Legendernes tråd

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Cynwal
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Cynwal » søndag, 24. apr, 2016 16:55

Hafsteinsson skrev:
Cynwal skrev:
Hafsteinsson skrev:
Cynwal skrev:
ScouserTommy skrev:
Som en tilføjelse kan det nævnes, at Callaghan fortsatte sin aktive karriere som fodboldspiller i Swansea i 3 år efter, at hans kontrakt med Liverpool ophørte, blot for at sætte det i relief til Mr. Keats 22-årige karriere for Liverpool.
Jepper - John Toschack købte hårdt ind i den gamle Liverpool trup, og Ian Callaghan blev bl.a. fulgt af Ray Kennedy og Jimmy Case. Case havde oven i købet den "frækhed" at score det enlige m¨ål, da Swansea vandt 1-0 over Liverpool (taget fra hukommelsen - IKKE google tjekket!!)
Vi kommer kun af med Statsfinancierede klubber, ved at boykotte ALT der har med disse Sportwashing diktaturer at gøre.
Brug din magt som forbruger.

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Cynwal
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Cynwal » fredag, 13. maj, 2016 09:14

Steve Heighway tildelt "Lifetime Achievement Award" ved klubbens prisuddelings aften i går aftes (12/5 2016).
....og yderst fortjent efter min overbevisning!

"Steve Heighway...? Hedder han ikke Stevie?" vil sikkert være mange yngres første reaktion. Men nej, det er skam Steve, og som den originale tekst til "Fields of Anfield Road" lyder:

"We had Heighway on the wing
We had dreams and songs to sing",

så var Heighway i sin tid som spiller en ægte, klassisk venstre wing, med de mest fantastiske indlæg.

Klubbens første af de 5 store stjerner (Mesterholdenes finale i 1977) huskes meget som Kevin Keegans store kamp,
men lige bag ham, var det i høj grad Heighways fortjeneste, at vi vandt den første pokal med de store ører.
Heighway var arkitekten bag målet til 1-0, og smider et super hjørnespark lige i panden på Tommy Smith til 2-1.
I Allan Simonsens bog "Mine gyldne mål" beskriver han, hvordan Heighway gang på gang terroriserede BM Gladbachs forsvar.

Når man taler med andre fra min generation, som så Tipsfodbold i 70'erne, så er det betegnende, at når navnet Heighway nævnes, så får de fleste et drømmende blik og et saligt smil på munden, uanset om de så selv holdt (holder - man skifter jo ALDRIG klub!)
med Arsenal, Derby, Nottingham Forest - ja selv Manchester United tilhængere kan finde et lille anerkendende nik frem.

Men Heighway får minst lige så meget Lifetime Achievement Awards prisen for hans mange år som Direktør for klubbens ungdomsakademi. Heighways tid som Direktør, står stadig som Akademiets Guldalder. Under Heighways "regime" frembragte akademiet spillere som Robbie "God" Fowler, Michael Owen, Jamie Carragher og Steven Gerrard.

Heighway startede som Direktør for Akademiet i 1989, og stoppede i 2007, efter uenighed med Benitez, som ville have større indflydelse på Akademiet. For nylig har nuværende Akedemidirektør, Alex Inglethorpe, så inviteret Steve Heighway tilbage til Akedemiet, hvor han igen er med til at træne ungdomstalenterne.

STORT TILLYKKE TIL HEIGHWAY

....og så er der en lækker præsentationsvideo samt Heighways takketale frit tilgængelig på klubbens hjemmeside:
http://www.liverpoolfc.com/video/latest-videos#26379
Vi kommer kun af med Statsfinancierede klubber, ved at boykotte ALT der har med disse Sportwashing diktaturer at gøre.
Brug din magt som forbruger.

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RedRedRed
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af RedRedRed » torsdag, 24. nov, 2016 14:10

Gerrard stopper karrieren.

Tak for alt Captain Fantastic! (og på gensyn..)

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Sledgehammer
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Sledgehammer » torsdag, 24. nov, 2016 16:31

RedRedRed skrev:Gerrard stopper karrieren.

