Your Views
( Volume 4 )

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The North Down Tommy Smith Liverpool Supporters Club

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ALAN MARSDEN

I am an exiled Liverpudlian. I remember Bill Shankly when he was manager of Huddersfield before joining Liverpool. Norwich City's goalkeeper, Nethercott, was injured in an F.A. Cup match, and Shankly loaned his reserve goalkeeper Kennon to Norwich for the remainder of the season. This speaks volumes about the man.

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CLIFF MARSDEN

It was May 1971 and I was 12 years old. ALL my relations, mum,dad, aunties, cousins,nan and grandad supported Everton. Naturally they brought me up as an Evertonian and took me to Goodison on many trips.

Despite this I never really felt I belonged, never felt at home. Then one day a girl who was the apple of my eye said she was going to see Liverpool come home from Wembley and would I like to go with her and her family?

"But they got beat didn't they"? I said, suit yourself she said. Anyway I went just to be near her and what a turning point in my life it turned out to be!

When Bill Shankly came out on the platform and addressed the crowd I knew I had found a messiah,a hero, a man who gave supporting a football team colour and depth and PASSION!

I got home and told my dad I wasn't going with him and my grandad and uncles to see Everton any more I was a Liverpool fan from now on! You can imagine how he reacted but it didn't matter, you don't get two Bill Shankly's in a century let alone a lifetime and I was hooked.

I now life in Newcastle but have a Kop season ticket and all my family still live in the 'pool so I don't miss out. Together with a mate (Phil Mooney) we started the NE Supporters club and called it "Spirit of Shankly" as a tribute to The Great Man. God Bless Him.

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FRANK BEATTIE

I thought you might be interested in this anecdote from Bill's very early days. My mother and her two sisters were brought up in Glenbuck, where their father was the schoolmaster.

They were at the village station one day as was the lad they called Willie Shankly. It was a big day for him; he was off to Glasgow to play in a football match. Just as the train was pulling in; Bill screamed: ` Ma bits (=boots); I''ve left ma bits at hame'. So he went running up the road to get them. Meanwhile, the train driver was persuaded to hold the train till he came back. Would a driver do that now? No chance.

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ARNE VAN WIELINK

That Shankly reminds me of that person Mickey from the Rocky movies. Same kind of person.

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TIM HALL

I have just been browsing your website, and loved it! It's a great mix of information about the glorious past - the great players and teams, and of course the great man Shankly - and up-to-date news about developments at LFC ie the proposed new stadium in Stanley Park. I liked the piece supporting the move, and I'm sure that Shankly himself would have approved the idea as it will help to keep LFC at the top of the English and European game. I love the idea of giving some nightmares to the gloryboys at the Theatre of Dreams.

Keep up the good work!

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BILL OWENS

I am a manchester united supporter who will admit he was one of the greats of our time hard and fair.

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MUHAMMAD JUNAID

I love the website its brilliant keep up the fantastic work you are doing .Im sure Mr shankly would have been proud of it.

I feel so sad sometime that I never got the opportunity to meet the 'great man' as I was just a todler at the time but his legacy lives on at Liverpool FC and if they are going to build a new staduim I hope they name it 'Shankly staduim'. I really hope and pray Liverpool FC restablish itself has one of the greatest and the most succesfull club in the world football.

If Mr shankly is looking down from the heavens I hope his fortune shines down on Mr Houllier who has done an excellent job so far and the team.

Once again thankyou for your fantastic website on Mr Shankly and I hope the supporters whether young or old read about the Legend " BIll SHANKLY " God bless him.

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RIK BURNS

Your website is great and a tribute to the greatest manager of all time and maybe one day liverpool will get another manager like Bill Shankly not just because we won with him but he was always there for the people and the man is a god.

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ERIC TAYLOR

What a great site I can't get enough of it.I am a great Liverpool fan and Shankly was the best ever everything. I even named one of my sons Kevin Ian Emlyn after members of the team. Thanks for the site you have made my day.

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STEVE ASHTON

Just discovered the Shankly site and Derek what a site! Well done. Shanks was nothing short of a great man. The things he achieved for Liverpool football club and the way in which he achieved them will never be surpassed no matter how many trophies other managers may win. I was only a small boy when he reigned over Liverpool but I can still remember my father taking me to the games to see my heroes, Keegan, Heighway, Tosh, & Tommo to name but a few.

I never had the chance to speak to the great man but still etched in my mind is the Charity Shield in 1974 for 2 reasons. Firstly Keegan being sent off and Shanks as he walked round the perimeter of Wembley coming over to me as my Father held me up and placing his hand of my head. A moment never to be forgotten.

