”A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.”-Bill Shankly
”Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.”-Bill Shankly
” The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they don’t know the game.”-Bill Shankly
” If you’ve got three Scots in your side, you’ve got a chance of winning something. If you’ve got any more, you’re in trouble.”-Bill Shankly
” If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be.”-Bill Shankly
” At a football club, there’s a holy trinity: the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.”-Bill Shankly
” If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.”-Bill Shankly
” Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week.”-Bill Shankly
”Pressure is not the European Cup or the Championship or the Cup Final. That’s the reward.”-Bill Shankly
”I want to build a team that’s invincible, so that they have to send a team from bloody Mars to beat us.”-Bill Shankly
”This is to remind our lads who they’re playing for, and to remind the opposition who they’re playing against.” (About the “This is Anfield” plaque.)-Bill Shankly
”Bob [Paisley] and I never had any rows. We didn’t have any time for that. We had to plan where we were going to keep all the cups we won.”-Bill Shankly
”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.”-Bill Shankly
”If you can’t make decisions in life, you’re a bloody menace. You’d be better becoming an MP.”-Bill Shankly
” For a player to be good enough to play for Liverpool, he must be prepared to run through a brick wall for me then come out fighting on the other side.”-Bill Shankly
”Yes Roger Hunt misses a few, but he gets in the right place to miss them.”-Bill Shankly
” Tommy Smith wasn’t born, he was quarried.”-Bill Shankly
”He’s not just the best centre-forward in the British Isles, but the only one.” (On Ian St. John.)-Bill Shankly
” If you’re not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we’ll discuss your options afterwards.”-Bill Shankly
”Shankly saved some of his best lines for poking fun at Liverpool’s Merseyside rivals, Everton, but the jokes belied a great respect for the city’s other team.”-Bill Shankly
”When I’ve nothing better to do, I look down the league table to see how Everton are getting along.”-Bill Shankly
” If Everton were playing at the bottom of the garden, I’d pull the curtains.”-Bill Shankly
”Sickness would not have kept me away from this one. If I’d been dead, I would have had them bring the casket to the ground, prop it up in the stands, and cut a hole in the lid.” (After Liverpool beat Everton in the 1971 FA Cup semi-final)-Bill Shankly
” Never mind Alan, at least you’ll be able to play next to a great team.” (To Alan Ball, who had just signed for Everton)-Bill Shankly
” The difference between Everton and the Queen Mary is that Everton carry more passengers”.-Bill Shankly
”Liverpool was made for me and I was made for Liverpool.”-Bill Shankly
”Of course I didn’t take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present. It was her birthday. Would I have got married in the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves.”-Bill Shankly
”Forget the Beatles and all the rest. This is the real Liverpool sound. It’s real singing, and it’s what the Kop is all about.”-Bill Shankly
”Although I’m a Scot, I’d be proud to be called a Scouser.”-Bill Shankly
” I was only in the game for the love of football – and I wanted to bring back happiness to the people of Liverpool.”-Bill Shankly
” But that’s where I live! (To a Brussels hotel clerk who said Shankly couldn’t just put “Anfield” as his address.)”-Bill Shankly
” It was the most difficult thing in the world, when I went to tell the chairman. It was like walking to the electric chair. That’s the way it felt. (On resigning in 1974.)”-Bill Shankly
“In my time at Anfield, we always said we had the best two teams on Merseyside – Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves.”-Bill Shankly
“My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. You know, Napoleon had that idea and he conquered the bloody world.”-Bill Shankly
“And that’s what I want – for Liverpool to be untouchable. My idea was to build Liverpool up, and up, and up. Until eventually, everyone would have to submit, and give in.”-Bill Shankly
“At a football club, there’s a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques.”-Bill Shankly
“It’s there to remind our lads who they’re playing for and to remind the opposition who they’re playing against!”-Bill Shankly
“If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, I’d shut the curtains.”-Bill Shankly
“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
“For a player to be good enough to play for Liverpool, he must be prepared to run through a brick wall for me then come out fighting on the other side.”-Bill Shankly
“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.”-Bill Shankly
“If you’re not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we’ll discuss your options afterwards.”-Bill Shankly
“Liverpool was made for me and I was made for Liverpool.”-Bill Shankly