Tak for alt Captain Fantastic! (og på gensyn..)
Der har været så mange klassespillere i klubben gennem tiderne at det - for mig ihf - er umuligt at udpege den allerstørste (hvordan sammenligner man fx Stevie med Ian Rush eller Kenny D med Alan Hansen?), men Stevie er uden tvivl med i feltet, ikke mindst pga hans loyalitet i en svær periode, hvor titlerne var få og han havde massevis af tilbud fra mere succesrige klubber :love3:

Hvor er det synd at han aldrig fik den PrL titel. Som spiller, altså, måske han en dag får den som medlem af trænerstaben? Det ville være episk.
Anfield Iron

Liverpool Football Klopp

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AndreasN
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af AndreasN » torsdag, 24. nov, 2016 18:08

Godt nok en blandet følelse, at han stopper. For mig personligt er han den første og eneste football hero. Der kommer desværre ikke en som ham i Liverpool eller nogen anden klub for den sags skyld igen.

Tak for alt!
Liverpool Football Klopp

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Niels K
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Niels K » fredag, 12. apr, 2019 23:18

Tommy Smith: The Anfield Iron who conquered Europe with his beloved Liverpool

Legend has it that mothers in Liverpool kept a picture of Tommy Smith on the mantelpiece to keep their children away from the fire.
Known as the ‘Anfield Iron’, former Liverpool captain Smith, who helped the Reds to domestic and European success in the 1960s and 1970s, has died aged 74.
A defensive rock of whom manager Bill Shankly once said he “wasn’t born, he was quarried”, Smith spent an 18-year career at Anfield during which he won four league titles and the European Cup in 1977.

In all Smith made 638 appearances for the Reds between 1963 and 1978. He was part of Shankly’s side which won the FA Cup for the first time in 1965.
Twelve years later he headed a crucial goal to help the Reds lift their first European Cup against Borussia Monchengladbach in Rome.

Born in Liverpool in April 1945, Smith grew up in the shadow of Anfield and joined the club he supported as a schoolboy in 1960, initially on the groundstaff, and then briefly as a centre-forward, before becoming a fearsome defensive enforcer.

Such was his growing reputation that the youngster was the subject of a transfer enquiry from Manchester United boss Matt Busby, quickly dismissed by Shankly.

He made his debut as a substitute on May 8, 1963, in a 5–1 home victory over Birmingham City.

An uncompromising tackler, Smith would strike fear into the hearts of opponents such as Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Greaves while allowing his gilded team-mates such as Ian St John, Roger Hunt, Kevin Keegan and Terry McDermott to thrive.

Yet Smith was not just a clogger, he could also play and scored 48 goals on his way to winning nine major trophies in total.
He was sent off just once in his top-flight career, and it was actually his mouth rather than his studs that got him into trouble after he swore at referee Clive Thomas in a match at Manchester City.

In 1973 he became the first Liverpool skipper to lift a European trophy, the UEFA Cup, but just a few months later Smith was dropped and stripped of the captaincy in favour of Emlyn Hughes, a man of whom his dislike was no secret.


With his Anfield career seemingly winding down, Smith had a spell on loan with Tampa Bay Rowdies in 1976.
Yet upon his return destiny was to hand Smith arguably his finest hour when an injury to Phil Thompson paved the way for him to play in the 1977 European showpiece and score with a towering header, on that famous night in Rome.

Smith left Liverpool in for Swansea, managed by his old Reds team-mate John Toshack, in 1978, and helped them to promotion from the old Third Division.

He received the MBE for services to football and retired from playing in 1979.

A brief return to Anfield as youth coach preceded a career as an after-dinner speaker and newspaper columnist, while Smith remained a keen follower of his old side.

His life was not without controversy, however, as former Liverpool team-mate Howard Gayle claimed in 2016 that Smith had made racist comments to him in training during their careers. In an interview with the Guardian on the matter Gayle called Smith a “disappointment” and a “complete let-down”.

Smith would take over the lease of Liverpool’s famous music venue, The Cavern Club, but years of crunching tackles had left him struggling to walk unaided, and Smith suffered a heart attack in 2007 before being diagnosed with Alzheimers and dementia in 2014. His wife Susanne had died from the same condition four years ago aged 71.
Smith is survived by daughter Janette, son Darren and four grandchildren; Matthew, William, Jessica and Imogen.

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Niels K » lørdag, 13. apr, 2019 17:03

Alex Raisbeck: The original Liverpool icon

WORDS BY SEB STAFFORD-BLOOR
April 13, 2019

Twerton Park is a strange place for a legend to flicker for the final time, but that’s where Alex Raisbeck’s career in football ended in 1939. As many others would discover over the next 80 years, great players didn’t necessarily make great coaches and by the time he was appointed by Bath City in 1938, Raisbeck had already suffered a relegation with Bristol City and unsuccessful spells with Halifax and Chester.

