shankly

[badtodabone]

on the offal but i found this one very moving,

 

brian reade

 

I can still see him standing there, on that hot summer's morning in 1975, welcoming me to his home.

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Only it wasn't his home. It was Melwood and it was a year after he'd walked out on Liverpool.

 

But such a minor detail couldn't keep Bill Shankly away from the plot of land he loved more than any other on earth. Which is why he still turned up to train. Alone now, after the board had decided his presence was too much of a distraction for players who idolised him. So he could only be there when they weren't.

 

He thought he'd agreed to do an interview for my school magazine, but he'd really agreed to let a stalker stalk him, and hopefully find out the answer to life's greatest mystery: Why he entered the Anfield boardroom a year earlier, feeling as he put it, like he was walking to the electric chair, and shattered all of our lives.

 

"Magnificent isn't it?" he said, ushering me into the changing rooms. "This is where we prepare for greatness," his pride in Liverpool so strong, he'd lost control of his tenses.

 

I asked him what the club had been like when he arrived in 1959. "Melwood was a wasteland. I built it with these hands," he said holding up his dukes like a prize figher. "Every blade of grass. Every single brick. I built it."

 

And when you peel back the inevitable Shankly hyperbole, as usual, you'll find truth at the core of his words.

 

On this day 50 years ago, Liverpool was a club going nowhere, run by a board that was happy to hang around in the upper-half of the Second Division, where, on average gates of 35,000, and little need to spend big, no financial risk was required. And managed by managers who were happy to accept it.

 

Shankly initiated a seismic shift. He demanded money to buy the best young players in Britain. He rebuilt the crumbling shack and re-laid the barren turf at Melwood. He introduced modern training methods and treatment rooms. He gave the club a new professionalism and instilled a self-confidence, optimism and ambition which saw it fly.

 

Nowhere was this feelgood factor felt as intensely as on the terraces. By the mid-sixties, when Shankly started to deliver the trophies, our love for the man bordered on religious worship. Which was why, in the lean years that followed, we loyally stood by him, refusing to doubt he would turn things around.

 

If the many sages who are astounded that Rafa Benitez is still in a job, could only see past their next bitter soundbite, they'd do well to study Shankly's position in 1972, when he'd gone six years without lifting silver. If they wanted to know why most Liverpudlians refuse to join in their witch-hunt, therein lies the answer.

 

Because Shankly injected loyalty into our DNA.

 

I didn't find out exactly why he resigned, mainly because I don't think he knew. I guess it was a combination of things. He was feeling tired and old, he needed a break from the pressure, and after that FA Cup final demolition of Newcastle, saw a chance to go out at the top. But I'd like to think it goes back to that "L" word.

 

Shankly had given and received loyalty throughout his life. When he joined Liverpool in 1959, the back-room staff of Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett expected to be shown their door. Shankly told them they were going nowhere.

 

I'd like to think that after his second great team was built he questioned how loyal he was being to his wife Nessie. And convinced himself that by letting her have all those hours he was giving to Liverpool, he was staying true to his socialist principles.

 

"If I became a bin-man tomorrow" he said to me when I asked him about his politics, "I'd be the greatest bin-man who ever lived. I'd have Liverpool the cleanest city on earth. I'd have everyone working with me, succeeding and sharing out the success. I'd make sure they were paid a decent wage with the best bonuses, and that we all worked hard to achieve our goals. Some people might say, ah but they're only bin-man, why do we need to reward them so well for a job anyone can do, but I'd ask them why they believe they are more important than a bin-man? I'd ask them how proud they'd feel if this city became the cleanest in the world? And who would have made them proud? The bin-man."

 

Shankly's socialism came from deep inside. It defined how he treated other people, as his equal and with respect. How he built his football teams as communal forces by drawing the fans into his vision.

 

He had his faults. He could be vain, arrogant, cold and dictatorial. But for all of that he was unique and inspirational. Dennis Skinner, Jack Jones, D-Day veterans, the sacked Liverpool dockers, Barbara Castle and Muhammed Ali are people I've met whose courage and generosity moved me almost beyond words. But none touch the effect Shankly had. No-one's charisma and selflessness has stayed with me through life more than his.

 

It was summed up in a letter he sent to me in 1973, after I'd written to Harold Wilson demanding to know why Shankly hadn't figured in the Honours List.

 

Dear Brian,

 

I am not really disappointed about not being recognised. The people who dish out honours are not my people, my people go to Anfield. If I can make you all happy, then that is my greatest ambition.

 

Very sincerely,

Bill Shankly

 

I'm far from alone here. Individual stories abound which testify to the sincerity of his feeling towards his beloved fans. A feeling summed up when we beat Leicester to clinch the 1973 title.

 

As he did his lap of honour a boy threw a scarf at his feet and a policeman kicked it away: "Don't do that" said Shankly picking up the scarf and wrapping it round his neck. "That scarf's the boy's life."

 

Such a bond between manager and crowd had never been seen before. He started something unique in football: the manager as idol.

 

Look at the huge Liver Bird flag that spreads across the Kop shortly before every kick-off and you'll see, down either side of it, not drawings of the club's greatest strikers, but the managers.

 

Listen to the songs sung about Benitez (as they were about Gerard Houllier) and you'll hear a crowd reaching out to its leader, demanding a communion between the dug-out and the stands. It's a scream for the man who holds their destiny in his hands to recognise his flock and reciprocate their trust.

 

At no other club in the world does the manager receive that kind of love and support. And the reason is, that no other club had Bill Shankly.

 

I can still see him, standing at Melwood that hot summer's day in 1975, saying to this star-struck schoolkid: "right, I've work to do."

 

He breaks into a jog, floating off into the distance, past those famous sweat-boards he introduced to improve the players' touch and control, across the pitches he helped re-lay at a training ground so dilapidated there was no running water. Pitches that laid the foundations for what is still the most successful club in the history of British football.

 

I can hear him tell me how he laid every single blade and every single brick.

 

And I know for certain, that if I live to be 110, I'll never meet a finer man than Bill Shankly.

[The Hitman]

"My people go to Anfield".

 

Great,great man.

[JRC]

Cut and Paste from his book, mind, but his admiration for the great man is clearly sincere. Very lucky to have been able to get this close to him.