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ANTHONY LEWIS

First of all let me congratulate you on a superb site dedicated to Liverpool F.C. and Mr Bill Shankly. I have only just read some of your editorial comments i.e. Ferguson and 'middle-class' supporters. I couldn't agree with you more and I hope you don't mind if I try to add my thoughts to these comments you made.

I have supported Liverpool for nigh on 30 years since they lost to Arsenal in the FA Cup Final in '72 along with my 'other' local team Swansea City. I now live in Australia, for the last 12 years, but still follow both teams on the tele and internet, newspapers etc. In my teens I tried to see Liverpool in Anfield (or away) at least once every two months, pocket money paid for the trip and when I started work when I was 16 my meagre apprenticeship wages paid for the train which left my town at 6am and eventually arrived in Lime Street at 12.20, a quick bite to eat, couple of pints, pay to get in the Kop for one pound fifty (or was it twenty), catch the bus back to the rail station and depending on whatever train British Rail decided would run/connect that night get back home approximately 3-4am Sunday morning.

Please don't think I'm asking for a medal for all this or to be put on a pedestal- certainly not - there must have been thousands of 'us' doing the same sort of thing every Saturday but I wonder how many of these corporate businessmen would do that or these yuppies. Not many I think. Nearly four years ago we went back to the UK to see family and friends for a holiday. We were lucky and I mean lucky to purchase tickets for the LFC v FC Sion game. Myself, my wife, two daughters and two sons went to the game. All in all not a cheap exercise considering the hotel etc. but the memories of that night and excitement, noise, goals and everything will stay in not only my grey matter plus my wife's and kids until the day we die. But, Derek, it seemed different somehow. Somehow, it wasn't the same crowd, it had changed - somehow. Perhaps you got in a nutshell when you said there aren't many grassroots people there anymore.

Last year we were back in the UK again (we're not millionaires by the way) and I spent two days on the phone trying get tickets for the Chelsea game. No chance. Then I thought well, the tickets were 21 pound 50 each, which is, supposedly, cheap for the Premier League. We saw two games at Swansea instead. Not the same as Anfield perhaps but nevertheless the family loved it. A 5,000 crowd, good atmosphere, noise and thirty quid for the whole family to get in.

When I hear of ManU (ugh!) being the richest club in the world, when I hear of Premier players receiving 30-40 grand a week and paying 800quid for a haircut, well, it all seems a bit obnoxious. Good luck to the true Anfield faithful who still carry on paying the exorbitant prices, as you said Derek, I think they are getting fewer due to the jollies that go on in these places that were once football grounds. I'm not being pessimistic but a great empire called Rome collapsed from within and I fear that Premier League football will do the same.

A couple of comments about 'Sir' Alice Ferguson. I also laughed when I read about him saying about Liverpool supporters sending him letters sympathising with him about 'that' penalty and good luck for the European Cup Final. Ho! Ho! And another thing, if anyone suggests that he should be held in the same esteem as Shanks they need stuffing with a bargepole sideways. Not in the same class. Period.

By the way, the Swans have been promoted this season and after tomorrow we'll be champions of Division 3. I wonder how many of those corporates/yuppies would have stuck with a team like that since the heady days when Tosh was top dog? Not many, eh?

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MIKE WHALLEY

Nice site Derek thanks for putting it up. Just read your Life and Death personal view, I think you're right about the meaning, although to be honest I've always thought of it as Shanks saying that the results of the team of the present will stand long after they're all gone. As the results of yesteryear fill us with pride when we see them today, many of the great Reds (and fans) are up in Anfield's "Golden Suite", but their contribution to our success lives on today (thank god otherwise the mancs could get away with pretending football started when the Premiership and Sky began). Luckily only He knows the real answer !

Anyway in closing just got to say that it was true about Shanks and 5-a-sides, I played with Him as a kid on what's now Shankly Fields in West Derby, and the Great Man was no spring chicken back then but He was the fittest man I'd ever seen at the time ! And obviously just being that close to Him was an honour. Anyhow the point is there was never a chance if Shanks picked you, that you were going to lose that day even if it got dark! Brilliant days.

By the way I do think Gerard has got all the right stuff to take us back where we belong, throw in Figo and Sergi from the Barca clearout, and you never know we might just be standing on Queens Drive with cheesy grins again in the near future, wearing shades because of the silverware !

Here's hoping,
Take it easy
Mike

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