The outbreak of war and competitive football’s suspension brought an end to his time in the west country and, for the final ten years of his life, he returned to Liverpool to work as a scout.

Liverpool, a club of legends and where Raisbeck is such a key stitch in the tapestry. He made 312 appearances between 1898 and 1909, captaining Tom Watson’s side to both of their first two Football League championships. Other, more recent immortals are more tangible and their achievements exist far more vividly. Anyone can find clips of Bill Shankly’s oratory or watch footage of Kenny Dalgish’s goals; Raisbeck is more elusive though and has to be extracted from the layered hyperbole of the time.

Like this, from the Liverpool Echo‘s Victor Hall, writing in 1924.

“Let us recall his characteristics. Tall, lithe, sinuous, and yet gifted with muscular and physical development beyond the ordinary. Active to a degree, speed either on the turn or in flight, and with niche, at the addition of resourcefulness and judgement that would have been all sufficient in a other player, without those added gifts, methodical in training, painstaking in preparation, genial with his players and considerate with his committee. With a perfect blending of the qualities that to make a really great player!”

As charming as antiquated language often is, it can skimp on the detail. Even as recently as the 1950s, players were being described with passages which belonged in The Iliad. They would have superhuman characteristics, be drawn in generous physical proportions and, instead of listing their skills and effects, the commentators of the day would focus on their ‘vigour’ and ‘fortitude’. Flattering, no doubt, but not particularly useful.

Raisbeck was born in 1878 in Wallacestone, a Scottish village south of Falkirk. When Watson was constructing his first great Liverpool side (having already architected Sunderland’s Team Of All The Talents), he had followed conventional thinking: for craft and culture, head to Scotland. The DNA of English players was perceived to still be spoiled by the rough and tumble game played in public schools, and it’s not a coincidence that, ahead of the 1898 season, the club recruited so heavily from beyond Hadrian’s Wall. George Allan, Hugh Morgan, Tom Robertson and John Walker would all move south to Anfield that summer and Raisbeck, then 20, would also join from Hibernian for £350, having spent part of the previous season on a short-term contract at Stoke City.

He was a centre-half. From match-reports, not a particularly static one either and while there are plenty of descriptions of his rugged defending, often he’s portrayed as a roaming type, exerting influence up and down the pitch. Physically, he was also a spectacle. The average height of a man in 1900 was just under 5ft6 and Raisbeck stood at a towering 5ft9 and a hefty 13 stone; not quite a giant of his day, but certainly one of the more physically imposing players of the time.

“A man of Raisbeck’s proportions, style and carriage would rivet attention anywhere.”

It’s a habit of the time. For most of the next half-century, football writing seemed to retain its fascination with size and strength. Long before the intellectualisation of the sport and the dawn of dead-behind-the-eyes analysis, players were treated with a strange sort of wonder – reliably, the very best were observed as a kind of super species, capable of all sorts of unlikely feats.

But, in accordance with the geographical stereotype, Raisbeck was also a cultured footballer. Many celebrations of his career talk as much his grace as much as they do his grit, and his balance as well as his bulk. It’s still hard to imagine what he would have looked like carrying the ball forward or just how powerful his tackling was, but it provides enough of an outline: he was Liverpool’s granite centre.

But perhaps how he played isn’t so important. Or, at least, maybe it’s his role in Liverpool’s first ascent which really fossilised his legend.

In 1892, then-Everton president John Houlding found himself on the losing side of a bitter internal squabble. Houlding was also the Anfield landlord and had created friction by trying to capitalise on the club’s early success (Everton won the First Division in 1891) through a series rent increases. The effect, eventually, was a split: he would keep Anfield, but the other board members, the team, its identity and history, would flee across Stanley Park to Walton.

He needed a team to play in his empty ground and, in June 1892, Liverpool Football Club was born. It’s an important detail to remember, because it stresses just how young they were. They entered the First Division for the first time in just their third year of existence and, despite a quick, brutal relegation, they had rebounded successfully enough to win the title by their ninth year.

Raisbeck was not the only decisive factor in that first success. Watson’s arrival from Sunderland in 1896 was hugely significant and the excellent recruitment he oversaw was obviously pivotal. The signing of centre-forward Sam Raybould in January 1900 – and the 128 goals in 228 appearances he would return – was also of vast importance.

