Look past the pretentious title to this biography of the renowned Liverpool F.C. manager of the 60's and early 70's (I'm sure the great man himself would have hated it) and then savour this TV film of the life and times of one of the best and best-loved football managers of all time. Shankly shared his time with two other great Scottish football managers, Jock Stein of Celtic and Matt Busby of Manchester United, like them associating himself with one team, taking their sides to great success and as is pointedly stated they were all born within 30 miles of each other.
But I doubt Stein and Busby, revered as they were, garnered the love and affection Shanks did in Liverpool. A lifelong socialist, he saw himself as one of the people and never distanced himself from his adoring public. Vox pop interviews with the public on the day he dramatically retired (a decision he regretted almost immediately) and again when he died only a few years later explicitly demonstrate his special relationship with them.
Whilst it was impossible to dislike this biography, it wasn't perfect. Quite what the relevance was of Edinburgh-based "Trainspotting" novelist Irvine Welsh to proceedings escaped me and a little too much was made also of the Spirit Of Shankly supporters club and their pilgrimage to his humble beginnings at what is today almost a ghost town, Glenbuck in Ayrshire, posing for pictures by his gravestone. The football fan in me preferred the anecdotal interviews with some of his great players like Roger Hunt, Ian St John and Chris Lawler from his first great team of the mid 60's and the brilliant striking partnership of his second great team of the 70's, John Toshack and Kevin Keegan.
I didn't agree with everything Bill said, especially the hyperbolic "football's more serious than life and death" quote, but he was undoubtedly great journalistic copy in his life and a perfect fit for the largely working class hordes who loved him from the Kop End at Anfield. When Liverpool won the F.A. Cup in 1965, it's said the team's open bus pageant drew more people out onto the streets of Liverpool than even the Beatles at their height. And if, as John Lennon said at the time, the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ, how big did that then make Bill Shankly, at least in Liverpool?
But I doubt Stein and Busby, revered as they were, garnered the love and affection Shanks did in Liverpool. A lifelong socialist, he saw himself as one of the people and never distanced himself from his adoring public. Vox pop interviews with the public on the day he dramatically retired (a decision he regretted almost immediately) and again when he died only a few years later explicitly demonstrate his special relationship with them.
Whilst it was impossible to dislike this biography, it wasn't perfect. Quite what the relevance was of Edinburgh-based "Trainspotting" novelist Irvine Welsh to proceedings escaped me and a little too much was made also of the Spirit Of Shankly supporters club and their pilgrimage to his humble beginnings at what is today almost a ghost town, Glenbuck in Ayrshire, posing for pictures by his gravestone. The football fan in me preferred the anecdotal interviews with some of his great players like Roger Hunt, Ian St John and Chris Lawler from his first great team of the mid 60's and the brilliant striking partnership of his second great team of the 70's, John Toshack and Kevin Keegan.
I didn't agree with everything Bill said, especially the hyperbolic "football's more serious than life and death" quote, but he was undoubtedly great journalistic copy in his life and a perfect fit for the largely working class hordes who loved him from the Kop End at Anfield. When Liverpool won the F.A. Cup in 1965, it's said the team's open bus pageant drew more people out onto the streets of Liverpool than even the Beatles at their height. And if, as John Lennon said at the time, the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ, how big did that then make Bill Shankly, at least in Liverpool?