"IF YOU ARE FIRST-YOU ARE FIRST-SECOND? NOTHING!"

It's great managers No. 2 and today Bill Shankly, who retired on this day in 1974. Some of his finest quotes you may know: 

"Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that."       "If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing."    "A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are."

Between his appointment as Liverpool manager in December 1959 and his retirement 15 years later, he transformed a second-rate club, stuck in the lower ranks of the Second Division, into the finest team of its generation, winning three First Division titles, two FA Cups, a Second Division title and a Uefa Cup. He led Liverpool like a revolutionary leader, casting his personnel not just as footballers but soldiers to his cause, and became a folk hero to the fans. At the same time he laid the foundations of the team that dominated the First Division and European competition for the decade that followed his retirement.

By the time of his death Shankly was a tragic figure, the forgotten architect of Liverpool's footballing supremacy. Almost from the day he announced his retirement, on July 12th 1974, he considered it the worst mistake of his life: Shankly could not live without football, but the game carried on without him. Harder still was that Liverpool became an even more formidable force, and later banned him from their training ground at Melwood, where the newly retired Shankly had tried to rediscover some of the camaraderie that once filled his life. Shunned by his former club and increasingly bitter at his treatment, he searched unsuccessfully, during his last years, for a meaningful role in the game he loved. "It was," said Kevin Keegan, "the saddest, saddest thing that ever happened at Liverpool." Shankly was a fit man; but he died, in the words of the former Leeds player Johnny Giles, "of a broken heart".

Born in Glenbuck, Scotland, in 1913, the town's football team (Glenbuck Athletic), known as the Cherrypickers, was successful, producing a steady stream of professional footballers (53 in total). The name "Cherrypickers" is of obscure origin, beginning as a nickname in the first years of the 20th century, but may have derived from local men from Glenbuck serving in the 11th Hussars (known as The "Cherry Pickers") in the Boer War. Another possible source was the fact that almost all of the men associated with the club, players and officials, worked in the local pits where one of the jobs was sorting the good coal from stones and other material as it passed on a conveyor belt. The lumps of good coal had to be picked out and the workers who performed that task were known as cherry-pickers.

The team folded in 1931 before Shankly was old enough to play for them, although all 4 of his brothers did. The site of the village pitch remains, although the village closed, when the pit did. Shanks played at Carlisle in 1932-3 and Preston, from then until 1949. (300 apps). He earned 5 caps for Scotland. He then managed at Carlisle 1948-51, then Grimsby until 1953/4, after Workington 1954-55, Huddersfield 1955-9 and Liverpool from 1959 to July 12th 1974. 

Shankly died 29th Sept 1981. Below-worth a look!

https://spiritofshankly.com/the-sos-cup-glenbuck-restoration/