But Raisbeck captained that side, which certainly helps to frame his role within the era, and he was also still in place when Liverpool rebounded from relegation in 1904 to win their second league championship in 1906. In the final ten games of 1900-01, they conceded just twice on the way to overhauling Sunderland and capturing that maiden title; clearly, to have played centre-half for that team is to be deserving of immortality.

But Raisbeck seems to have been both fulcrum and figurehead. In The Anatomy Of Liverpool: A History In Ten Games, Jonathan Wilson describes that initial chasing down as being emblematic of the “restless spirit’ which would come to form part of the club’s long term identity.

“It had been the kind of late season charge which would define Liverpool during their golden era of the 1970s and early 1980s: a template had been forged.”

It’s a romantic angle, but it’s hard to dispute. Liverpool, probably more than any other club, remain intertwined with the idea of dragging the iron from the fire and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. The run to the 1986 First Division title and the pipping of Everton, for instance, Steven Gerrard’s FA Cup final goal against West Ham, or – most famously – Istanbul. The symmetry is too seductive to ignore and it’s easy to trace those roots back to Raisbeck and that first improbable triumph.

Liverpool is also unquestionably a club of icons. Its eras have always been defined by personalities, either on the pitch or to its side. Shankly and Souness, Dalgish and Gerrard. Perhaps that too is templated and can be traced back to Raisbeck: the kind of towering, magnetic presence which the club and its supporters have always flocked towards. He was both talisman and icon, the first in the long line that would follow.

Filos of Isk
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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Filos of Isk » fredag, 21. maj, 2021 10:52

Det er sgu lidt synd at det er Premier League hall of fame. Der er nogle legender der ikke når st komme med fordi de spillede for tidligt.

Men fedt at Gerrard kom med


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Niels K » lørdag, 22. maj, 2021 08:59

Steven Gerrard inducted into Premier League Hall of Fame

May 20, 2021
Joanna Durkan

Steven Gerrard has been inducted into the maiden class of the Premier League‘s Hall of Fame after an illustrious career for Liverpool that spanned over 17 years.

The Hall of Fame was introduced this year to commemorate the top-flight’s greatest ever players since its inception in 1992.

And the former Reds captain now takes his place after a fan and panel vote, with Gerrard joining Alan Shearer, Thierry Henry, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, Frank Lampard and Dennis Bergkamp from a 23-man shortlist.

Gerrard’s career is one of wonder having graduated from Liverpool’s academy to play 504 times in the Premier League for a return of 120 goals and 92 assists.

His tally of games is joint-11th most of all-time having made his debut as an 18-year-old where he went on to feature in 17 consecutive seasons for his boyhood club.

Gerrard was named in the PFA Team of the Year on eight different occasions, was the PFA Young Player of the Year in 2000/01, the PFA Players’ Player of the Year in 2005/06 and the FWA Footballer of the Year in 2008/09 among other honours.

He is one of the greatest ever to grace the pitch, as illustrated by the number of players, fans and pundits alike who look up to him, and his place in the Hall of Fame is most definitely a worthy one.

Ruthless from a set-piece, a fearless leader and one of very few who could drag his team behind him singlehandedly.

‘The best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be.’

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Niels K » lørdag, 22. maj, 2021 09:02

How Bill Shankly forged the Liverpool FC dynasty

March 27, 2021
This Is Anfield
This Is Anfield
@thisisanfield

Author Bob Holmes reflects on the dynasty Bill Shankly built at Liverpool, and how history is repeating itself with Jurgen Klopp and his successful side.

An extract from ‘Shanks, Yanks and Jürgen: The Men Behind Liverpool’s Rise Again‘.

‘The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life.’ – Bill Shankly

The words are inscribed on the walls of the Melwood training ground, the Shankly Hotel and adorn the Spirit of Shankly website. They are etched on the minds of millions of followers and plastered everywhere you read eulogies to the great man. Neither Marxist nor Maoist, they are but a simple expression of the working-class values and aspirations of the time. Shanks was born two years after the Titanic sank and a year before the Great War began. Humble though his origins were, his disciples can justly claim that significant events happen in threes.

