Topic: The Lost Shankly Boy (by ex-player George Scott)

[thisyearisouryear]

What a lovely lovely post!

Geroge - if you are reading this thread, many many thanks for the time and effort. Really appreciate it.

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

What a lovely lovely post!

Geroge - if you are reading this thread, many many thanks for the time and effort. Really appreciate it.

Couldn't have put it better - apart from spelling George 
Seriously, just to reiterate, thanks George, it's fantastic to get that first hand account of the great man. If you've got any more.....
Thanks to John also.

[King Kenny 7]

Thanks George, it was great to read that.

[soxfan]

Thank you so much for that. I have gaps in my knowledge of earlier Liverpool days. I learned so much. Fantastic stuff.

[the 92A]

Thanks George, great read, was lucky enough to see the end of the sixties team and watched the building of Shanks great Seventies team, brilliant to here from yourself and hope you continue to document your experience, we could all learn from it in so many ways.


Vic Gill who used to come on here a lot and who I've been lucky to meet up with on a few occasions and consider a friend speaks about them times and the things that strike me, just like your account is now far ahead Shanks was and what a fantastic, honest down to earth man he was in real life, despite being seen as a god by us supporters. I was listening to the Anfield Wrap podcast and someone compared Van Dyke to Lawenson who was a phenomenal centre back and I thought, yes I see that but also with a touch of big Ron Yeats. Thank you George for taking the time to write about your experience on here, it's a great treat to read

[Hendollama]

Read both the Articles and they are absolutely fantastic. Thanks, George and John.

[aw1991]

It was a fantastic read. Thank you George!

[redtel]

Brilliant memories George.

Fantastic times they were but the current emerging team have many similarities as George says.

The loss in Kiev felt like we had been cheated of a win without definite proof a bit like the Inter semi final defeat which was eventually proven to be true.

[dirks digglers]

Thanks for sharing this, a very enjoyable read.

[princeoftherocks]

Thankyou, and Thankyou. 

[DHKopper]

Great stuff that.  Read both articles whilst waiting for kick off.

Thanks George.

[kesey]

Here's a picture of them in the background:



They were numbered, and the numbers were called out and the player had to hit the number with the ball. But the boards were put into a square, making the infamous "Sweatbox", where there were servers on the corners (I think there were two, on opposite corners), who served to a player in the middle who had to rebound the ball off the boards, trap it, and receive another serve:



I think players went for 45 seconds at a time, then the next player went, etc. It worked on agility, speed, technique, power, and endurance.

Great read that.

Where the sweat boxes are in the picture that's where the 12 or 13 bus use to go down. Melwood Drive if memory serves me. We use to live on the old Cantril Farm estate and as kids they us let us go in . Me Mah's got the photies of us all with the likes of Toshack, Keegan , Kenny , Fagan and Paisley . Me and our kid use to sometimes walk down to Melwood and cut the cement out of the walls with our pen knives just to get a peak of them training.

Thanks for jogging me memory.

[liverbloke]

I think his pet hates would have been the lack of some modern player’s empathy with supporters and their obsession with money.

Definitely! It saddens me to see 'modern day' players jog off the coach with their headphones on looking at their phones ignoring the supporters waiting for them.

[John C]

Edit - Just after posting, George contacted us to ask for the word No to inserted before 'multi-coloured boots' (see below)

