???️ Remembering Bill Shankly on his 104th birthday

How does ???the ultimate obsessive’ compare with ???the normal one’?

September 2nd is always a poignant day in the minds of Liverpool Football Club. Perhaps you have to be of a certain age to appreciate it, but today’s date actually marks the 104th birthday of perhaps our greatest ever manager, Bill Shankly. We all know of the great things Shankly did for our club. He truly put us on the footballing map during his tenure between 1959-1974. We’ve come a long way and had some other fantastic managers since, but the man who began the process of making Liverpool a world-heavyweight football club was Shankly. Those who followed, Paisley, Benitez and now Klopp, are all building upon the legacy that Shankly left behind. In a 1997 biography written by Stephen Kelly, Shankly was named ???the ultimate obsessive’. He was a driven, ambitious and desirous professional. He was described by former Manchester City and Aston Villa manager Joe Mercer as a ???border collie’, who ???drives his sheep but never hurts them’. Of course we’ve had fantastic managers since, but there are real similarities that can be drawn between the great Shankly, and our current manager Jurgen Klopp. Klopp, much like Shankly was, is looking to build a dynasty at the club. When Shankly announced his retirement, there was huge disappointment around the city. Workers threatened to strike until he was reinstated. But the club moved on and now we are where we are today, with another strong character leaving the team. The two are similar on many fronts. They both have worked hard to established authoritative personas. In short- neither of them took or take any shit. There are some managers you get the vibe can be pushovers in the dressing room. Even previous Liverpool managers, I personally got that impressed. Brendan Rodgers and Roy Hodgson in particular are examples I feel may not have had the most control all the time in the dressing room. You definitely don’t get that impression from both Shankly and Klopp. Shankly famously said ???I’m hard on people that need to be hard, with people who I don’t need to be hard with, I’m the very opposite. There’s a balance. In our day, I think if a man is playing [football] in front of the public, is being well paid, and is not dedicating himself to the job, I’d be hard on him. If i could, I’d put him in jail’. And of course, that’s just one of hundreds of historic quotes I could’ve chosen to include here, but where Shankly opted to use words to tell the press the type of man he is, we all know he didn’t take any shit and that quote encapsulates that part of his personality. I feel that often, Klopp does quite the opposite. The big example of the way Klopp shows he takes no shit has been with the Mamadou Sakho saga. I wrote an article before we got rid of Sakho, basically summarising the entire saga and trying to hypothesise why Klopp had taken such a bad taking to him over the last 12 months. Since then I’ve thought about it further, and we have absolutely no idea what’s going on behind the scenes. Sakho could be an absolute prick when called into Klopp’s office, in which case Klopp is absolutely spot-on with that he’s doing. I think in any case, rightly or wrongly, Klopp is demonstrating that he doesn’t take disrespect from any of his players. Shankly certainly wouldn’t have stood for Sakho’s antics on that tour. And as for Coutinho faking his back injury? He’d probably have broken his nose. It takes a special man to be so dearly remembered by a football club 36 years after his death. But on his birthday, it’s impossible for any Liverpool fan to not stop and remember the man who put the blueprints in place for stigmas this club would carry through the decades. His hard work when he was here is the reason the club is today big enough to attract big money players, built modern new stands at Anfield, and employ world-class managers like Jurgen Klopp. And it’s hard to think of a better man we could have right now to epitomize the spirit of the great men who have managed this club before him. Given the philosophies of managers like Shankly, Paisley, Fagan and even Houllier, there are such similarities with Klopp’s persona and own philosophies that make you realise how lucky we are to have a manager who fits with this club like a tailor-made glove. So happy birthday Shankly, may your legacies continue to live on in the nature of our football club, and may we one day in the near-future reach the successes that you did in English football. For younger fans like me, God only knows we’re dying to get there.   By Ben Kelly