You will
forgive me, I’m sure, if I speak a little about my football club, or rather,
about the values and qualities that are at the heart of its philosophy.
Football is
in the news at the moment, mainly because of the phenomenal amount of money
spent on transfer fees before the window closed at midnight last night. By anyone’s reckoning, almost seven hundred million is a lot of
money, and especially in a time of recession.
But that is what the game has become – a business which is about
assessing players by their worth in terms of what it will cost to buy or sell
them. It is a far cry from the
philosophy of the man who called it the beautiful game, and laid down his
condition of entry into its higher echelons at Liverpool with the words:
“For a player to be good enough to
play for Liverpool, he must be prepared to run through a brick wall for me,
then come out fighting on the other side.”
That’s commitment.
His name was
Willie Shankley, the youngest of five boys, all of whom became professional
footballers.
His birth
place was a small mining village in Ayrshire called Glenbuik, a village which
was already dying when he thrust his way into its sheltering arms way back in
September, 1913. It would have disappeared without leaving a
trace if it had not been for the fact that it had produced the man we now know
as Bill Shankley.
If you have
visited Anfield, you will have seen his statue and perhaps walked through the
Shankley gates. You may have even
touched the sign which all players have
to pass on their way to the pitch, which says in large letters:
THIS IS ANFIELD!
That was the
work of Bill Shankley. “ It’s there to remind our lads who they’re
playing for, and to remind the opposition who they’re playing against!” he asserted stoutly as he put it in place.
That’s
ownership.
He knew all
about ownership and closeness. He was
brought up in a place so small that most of the families were connected. In a population of about 3,000 people, there
were about four surnames! It was common to say “Which one are you, a Brown, a
Ross, a Shankley or a Smith?
It paid off
dividends when the young Willie Shankley went down the pit at the age of
14. Of course he had to spend an
apprenticeship hauling down coal and doing all the running jobs at the pithead
before he was considered responsible enough to go down into the cold, dark and
dangerous world of the Ayrshire pit face.
Here the miners were mostly cousins, family members who acted as “muckers”
for the younger ones, standing behind
them to protect them, seeing that they came to no harm. Like Matt Busby and Jock Stein, also miners
in Scotland who became famous Football Managers – Matt Busby in Manchester
United and Jock Stein in the National side – he learned the hard discipline of
toughness and togetherness which saved lives.
He never
forgot his time in the mines. He learned
from it to appreciate the gifts he was given by God , particularly his football
skills. He brought to his management the
same skills which he had learned as a lad; the value of togetherness, of
respect, of getting on with the job and not allowing distractions to take his
mind off what he hoped to achieve.
He once told
a now-famous ex footballer who was limping, and showing him a bandaged knee
which might prevent him from playing that day:
“Take that bandage off. And what do
you mean about YOUR knee? It’s Liverpool’s knee!”
Tough love,
which might not be appreciated today!
He took a
club in the Second Division with no ambition, little resources, and no apparent
desire to better themselves, into a club of iconic status. But he never did it
for reward or money. He got neither in
his life-time. He did it for love.
I’ll end
with a tribute from a relative, Matt Vallance, quoted in LFC on line. He says:
Shankley operated
the same system at Anfield that he had known in the mines in Ayrshire. Even
players of the like of Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan had to earn their
first-team jersey. He made sure that
each player fitted in and knew his place and could face difficulties and
overcome them.
He was the
most inspirational person I ever met, not because of his extraordinary wit and
charisma which rubbed off on his players, fans and on his adopted city and on
all who met him, but because of what was
inside him. The love, dedication and honesty he gave to the game, and to its
people all his life, while asking for so little in return
The passion and optimism he gave to
tens of thousands of ordinary folk that lit up their ordinary lives, and never
left them.; the way he treated everyone as his equal and with respect
He believed
in everyone working for the common good. He once said:
“If I became a bin-man tomorrow, I’d
be the greatest bin-man who ever lived. 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 might Say “But they are only
bin-men. Why do we need to reward them for a job anyone can do?” But I’d ask
them “Why do you think you are more important than a bin man?” I’d ask them how proud they would feel if
their city became the cleanest in the world. Then ask: “Who made them so proud?” The bin men!”
That was
Shankley. He gave everyone who wrote to him a personal reply hammered out on an old typewriter. Every
young person who knocked at his door was welcomed to a game of footie, and
often to a joke, a ticket a “yes” to a request.
He was not
as successful as Matt Busby at Man. U who was similar to him in thought, but he
is remembered today as the one who went into football management to use his own
words “to make people happy” Not to make
a fortune, not to be the most powerful, the most successful man in the
game. He wasn’t. But as his autobiography says:
“Above all, I’d like to be remembered
as a man who strove and worried so that others could share the glory, and who
built up a family of people who could
hold their heads up high and say: ‘We’re Liverpool’ “
He knew
nothing about modern ways of governance, he never heard of training courses for
man-management. But, like Matt Busby and others like him, he could tell us a
thing or two about leadership. And about love
May he rest in peace and have time in Heaven
to assess, with wry humour how we are doing in the game today. And may he pass on the torch to us. We need
it.
