on it, he`s like your cheerful grandad, but a ruthless f***** to, no matter we won he still signed 3 top players EVERY SEASON,

 

i think him picking Alan Hansen up in Lime street station after signing him is a hilarious story to, thats what football has lost, real football men

[MarkD]

Met him a few times in the Central Hotel bar in Birkenhead - him in the back room being very quiet and very unobtrusive. After saying hello to him the first time - and not too much more because I was in awe - he always spoke to me. Quick hello and how are you. Wonderful man.

 

It is so disrespectful that 'in today's climate', the man and his achievements are being airbrushed out of history to try and make Ferguson look something.

 

RIP, a true gent and proper football man.

[hideNseek]

Best we ever had and I don't mean to disrespect Shankly by saying that.

[Dave_the_Red]

Simply Bob is the greatest. Did his talking in the dressing room not in front of the camera

[Billy Dane]

Fantastic servant to the club, not just a truly great manager.

[badtodabone]

to tell the truth i never thought anyone could replace shanks ,

glad to be proven wrong though ,our greatest ever manager

[Ronnie Whelan]

our greatest ever manager

 

 

THE greatest ever manager.

[David Hodgson]

i have a few old dvds with him on it, he`s like your cheerful grandad, but a ruthless f***** to, no matter we won he still signed 3 top players EVERY SEASON,

 

i think him picking Alan Hansen up in Lime street station after signing him is a hilarious story to, thats what football has lost, real football men

 

Hmmm. When we won the league with a record points total he went out and bought Frank McGarvey and Avi Cohen (both utter rubbish, and didn't cost much). Followed up the next season's title win by signing Richard bloody money.

 

[nbryan1764]

Hmmm. When we won the league with a record points total he went out and bought Frank McGarvey and Avi Cohen (both utter rubbish, and didn't cost much). Followed up the next season's title win by signing Richard bloody money.

 

 

yes he also brought in some useless fellas called Ronnie Whelan in 79 and Ian Rush in 80

[Herbie von Smalls]

the very first time i used the internet was the day he died.

 

great man, great manager.

[David Hodgson]

yes he also brought in some useless fellas called Ronnie Whelan in 79 and Ian Rush in 80

 

They were signed as kids for the future (neither began to establish themselves 'ti late 1981, into 1982). He also signed the ill-fated Wayne Harrison in that period.

 

The orginal poster said that Paisley went out and signed 3 top players every year. The implication was that we spent big, from a position of strength. There were times that happened, but it wasn't always the norm.

[Rich Gobey]

the very first time i used the internet was the day he died.

 

great man, great manager.

 

so it was your fault then

[badtodabone]

THE greatest ever manager.

 

goes without saying if he was our greatest then he was obviously the greatest

[John am Rhein]

Hmmm. When we won the league with a record points total he went out and bought Frank McGarvey and Avi Cohen (both utter rubbish, and didn't cost much). Followed up the next season's title win by signing Richard bloody money.

 

 

Frank McGarvey wasn't rubbish - he just never got in the team. Was pretty good before and after we bought him.

[David Hodgson]

Frank McGarvey wasn't rubbish - he just never got in the team. Was pretty good before and after we bought him.

 

He was OK John, and I don't think he could be classed a big signing, as the original poster implied. If memory serves, 'ol Frank didn't get that many Scotland caps did he ? Albeit, they were worth more then.

[John am Rhein]

He was OK John, and I don't think he could be classed a big signing, as the original poster implied. If memory serves, 'ol Frank didn't get that many Scotland caps did he ? Albeit, they were worth more then.

 

No, but he was pretty good. He was thought of as a big signing when it happened - was pretty big money then - but it just didn't work out. We'd already bought a few players like McDermott, Kennedy and later Gary Gillespie and barely played them before they eventually got into the team. McGarvey was assumed to be another one, but I think he didn't like it, 'couldn't settle' etc. Celtic came in for him. Can't remember if we had our eyes on Ian Rush by then (300,000 was a BIG amount of money for such a player) but that may well have been part of why we let him go back.