On arriving at Anfield recently I took a long nostalgic walk around the stadium and noticed the tremendous changes and developments that have occurred to the whole area since I arrived there in December 1959 as a 15 year old boy 360 miles from my home in Aberdeen to join what would become the great Bill Shankly’s revolution.
The massive club souvenir shop opposite the fantastic new Main Stand and the many other modern commercial developments that have been implemented around the stadium, including a new hotel being built alongside the ground, are all so impressive, and so worthy of a club of Liverpool FCs stature in the game.
I noticed that many families were queuing to enter the new stadium tour facility and museum, and I found my mind wondering back to that time when I first arrived at Anfield and how it was then, before the glory years that lay ahead.
If there had been a stadium tour then, this is what the people would have seen.
Let me take you on a virtual, but accurate and nostalgic tour of Anfield in 1960.
“You walk in the player’s entrance and down to the long passage beneath the old main stand, turn left, and the home dressing room is the first door on the left. You enter and see a large square dressing room with a brown wooden bench around the perimeter. There are eleven pegs for the player’s shirts (no substitutes in those days) the rest of the shorts and shirts are neatly folded on the bench beneath the pegs with the boots clean and shiny in pairs on the floor (only black boots)
In the centre of the dressing room is a large massage table where before the kick off on match days Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan rub winter green and oil on to the player’s legs and massage their muscles.(I can still smell the winter green today).
Rueben Bennett is looking on or motivating the players before Bill Shankly enters to give the final instructions. At the back of the room is a large door leading to the bathroom and toilets.
There were no showers in those days only a large communal bath which ex trainer and handyman Albert Shelley makes sure is filled and hot at the end of the game. for the players to leap in to and lark about with lots of laughter if they win which they usually did.
You go back out in to the passage and turn left again then walk along around twenty yards and you will see a wooden door on the right.
When you enter the room you are in what in future years was to become the most famous room in any football stadium in the world
(The original boot room)
Along one wall are rows of numbered pegs with black football boots hanging on them, opposite there is a large wooden work bench with hammers nails a shoemakers last with black shoe polish and lots of studs scattered around.
(There were NO multi coloured boots in those days)
Along another wall are large wicker baskets which contain fresh kits in one, and dirty training kit to go to the laundry in another. There are cans of paint, sweeping brushes, and other assorted implements scattered around.
This place is the domain of Bob Paisley, Joe Fagin, Rueben Bennett, Albert Shelley and us ground staff lads (when we are cleaning the boots.)
You wonder back out of the boot room and turn right, a few more yards and there is another door in front of you, you open it and walk in to the large treatment room where all of the players receive the best treatment available at the time which amounted to oil, liniment, and a good massage until Bill Shankly invested in a magic machine from Germany which put electric currents into the leg muscles.
Shanks and Bob first tried it out on Jimmy Melia and practically electrocuted him
You then go out of the treatment room and walk back down the passage past the boot room then past the home dressing room till you reach the players tunnel. But just before the players tunnel leading to the playing arena there is another room which is the away team’s dressing room.
You enter, and immediately see that it is half the size of the home dressing room, very cramped with a much smaller communal bath
(Subtle psychology was in operation even back then)
You waste no time there, but come out and avoid going down the players tunnel but walk on down the passage past a door on the right that has a sign on the door saying “The Manager” you walk on past because you dare not enter, for you know that room was a sacred place where players were summoned to be made to feel they could take on the world, or be chastised if they stepped out of line, but in any case inside there was only a desk with an old Olivetti typewriter on it and some photographs on the wall when the Boss was not in residence..
At the end of the passage there is another large door which you enter and see a snooker table in the centre of the room. There is a leather bench all-round the room and a snooker score board on the wall along with many snooker cues. This is where the players came in the afternoon to play pool after training and to relax.
I can still hear the laughter and the gambling bets and mickey taking of young men in their prime who filled the room with success stretching out ahead of them.
The room was also used for staff and team meetings in a crisis after losing a home game.
(But that did not happen very often in those days)
Come out of the snooker room and go up the stairs to the inside of the old main stand there you will see the canteen where the players had lunch every day on their return to Anfield from Mellwood by coach.
If you are lucky Bill Shankly can be seen in his special table in the corner by the door drinking some concoction contained in a silver teapot and preaching as only he could to a member of the press.
Further along the corridor was another room which had a sign saying “Directors” where only wealthy men were allowed.
We never saw what went on in there, but the meetings were held at times when the players were not around, usually every month.
The Manager attended those meetings but as he said
“The Directors were not part of the holy trinity of the players, the manager, and the supporters they were only there to sign the cheques”.
There was no trophy room because the trophies had all still to be won but they would not be long in coming in the glory years to come.
You go back downstairs to the player’s tunnel and walk down the steps then up on to the sacred turf which has mud down the centre and in the goalmouths.
There is no “This is Anfield sign” to touch and the stadium looks a little dilapidated and in need of a coat of paint. You look up to the main stand above the paddock and above the wooden seats there is the curved arc in the centre with the words LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB in gold letters.
On your left is the dugout where the manager and trainers sit on match days and next to that is the old bandbox.
You look across to the Anfield Road Terrace behind the goal with the red barriers scattered throughout the terrace.
You then look across to the Kemyln Road Stand and you see a low paddock with high wooden boards behind it and a low seated stand dwarfed by the famous Spion Kop on the right which holds 28,000 dedicated fanatical supporters every match day.
All the games are played on Saturday with a 3.00pm kick off, and when Liverpool attack towards the Spion Kop goal the noise is deafening and the crowd in that Kop moves like an ocean wave. Especially when the reds score.
Every home match sees 53,000 in attendance and the atmosphere is electric.
High on the top right hand side of the Kop as you stare at it, there is a mini prison with bars separating this section from the Kop, The soprano voices coming from that area sound like the Liverpool Cathedral choir’
It’s the old boys pen where the apprentice Kopites assembled until the day they graduated on to the famous terrace as men.
Gerry Marsden’s amazing rendition of YNWA was still three years away in the future.
Back we go, down the player’s tunnel, out of the player’s entrance and along the car park on to Walton Breck Road and catch the 26 or 17d bus back in to town.
If anyone really had been on that virtual tour in 1960 would they have had any comprehension of what the great Bill Shankly and the rest would achieve and the dynasty that would be created in the years to come?
The magnificent new stand will be a permanent testimony to all those wonderful managers, coaches and players who have gone before and the corporate hospitality areas will be full, everyone will be in a comfy seat and all those fantastic premier league footballers’ cars will be parked along the wall behind the huge Kemyln Road Stand.
It’s a bit different from those far off days when  Billy Liddell or Ian Callaghan got the 17d bus to the match with the fans allowing them to jump the queue to get there for kick off but that’s progress as they say and I suppose it is”