If the names of sporting and cultural icons carry more resonance than their political or academic peers, it is no stretch to call him one of the most influential British public figures of the late 20th century. Being one of the greatest football managers of all time was always going to earn him a place among the probables. But it was his wit, wisdom and sheer indefatigability that transcended the traditional boundaries. In short, it was the irresistible force of his personality that ensured a more enduring impact than the other two members of the immortal trio born in that fecund corner of the West of Scotland. He was larger than life.

Like Shankly, Stein and Busby did an awful lot more for their respective clubs and adopted cities than pick winning teams. Both were magnificent football men and admirably modest in life, but neither were blessed with Shanks’ charisma or genius for the outrageous gesture or hilarious quip. Eulogised by Hugh McIlvanney in Three Football Men, all were true maestros of their trade. Players were not only willing to go through brick walls for them, they would replace the bricks and re-lay the mortar. And trust them with their lives. It was their incorruptible amalgam of sound judgment, fairness and football sagacity that made them father figures to players of different generations. In Shanks’ case, he became a father figure to the people of Liverpool too.

No football club owes as much to one man as Liverpool FC does to Shankly. Not Manchester United to Busby or Fergie, not Celtic to Stein, not Arsenal to Herbert Chapman or Arsene Wenger, not Forest to Cloughie. And certainly not an entire city. With a successful team, a manager can lift the morale of a club’s constituents but Shanks’ appeal crossed the normal demarcations lines.

Even Evertonians, although taunted unmercifully by him for years, eventually came to acknowledge his contribution beyond the touchline. He had a gift for the sound bite that a politician would die for and if it sometimes smacked of the fourth form, he could turn it into philosophy. Like Muhammad Ali, he made us cackle and question in equal measures. And if Shanks lacked the global audience that Ali had, to players, fans and especially Red Liverpudlians, he was just as inspirational.

Formed in 1892 – from Everton’s rib if you want a Biblical parallel – Liverpool FC had won the league five times before he arrived. But the Liverpool we know today didn’t really take off until the 1960s. That was when Shanks, who called the club ‘a shambles’ on taking over in December, 1959, began to work his magic. He did not just stir a sleeping giant: he stoked the magma of a dormant volcano. And such was the eruption of spirit, pride and passion he wrought it was like a New Liverpool. And in the voice of the Kop, it became LIV-ER-POOL, those three syllables taking on a whole new significance.

Liverpool's legendary Bill Shankly. Turning towards the Kop end of Anfield, Shankly gets an ovation from the fans who idolised him when Liverpool became League champions.

But, as with Fergie at United, it didn’t happen overnight. Shanks was shocked by the enormity of the task and hamstrung by the board’s pallid indifference. It got so bad he was only talked out of quitting by, of all people, United’s Busby. It will forever be the biggest favour that club has done for their arch-rivals.

So frustrated was Shanks by the situation that he forgot his maxim about not giving up. Busby, who had played more than 100 games for Liverpool as a wing-half, reminded him that he was not 3-0 down with five minutes to go, but the score was 0-0 and he’d only just kicked off. Shanks listened to his fellow Scot, who was four years older and whom he respected, and decided to battle on. He gradually won the directors over, one by one.

Eventually he would bring about a transformation the like of which has never been seen in one city before or since. Naples had a frenzied couple of years with Diego Maradona but it didn’t last: Shanks created a dynasty that has. Allied to a simultaneous awakening of the music scene, it turned Liverpool into the most culturally vibrant place on earth.

Back in 1959, the club did not belong among the elite of English football: they weren’t even No.1 in Liverpool – Everton claimed the bragging rights. Then the Reds, who had done nothing for a dozen years, didn’t possess the aura of Busby’s Babes or Stan Cullis’s Wolves. Those two were the teams of the fifties. Liverpool had the fans but were something of a one-man team. They were often known as Liddell-pool after the legendary Billy Liddell, their standout player and one of the greats of the post-war era. But even with him they were also-rans in the old Second Division.

Yet it was as if their fans had been waiting for Shankly’s coming. Or at least a manager of his ilk, a leader whose ambition matched their own and whose every utterance inspired. Hailing from the game’s richest spawning ground and an international player, it seemed his destiny to find its most atmospheric stage and appreciative audience. No one knew it at the time, but this was not merely ‘the right fit’ but a marriage made on the Elysian Fields.

