Bill Shankly

William Shankly (1913-09-02 — 1981-09-29) was an Scottish football (soccer) manager.

Sourced

• 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)

"A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are. In my time at Anfield we always said we had the best two teams on Merseyside, Liverpool and Liverpool reserves."

"My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. Napoleon had that idea. He wanted to conquer the bloody world. I wanted Liverpool to be untouchable. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up until eventually everyone would have to submit and give in."

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

• It's Not Your Leg Son - Book of Shankly Quotes pub. Tangent Books