C. George Scott
2018

[commando]

Brilliant read that.

[Mr Grieves]

Great read.

Progress of a sort I'd say.

[meady1981]

You can stick tactics, formations and transfers up your arse. This is what I’m here for. Well, this and outlandish construction fantasies.

[Anthony]

You know, if there were any archive pictures of this it would make a cracking video but then again the mind's eye is a wonderful thing...

[Medellin]

Superbly written,loved that.

[John C]

There's been a minor edit to the original post - see above.

This kind of experience and these sort of memories are part of the foundations of what Liverpool Football Club is. It's invaluable, it's unique and it's hardly replicated anywhere in the world.

Thanks again George.

[Gladbach73]

As a current LFC tour guide, this makes fascinatinating reading, especially the near "electrocution" of Jimmy Melia. They were turning the new machines dial up and up and Jimmy had no feeling of a current, until Bob realised he hadn't switched it on at the wall, and nearly sent Jimmy into orbit!!!!

[Zeb]

As a current LFC tour guide, this makes fascinatinating reading, especially the near "electrocution" of Jimmy Melia. They were turning the new machines dial up and up and Jimmy had no feeling of a current, until Bob realised he hadn't switched it on at the wall, and nearly sent Jimmy into orbit!!!!

 

Way I heard the story was that the machine was Bob's idea because he was always up for trying new gadgets with him doing the physio. No idea how true that is mind.

Lovely that read. Thanks George. And thanks John.

[Nitramdorf]

Thank you very much for writing that George and for posting, John.

Just reading that and seeing the names on paper sends a shiver down my spine. Oh to have seen it in the flesh. Great days, better days.

[Solomon Grundy]

Good read that John. Thanks for posting it.

[ABZ Rover]

What a fabulous read.  Thanks for the wonderful pictures you painted in my mind George.

Thanks for sharing John.

[jillcwhomever]

What a fabulous read that was, thanks George.

[God's Left Peg]

Loved reading that.

Took my 4 yr old daughter and 10 month old son for a quick jaunt down the East Lancs last Sunday morning for their first glimpse of our famous old ground. I hadn't been since the main stand was rebuilt; it has been a busy few years for our family and footy has been restricted to the TV and RAWK.

The place feels so different even now from just 4 or 5 years back. It's magnificent as it is, but there is something in the description above that is just pure romance; it would be wonderful to retain some of that nosalgia and the values implied therein at our ever-developing home. The greatest blessing, I suppose, is that the ground move never came and Anfield stayed put.

[rojo para la vida]

Thanks for posting John. Using a tiny bit of imagination, you're there.

I share what I perceive as George's dislike for any boot that isn't black.