[growler]

what would a manager need to achieve today to be measured as great as him?

[fyds]

He was OK John, and I don't think he could be classed a big signing, as the original poster implied. If memory serves, 'ol Frank didn't get that many Scotland caps did he ? Albeit, they were worth more then.

Tbf, Hansen only played for Scotland what - 26 times?

[Stevie H]

from today's guardian.

 

Humble man who never walked alone

In an article originally published on 22/02/1996, Frank Keating reflects on Bob Paisley's funeral

Frank Keating The Guardian, Monday July 28 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2008/jul/28/liverpool

 

Good Bob Paisley was laid to rest in his parish churchyard yesterday as Liverpool supporters respected his family's request for privacy, and there were fewer than 100 gathered outside when the simple coffin, adorned with red and white roses, was carried into St Peter's, Woolton. There will be a more acclaiming memorial service in the city in the spring.

 

His widow Jessie, their three children and seven grand-children led the mourners, who included a number of players from Paisley's record-breaking teams as well as the four managers who succeeded him - Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and Roy Evans.

 

Two of those, Fagan and Evans, would have been ruminating through moist eyes on the days when all the blazing red fires that were too hot for Europe were lit in the Anfield bootroom, which, legend has it, was instituted by the late Bill Shankly after he arrived to manage the dingy Second Division club at Christmas 1959 and kept on the two backroom boys from the previous regime, Fagan and Paisley.

 

By touching fluke this very day is published a biography, Shankly by Stephen F Kelly, which celebrates the founder of the feast. Kelly writes: "If there was any magic, it came from that small group who gathered within its four walls... all that came out of that bootroom was plain common sense."

 

And you can just picture it: a pot of tea on the hob, Shankly in his woolly cardie, Paisley in his slippers, Fagan and Ronnie Moran still in their tracksuits. "Young so-and-so didn't look too bright this morning," Paisley would mutter in his north-east vernacular. "Probably out too late last night," someone else would suggest. "Better have a word," Shankly would add. "Or give him a run in the reserve..."

 

Cosy little natters at elevenses which, in their way, girdled the globe - as pictures of yesterday's funeral will have. The Geordie adopted - and how! - by the Scousers knew he would be buried at St Peter's, which he and Jessie attended each Sunday for years. St Peter's! To the end he would tell of the finest night of his career, after Liverpool had won the first of their European Cups, soundly thrashing Borussia Mönchengladbach in Rome. The party afterwards was at the Holiday Inn, just down from St Peter's itself. It was the last of its type. It was still (just) the age of soccer's innocence then. The press were invited and the world and his wife were allowed to gatecrash so long as they were decked in red.

 

A number of the obits to Paisley mentioned that, however much the champagne bubbled, the beaming manager bursting out of his ill-fitting Burton's blue suit refused to take a drink, so he could "drink in the atmosphere and the achievement".

 

Well, true in fact but not in theory. Halfway through the do a big mitt gripped my arm fondly. "A Keating's a boy who should know," said Bob. "D'you think there's any chance of getting a bottle of Guinness round here?" I searched every nook. The St Peter's Holiday Inn did not stock Guinness. "Ah me," said Bob, "that means only me and the Pope up the road and Horace [Yates, the teetotal sports editor of the Liverpool Daily Post] over there are the only three sober men in Rome tonight."

 

By then the joint was dancing. Lo and behold, they struck up the Gay Gordons. Paisley joined in one set with us, grin on full beam, then went to bed, a happy man, the very happiest of men. Before he pattered off to the lift to get into those favourite slippers he had said something passingly matter-of-fact and prophetic. No football club in those days was sponsored but the spivs were talking such revolution. "Sponsors?" Bob winced as we walked to the lift. "Sign up with them and they'll be picking the team for you inside a fortnight." And so it has come to pass. RIP.

[GWistooshort]

There's also a good Shanks article/interview in The Guardian

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jul/28/liverpool