Shankly, Busby and David Peace...

It says much about Bill Shankly’s regard for the person as well as the job Sir Matt Busby did at Manchester United that when Liverpool directors first approached him asking whether he’d like to take charge of the ‘best club in the country’ he supposedly responded sharply: “Why, is Matt Busby packing up?”

 A year earlier his Huddersfield Town team had beaten Liverpool 5-0. He later recalled Liverpool’s directors leaving the ground “in single file with their shoulders slumped, like a funeral procession.” Undeterred, Shankly accepted the role at Anfield and would change the history of football. Fifteen seasons on Liverpool had emerged from the old Second Division to win three league titles, two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. They had became the most consistently successful team in England. At the start of the same summer that Shankly retired, United were relegated – a mark of the shift in power.

 Shankly’s reign was not without its struggles, however. He fought with board members, people he believed were just there “to sign the cheques.” He accused Liverpool of lacking ambition. Players like Johnny Morrissey were sold behind his back. He offered to resign several times.

 Shankly was a talker. He’d relish telling other managers how good his team was with phone calls late into the night. He’d talk on and on, rarely affording an opportunity to interject. Only Liverpool mattered. But that was his passion.

 In the bad times, he’d talk then too. Busby was a confidant. More than once it is thought that Busby convinced Shankly not to walk away from Anfield. When the Liverpool board searched for Phil Taylor’s successor, they canvassed the opinions of eminent figures. They spoke with Geoff Twentyman, the Liverpool captain and a former player of Shankly’s at Carlisle United. They spoke with Walter Winterbottom, the England manager. Then there was Busby. Because Busby too had been a Liverpool captain, he understood the people of the city; he understood the Anfield crowd. He understood it was the right place for a person with Shankly’s character to thrive.

 This aspect of Shankly’s story is, perhaps, one of the most intriguing elements to David Peace’s outstanding novel Red or Dead. At 720 pages long, the book covers a 22-year period. It begins in the wintertime at Huddersfield with Liverpool chairman TV Williams and his accomplice Harry Latham walking towards Shankly at the old Leeds Road ground, carrying what they believed to be an interesting proposal. It ends with sobriety at Shankly’s death in 1981.

 The first half is especially tough to read. There is a visceral power rare in football-themed books, which are usually created for entertainment, distancing us from the true impact of the sacrifice that went before the glory. By using repetition Peace sustains the story. You begin to feel how Shankly must have felt – proud, drained but determined to do it all over again for the greater good.

 It is possible, though, that had it not been for Busby’s intervention at crucial times Liverpool would not have become the sporting institution it is now. Possibly Shankly would have gone elsewhere and achieved greatness. Red or Dead suggests Aston Villa approached him to be their manager. Perhaps Villa could have won all of those titles instead. Liverpool may have remained in the second tier of English football – it could have even got worse. Maybe.

 The relationship between Shankly and Busby was unique in the sense the pair were rarely photographed together. In his time Shankly must have been the most photographed person in the North West of England. Shankly was pictured with everybody – with players, with family, with friends, with unfamiliar adults hoping just to be near the man they believed was the greatest, and with children who just wanted an autograph. But there are few with Busby.

 The pair would meet in private, often inside offices at Old Trafford rather than Anfield. They sympathised with one another. Through the eyes of Busby, the book tells the story about a time when a director sitting behind him during a match asked the United manager why he wasn’t playing a certain player. Busby apprehended the director later on in the toilets and in the next board meeting placed an issue at the very top of the agenda. It read: no interference by directors.

 Shankly and Busby must have seen each other as comrades: Scottish men of mining stock, away from home trying their best to be the best they can. In Red or Dead the relationships between others of similar backgrounds are explored. There is Jock Stein, the Celtic manager, who Shankly always calls ‘John’. In the second half of the book Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, features heavily.

 Peace believes Shankly’s, Busby’s, Stein’s and Wilson’s upbringings helped them emerge as leaders. “It certainly shaped the way they viewed work and team,” he says. “Especially where Bill came from, you can’t go back and romanticise the conditions. There was harshness and poverty. But there was an idea there that everybody had to help each other out, rely on each other. Otherwise you weren’t going to succeed. The only way to move forward was to get everyone to pitch in. From that experience they were able to inspire other people. I don’t think Shankly saw himself as a leader. He just saw himself as the person that was trying to move the whole thing on.”

Shankly could relate to other managers. They had something in common – a union. If he fell out with any of them it did not last for long. Liverpool, Manchester United and Leeds United were regularly positioned towards the top of the league. Yet those in charge at each club would remain in regular contact.

 “Most Saturday nights, Bill would ring Don Revie and they’d talk about the games they’d had that afternoon,” says Peace. “Revie was really insecure and completely different from Shankly. One year Leeds had a bad start to the season and were really low down in the league. Revie was worried about relegation and he told Shankly about these concerns. Shankly told him that he had Billy Bremner – one of the greatest players in the world. ‘Of course you’ll be fine, Don!’ Bill put down the phone but five minutes later he calls him back. ‘Don – all that stuff I said about Billy Bremner was right – but don’t forget he’s not as good as Tommy Smith’.

 It is true that some managers in the modern game speak to each other regularly. Sir Alex Ferguson for instance had associations with David Moyes and Sam Allardyce. Peace believes it is very possible that Ferguson adopted the skill of developing alliances from Shankly and Busby. “Again, their backgrounds and histories are similar.”

 Ferguson has recalled behaving like a groupie on the evening he was welcomed to Anfield by Shankly. Shankly shook Ferguson by the hand and overwhelmed him with compliments before warning that his Aberdeen side had no chance against “our great team” in their forthcoming European Cup tie. Ferguson regarded the former Liverpool manager, along with Stein and Busby, as a deity, which made his suffering all the greater when, over the weeks that followed, Shankly’s prediction was proved right. Aberdeen were beaten 1-0 at Pittodrie before being taught a few awkward lessons on Merseyside, losing 4-0 to a team who, under Bob Paisley, were on course for a third European Cup in five seasons.

 “Had Busby not been there for Shankly, perhaps Liverpool mightn’t have grown,” Peace wonders. “But had Liverpool and Shankly not emerged, perhaps Ferguson wouldn’t have learned his lessons early in management too. I suppose you could say that’s ironic.”

Red or Dead is published by Faber and Faber is available from most book stores.