Bill Shankly
William Shankly (1913-09-02 — 1981-09-29) was a Scottish football (soccer) manager.
Sourced [edit]
- I have been received more warmly by Everton than I have by Liverpool. It is scandalous that I should have to write these things about the club that I helped build into what it is today.
- From his autobiography It's More Important Than That (1976), discussing the period after his retirement
- A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.
- Quoted by John Toshack in Kevin McCarra, "How Benítez built Liverpool," The Guardian (2006-01-21)
- At a football club, there's a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters.
An interview on a Granada Television chat-show, hosted by Shelley Rohde on Wednesday 20th of May 1981,[1] produced arguably Shankly's most famous (and most often misquoted) quote – "Someone said to me 'To you football is a matter of life or death!' and I said 'Listen, it's more important than that'." But on the official Liverpoolfc.tv website, it states that the official quote is "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that." It is likely that Shankly paraphrased a quote attributed in the 1950s to Henry Russell Sanders, an American football college coach, although his was referring to a rival – "Beating 'SC is not a matter..."
External links [edit]
- It's Not Your Leg Son - Book of Shankly Quotes pub. Tangent Books