[John C]

“WHAT IF”

These are just two little words but they can mean so much.
When you get older and start to look back on your life, you get to thinking just how important these two words are in all of our lives and they certainly have been in mine.
WHAT IF my father had not volunteered to go on that mission in Normandy in August 1944 with his commanding officer, the one from which he did not return, leaving his young wife, (my mother) a widow, and me without a father?
WHAT IF my mother had not met a wonderful man when I was five years old who became my stepfather and treated me like his own son for the rest of his life?
WHAT IF the caretaker at my school had not been a scout for Liverpool Football Club who persuaded my parents to allow me to travel 360 miles to Liverpool for a trial at such a young age of 15?
WHAT IF I had stuck to my original decision to sign for my local team Aberdeen FC and turn down the trial period at Liverpool FC?
WHAT IF I had not performed well in the two week trial period at Liverpool and it had been unsuccessful?
WHAT IF Bill Shankly had not taken the job at Liverpool FC?
WHAT IF I had not decided to move lodgings from Anfield Road to Lilley Road in Fairfield with Peter Thompson in 1963?
WHAT IF my future wife Carole to whom I have now been married for 52 years had not been best friends with our neighbour’s daughter in Lilley Road Fairfield?
WHAT IF I had been given my chance in the first team at Anfield and Bill Shankly had not sold me back to Aberdeen in 1965?
WHAT IF I had evaded the tackle in training which tore my cruciate ligaments at Aberdeen and ended my very promising career at Aberdeen in 1966?
WHAT IF Bill Shankly had not stepped in to save my career by recommending me to Port Elizabeth City FC in South Africa when I was out of work with nothing to fall back on?
WHAT IF the intruder who broke in to our apartment in Port Elizabeth in South Africa in 1968 and who thrust a knife at my chest had been more determined or I had been less fit?
WHAT IF Bill Shankly had not been willing to recommend me to Tranmere Rovers for a one month trial period on my return to the UK from South Africa in 1968?
WHAT IF I had not managed to justify Bills faith in my ability by performing so well in my debut game v Derby County that the club signed me on a two year first team contract at half time enabling me to return permanently to the UK from South Africa?
WHAT IF when I eventually finished my football career with no experience of anything in life other than football I had not seen the advert for a Sales Representative job in the Liverpool Echo?
WHAT IF I had not eventually turned around and returned to the Adelphi Hotel after initially walking out when seeing over 60 other candidates waiting to go in to the group interview.
WHAT IF I had not landed the job against all then odds (Bill Shankly’s written reference saying he would stake his life on my character helped)
WHAT IF I had not gone on to forge a lifetime career in sales in the years ahead securing the long term future of my family?
WHAT IF my two sons had not met and married two wonderful girls giving us four amazing Grandsons between them?
WHAT IF my amazing wife Carole had not received the most wonderful treatment by the blood specialists, consultants and nursing staff at Arrowe Park Hospital ensuring she survived and overcame stage three Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and remains in full remission today nine years later (THAT WAS THE GREATEST WHAT IF OF ALL)
I am convinced that all of the above events happened for a reason and had any one of these events not happened, or happened differently, my life and everything in it, including the lives of my wonderful family and extended family would have been changed forever.
I am so grateful it has all turned out the way it has, I have been so very lucky. Each of us in our lives must have experienced these WHAT IF moments, these are just a few of mine.
It certainly focuses your mind when you think back on your life and how destiny works.


 George Scott
2018

[rocco]

Really enjoyed that



Also

http://www.shankly.com/Article/2422

[John C]

George's autobiography is being released on September 21st and can be pre-ordered from Amazon and Waterstones.

[Chavasse1917]

You can stick tactics, formations and transfers up your arse. This is what I’m here for. Well, this and outlandish construction fantasies.

I somehow missed this 15 months ago, so thanks for your post John.

[Timbo's Goals]

I somehow missed this 15 months ago, so thanks for your post John.

Likewise. Must have missed the pieces originally but just spent the last half hour or so savouring the delightful insights in all three pieces. So thanks and well in John for re-presenting them and good luck George with your new book venture.

As a marginally related aside George's mention of Gordon Wallace brings back fond memories as it was Gordon's garage on Walton Breck where I used to get my first old banger repaired/serviced back in the '70's. His mum and dad who served there were the most friendly and welcoming "garage folks" I've ever had the pleasure of meeting! As was Gordon, too - who I occasionally used to meet more recently in Sainsbury's on Prescot Road. Gordon's parents were both Scottish who'd moved to Llanelli where Gordon was brought up - so they spoke broad Scottish whilst Gordon had a broad Welsh valley lilt like my own missus. Happy days. Skint but happy.

 

[John C]