If he’d not ended up at Liverpool, you feel such a force of football nature would surely have made its presence felt elsewhere. But even with hindsight, it is hard to see it happening on the same epic scale. Nowhere else had the same burgeoning sense of localism; or raging thirst for football fulfilment. Glasgow? The Scottish League was not a big enough stage and the city was riven by sectarianism. Newcastle? Shanks’ disciple Kevin Keegan briefly hinted at something similar but could not sustain it.

And long before anyone mentioned ‘the Geordie nation’ in the north east, Liverpool had forged its own distinct identity. More accustomed to immigrants than anywhere else – it had had a huge Celtic influx, mostly from Ireland but also Scotland and Wales – the city had shed its Anglo-Saxon reserve a hundred years ago. With people from the four corners, the cosmopolitan makeup bred a fiercely independent streak. By tapping into this as well as talking up the team, Shankly was able to harness the football hunger and ‘Liverpoolness’ to maximum effect. As Roy Evans would say: ‘Shanks was very keen on making Liverpool FC a very fierce source of civic pride. His intensity never took a day off.’

But there was an awful lot of work to do to turn the team around. When he pointed his little Austin A40 over the Pennines that December day in 1959, Huddersfield, the club he was leaving, were four places higher in the table than Liverpool. And his new club was in a bigger mess than he realised. Anfield had no means of watering the pitch, the toilets didn’t flush and the training ground looked, he said, ‘as if the Germans had been over.’ Jurgen Klopp would have enjoyed that. A decade and a half since the last Luftwaffe raid, and such talk still resonated. The idea of a German coming over to sit in Shankly’s seat, wear his shoes and mould his team was an odyssey not on anyone’s drawing board.

In 1959, Melwood was still used for cricket: the pavilion looked as if WG Grace might walk out to bat while the outfield had more rough than Carnoustie. Then there was the team: also a bit wooden and in need of major repair. But it was on that first unpromising winter’s day that Shanks made the best football decision of his life – to retain the team of coaching assistants, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett. He would sweep clean in other areas but for the revolution he was planning, he needed trusty lieutenants. He even found a venue for them to brainstorm. Not much bigger than Workington’s boiler room, the 12’ square cubby hole near the dressing rooms became the inner sanctum for football’s most storied conclaves: the Boot Room was born.

Like any new broom, Shanks desperately wanted to hit the ground at a speed his Austin A40 couldn’t reach. But his start was hardly auspicious: he lost his first two games with a combined 0-7 aggregate and his first signing was a dud. Crowds were below 30,000 and Nessie remembers he claimed his proudest early achievement was getting those toilets to flush. She also recalled that when Liverpool lost he would clean the cooker – to take his mind off it. Neither a cook nor a handyman, this was the most practical thing he did in the house.

Players he wanted – among them Brian Clough and Jack Charlton – were denied him but, as advised by Busby, he stuck at it. He introduced ‘sweat boxes’ in training where players had to react to the ball rebounding off wooden boards at different angles. It made them ‘control and pass’ not unlike Guardiola’s famous rondos. Shanks would say: ‘Liverpool’s training is based on exhaustion and recovery, twisting and turning: a fit team has a tremendous advantage.’ With Paisley holding a stopwatch, Fagan barking instructions and Shanks casting an all-seeing eye, it may have flouted the Geneva Convention, but the players daren’t complain: they were all in it together.

Gradually, by sheer force of personality and changes to just about everything, his methods took effect. He drove the team to third place although only two went up. But there was a new mood, as well as a new pitch at Melwood and crowds started to return. George Scott, who had joined as a 15-year-old from Aberdeen, remembers: ‘Shankly brought fantastic self-belief, passion and enthusiasm to Liverpool Football Club and he demanded no less from us players. He used to say to us young players “without enthusiasm you are nothing”. He also had tremendous character and a great sense of humour, and also loyalty. When he came to Anfield he kept all the backroom-staff and forged a dynasty. He loved the supporters and they loved him. There has in my view never been another manager to compare to him in this respect.’

Shanks’ first significant signing was Gordon Milne, for a bargain £16,000 from Preston yet a Liverpool record. He was on his way – he just needed a stroke of luck. It came the following season and from, of all people, Everton.

Sir John Moores was Littlewoods Pools boss and a shareholder of both Everton and Liverpool. He also owned the Littlewoods chain of department stores so was anxious to keep the whole city – not just the Blue half – happy. He installed business partner Eric Sawyer as a director of Liverpool to help get them to join the Blues in the top flight. And in Sawyer, an accountant, Shanks found the extra ally that he needed. After finishing third again and with frustration mounting, he was even more determined to sign Yeats and St John. And in the summer of 1961, with Sawyer’s backing, he finally got them. It was, as he would later acknowledge, the turning point.

