mcleanscotland vacation company of Scotland take you on a magical mystery tour to Liverpool

For further information please contact: beatles@mcleanscotland.co.uk

mcleanscotland are a company specialising in travel and vacations to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. As we live here in Scotland we have expert local knowledge to carefully plan itineraries ensuring you see exactly what you expecting and also some of our favourite 'nooks and crannies' that other companies pass on by! The Partners have also lived in England, Wales, Ireland and around the world (well, Liz has anyhow!). Paul lived in Liverpool 20 years and as one of his friends said "you Scouse, Irish, Oban mongrel, where did you get that accent from anyhow?" Och, "cum ed d pool!" (Paul)

Bill Shankly (PAUL'S HERO AS A LAD) was born in the East Ayrshire mining village of Glenbuck, Scotland, into a family of ten children. He was one of five brothers who went on to play professional football. His brother Bob (1910 - 1982) was also a successful manager, guiding Dundee to victory in the Scottish championship in 1962. His tough upbringing was the basis for his own brand of humanitarian based socialism, and he would joke in later life that he never had a bath until aged 15, and that the poverty brought about a good sense of humour. Football was a way of getting away from the mine shafts - either on a Saturday afternoon and during weekly training, or as a professional option. All five Shankly brothers were members of the Glenbuck Cherrypickers - a team famous at the time for producing 49 footballers from the village, straddling the latter part of the 19th and the early years of the 20th century - although Bill, the youngest brother, never played for their first eleven. His other brothers were Alec, who played for Ayr United and Clyde, Jimmy (1902-1972), who played for various clubs, including Sheffield United and Southend United, and John (1903-1960), who played for Luton Town and Blackpool.

LFC Honours under Shanks;

1962 Second Division champions
1964 First Division champions
1965 FA Cup Winners, European Champions' Cup semi-finalists.
1966 First Division champions, European Cup Winners Cup beaten finalists.
1969 First Division runners-up.
1971 FA Cup beaten finalists, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-finalists.
1973 First Division champions, UEFA Cup winners.
1974 FA Cup winners, First Division runners-up.


Shankly became the manager of Liverpool in December 1959.
 

An interview on a Granada Television chat-show hosted by Shelley Rohde in 1981 produced arguably Shankly's most famous quote - "Someone said 'football is more important than life and death to you' and he said 'Listen, it's more important than that'."

More Shankly quotes; 

"There are only two teams in Liverpool; Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves."

"If Everton were playing at the bottom of the garden, I'd pull the curtains."

When Liverpool player Tommy Smith once consulted Shankly to tell him he couldn't play next week, due to his injured knee, Shankly replied: "Take that poof bandage off, and what do you mean Your knee, it's Liverpool's knee!"

"Of course I didn't take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present, it was her birthday. Would I have got married in the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves."

"If he isn't named Footballer of the Year, football should be stopped and the men who picked any other player should be sent to the Kremlin"  talking of Tommy Smith

Bill Shankly to Alan Ball, who'd just signed for Everton :
"Don't worry, Alan. At least you'll be able to play close to a great team!"

Bill Shankly to a Liverpool fan : "Where are you from?"
"I'm a Liverpool fan from London."
"Well laddie . . . . What's it like to be in heaven?"

Shankly told Kevin Keegan in 1971 as Liverpool were playing West Ham United "Christ son, I've just seen that Bobby Moore. What a wreck. He's got bags under his eyes, he's limping. He's got dandruff and it looks as if he has been to a nightclub again". Moore played a blinder during the match but Keegan still scored. After the game Shankly said to Keegan "Aye he's some player that Bobby Moore isn't he? You'll never play against anyone better than him".

