OpinionHow Bill Shankly created the fervour that Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp now feeds on
- ‘He made the people happy’ reads the Scot’s simple epitaph on his Anfield statue
- Shankly displayed a rare desire to engage with supporters at every level
Bill Shankly does not belong to the past. It might be 60 years on Sunday since Liverpool’s iconic manager first arrived at Anfield but you can still feel his presence in and around the ground. It is not just that his face is on flags on the Kop. The Scot created something special after joining from Huddersfield Town on December 1, 1959.
He found a side in the second tier of English football playing in a rundown stadium. The players trained on the adjacent asphalt car park. When he resigned 15 years later, Liverpool were a European power and on the verge of a remarkable period of domination. During Shankly’s time in charge, the club were promoted to the top flight, won three league titles, brought home the FA Cup for the first time and made an impact in Europe by winning the Uefa Cup. What is more important than his achievements is his legacy. It went beyond football: It was cultural, political and spiritual.
Shankly worked down a mine in his teenage years and his experience in the pit helped define his existence. One of his most famous pronouncements concerned the life-lessons that could be gleaned from the game.
“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards,” he said. “It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.”
He could have been much more than a manager. Had he put his energies into the political realm, it would have been easy to see him as a left-wing demagogue, rousing the populace with radical ideas. Shankly was a leader.