Liverpool squad 1962-63: (back row, l-r) Phil Ferns, Gordon Milne, Wilf Stevenson, Tommy Lawrence, Ronnie Moran, Jim Furnell, Alan A'Court, Chris Lawler, Gerry Byrne; (front row, l-r) Alf Arrowsmith, Gordon Wallace, Ian Callaghan, Roger Hunt, Ron Yeats, Ian St John, Jimmy Melia, ?

The Milne fee was blown out of the water as they spent £20,000 on Yeats from Dundee United, and £37,500 on St John from Motherwell. Yeats, a towering centre-half and St John, a Jack-in-the-box striker, were instant successes. Liverpool were unstoppable and in Shanks’ third season (1961/62) stormed to the Division Two title. Local boy Roger Hunt scored 41 goals. Ian Callaghan had played the first of his 857 games for the club and Gerry Byrne was also emerging. Coming through the ranks were Tommy Lawrence in goal and tough boy-man Tommy Smith, whom Shanks described as ‘18 years old when he was born’.

So chuffed was he to get Yeats that he invited the press to meet him by saying: ‘He’s seven feet tall – you can come in and take a walk around him.’ At 6’2”, Yeats was two inches shorter than Virgil van Dijk but a similar colossus in defence.

Just like Klopp almost six decades later, Shanks was building the spine of the team, deciding on the men he wanted and waiting patiently – even a whole season – for them to come. Even though Klopp paid world record fees for Van Dijk and Alisson Becker, his dogged pursuit of them has evoked comparisons with how Shanks did it.

* This is an extract from ‘Shanks, Yanks and Jürgen: The Men Behind Liverpool’s Rise Again‘ by Bob Holmes – available to buy now.

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Cynwal » lørdag, 22. maj, 2021 10:20

Niels K skrev:
lørdag, 22. maj, 2021 09:02
How Bill Shankly forged the Liverpool FC dynasty
So chuffed was he to get Yeats that he invited the press to meet him by saying: ‘He’s seven feet tall – you can come in and take a walk around him.’ At 6’2”, Yeats was two inches shorter than Virgil van Dijk but a similar colossus in defence.
Da Shanks kom til, spillede vi i røde trøjer og strømper og hvide bukser. Men Shanks syntes, at hvis vi var i helt rødt (ink. bukser) så så Yeats endnu højere og dermed mere frygtindgydende ud, og så skiftede spilledragten, til det vi har i dag.
Vi kommer kun af med Statsfinancierede klubber, ved at boykotte ALT der har med disse Sportwashing diktaturer at gøre.
Brug din magt som forbruger.

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Cynwal » mandag, 26. sep, 2022 09:08

Højdepunkterne fra den såkaldte "Legends match" mellem Liverpool og Manchester United. Begge mandskaber har dog måttet ud i krogene, for at finde "Legends". I Liverpools tilfælde f.eks. Le Tallec og Sinama Pongolle, Kvarme m.fl.
Men en sejr over Northwest konkurrenterne smager altid godt, så her er højdepunkterne:
Må modstrøbende indrømme, at det er noget af en kasse, som Berbatov smadrer ind!
Vi kommer kun af med Statsfinancierede klubber, ved at boykotte ALT der har med disse Sportwashing diktaturer at gøre.
Brug din magt som forbruger.

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Cynwal » lørdag, 18. mar, 2023 17:35

Lucas Leiva indstiller sin aktive karriere i en alder af 36 år. Det er konstateret, at han har nogen hjerteproblemer, uden at det bliver nærmere beskrevet hvad det er:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/64996779
Vi kommer kun af med Statsfinancierede klubber, ved at boykotte ALT der har med disse Sportwashing diktaturer at gøre.
Brug din magt som forbruger.

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Re: Legendernes tråd

Indlæg af Cynwal » lørdag, 25. mar, 2023 22:14

Gerrard og Mark Gonzales scorer i 2-0 legende sejr over Celtic:
Vi kommer kun af med Statsfinancierede klubber, ved at boykotte ALT der har med disse Sportwashing diktaturer at gøre.
Brug din magt som forbruger.

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