Shankly was famously competitive in 5 a side matches. Matches in which his talented full-back, Chris Lawler was equally famous for his taciturnity. Bob Paisley was refereeing one day and decreed a goal offside. Shankly argued long and hard, so much so that in the end Bob Paisley asked Lawler: "Chris- you were the last man, was Bill offside?" To which Chris replied "Yes Bob, he was" Shankly exploded with rage. "All these years he keeps his mouth shut, and when he does speak, it's to tell a lie"

Bill Shankly When he wasn't managing a football club, Shankly was usually at his typewriter, personally replying to the letters which arrived at Melwood. Shankly even called some supporters at home to discuss the previous day's game, while the accounts of him providing tickets for fans are endless. One of the most iconic images of all was caught on television, when a Liverpool scarf which had been thrown at Shankly during a lap of honour was flung to one side by a policeman, in April 1973, when he and the team were showing off the League Championship trophy to the Kop. Shankly pounced on the scarf and reprimanded the copper, uttering the immortal words "Don't do that. This might be someone's life". After his retirement he said: "I was only in the game for the love of football - and I wanted to bring back happiness to the people of Liverpool."  In 1959, Liverpool was a club in the bottom of the old Second Division, with a crumbling stadium, poor training facilities and a large and poor quality playing staff. The only quality was in the backroom staff, with Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett, added to by the recently retired footballer Bob Paisley, whom Shankly admired. The training ground at Melwood was in a terrible state, overgrown and with only one mains water tap. Shankly turned this into a strength, by getting the players to arrive instead at Anfield, and then bus them over to Melwood - this created team camaraderie. At Melwood Shankly introduced fitness training including diet assessment, and skills training including using an artificial goal painted on a convenient wall, split into eight sections which he would demand the players hit each time. For playing practice, Shankly introduced five-a-side games that so defined his football thinking - pass and move, keep it simple, a creed taken from the daily matches played by the miners of Glenbuck. After training, the team would all bus back to Anfield together to shower, change and eat a communal meal. This way Shankly ensured all his players had warmed down correctly and he would keep his players free from injury. As a result, in the 1965-1966 season Liverpool finished as champions using just 14 players and two of those only played a handful of games. 1960s team Slowly at first, and then with a gathering pace, Shankly and his backroom team turned Liverpool around. The Anfield crowd sensed change, with gates regularly topping 40,000[citation needed] and with new signings Ron Yeats, Ian St. John and Gordon Milne, promotion was gained back to the first division in 1961-1962. The addition of Peter Thompson (along with a failed swoop for Jack Charlton) added to his ever-improving team. The supremacy of Everton in the city of Liverpool was the first target for Shankly now that he had got the club back into the top flight, and in 1963-1964, Liverpool clinched their 6th title, from former champions Everton. The first F.A. Cup win in 1965 was followed by Europe where Liverpool were stopped by Inter Milan, managed by Helenio Herrera, winning the first leg at Anfield only to lose the follow up. The following year it was defeat by Ajax led by then 19-year old Johan Cruyff (7-3 on aggregate; including a 5-1 hammering in Amsterdam). Whilst Shankly, orchestrating events at Anfield was at one with the fans, perfectly in tune with the Kopites, knowing and understanding how they felt about football and the pride a successful team gave them - remaining in touch with his working class roots. His would tell anyone who cared to listen that his lads played to a socialist ethic. If a player was having a poor game Shankly would expect a team mate to cover for him and bail him out like you would do for a neighbour or a colleague down the mine.
1970s team The decline of the 1960s team saw the birth of Shankly's second great Liverpool side. Out went Hunt, St.John, Yeats and Lawrence, and in came Kevin Keegan, Steve Heighway, Larry Lloyd and Ray Clemence - he missed out on signing Lou Macari, and sent a note round to the players after Macari had signed for Manchester United that Shankly had only wanted him for the Reserve team. The UEFA Cup, the first European trophy, arrived in 1973, won in tandem with the club's 8th league title. In 1974, the F.A. Cup came back to Anfield after a Wembley performance against Malcolm Macdonald's Newcastle United. The result was 3-0.




 

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