It's been posted before but it fits here so if you've read it, I apologise . Here's my Shankly story.
It’s 1968 and a gang of kids are playing footy in the street. The goals are formed between the tar line that dissects the middle of the road and the two lamposts that stand on opposite sides of the street. A bald, Scottish fella approaches on his bike. He stops, dismounts and watches the kids play. This is my chance to impress him. I control the ball and turn in one movement- just like my Dad had shown me in Walton Hall Park on his Sunday off, It works perfectly, it's a pity my Dad wasn't here to see me leaving my marker flat-footed and right out the game- I dribble right between the two defenders, who like the others are at least two years older than me and intent on harm and with only the goalie to beat, I feint and curl it around Gary Guinan who is goalie on the spot.
'What a goal, Rodger Hunt is only a goal away from his second Hatrick’ I cry.
Just letting him know that I’d scored five and this goal was no flash in the pan. He’s got to have noticed me this time, but my perfect moment is ruined when one of my team mates shouts.
‘What a f**king goal.’
Oh, no! I know he won’t be impressed by my mate swearing, I try not to swear when he's around because I know he has high standards and he wouldn’t like it. He doesn’t even drink or smoke, I'd read that in my Dad’s pink Echo. I even showed it to me Mum, when she wanted me to go the shop for her messages I told her she shouldn’t be smoking but she just laughed and told me to get ten Woodbines and I could spend the change on sweets. I’ll get Bazooka Joe's instead, but I won’t tell me Mum because chewy sticks to your insides. I hope he likes chewy, I know Tommy Smith does because I saw him spit it out, by The Paddock, when he took a throw in right by me and my Dad at the match, it fell in the snow, we were playing Nottingham Forest and Terry Hennesy plays for them. Chewy would be really hard to give up, especially as I’d only just learnt how to blow bubbles, although I could give up Spanglers, apart from the green ones. They're far too nice to give up for anyone.
As I look up, I notice him smiling and he’s on his way, walking his bike on the pavement, respecting the boundaries of our pitch as if it was Wembley Stadium, the scene of our great FA Cup win. What a man and I’m the only one who recognises him, one day I might even get a trial if I carry on playing this well and show him I’m serious about wanting to play for Liverpool.
It would be another two years before I realise that the bald Scottish man that rode his bike down our street and watched us play football wasn’t Scottish and more importantly wasn’t my hero Bill Shankly. He was a lookalike who had an allotment behind the railway, the same allotments where the German Spy with one arm used to bury his bodies.
As kids growing up in Liverpool, Bill Shankly was more than just a football manager; he embodied everything good about the world. He didn’t just make his team feel invincible, he made us feel invincible too. We might be living In Fazakerley or Norris Green but everything seemed possible because we were important. We knew because Bill Shankly had told us, 'The fans are the most important part of this football club, I tell the players they're privileged to play for you'.Time viciously destroys your hero’s. You realise General Custer wasn’t Errol Flynn's character but a zealot with murderous intent, Casey Jones was nothing more than a strike-breaker and Batman was a camp vigilante. You realise most of the footballers you looked up to aren’t particularly nice people and certainly not worth your adoration.
The more I find out about Shankly the more I realise how important he was in not just building two great football teams but in shaping everything about our footballing dynasty and what has become known as 'The Liverpool Way'.
