Bill Shankly the provocateur who made Liverpool happy.

Bill Shankly led the Beatles' town team for 15 years. He moved him from the second division to win nine titles.

He was controversial, obsessive, funny to declare, bold to make decisions. He was born in a Scottish town of just 700 inhabitants and became a benchmark for British football of all time. The dressing rooms at Anfield stadium have a simple phrase written in large letters: "This is Anfield"

. Those three words result in an unequivocal message for each player who reads it. That stadium -because of its history, its imprint, its comebacks, its days of glory- represents a responsibility for every footballer who puts on the red shirt of Liverpool and a condition for every visitor who knows the legend. It is not chance but tradition: in the city of The Beatles, everyone knows who uttered it for the first time and left it as a mark for all of history. This is the Scottish Bill Shankly, an immense legend in the life of The Reds and in the history of British football. Irreverent, obsessive, lucid, bastard, charismatic. The wake of him -say the fans of this club friend of mythologies- continues to inhabit the air of Anfield.

Near those changing rooms, inside the stadium facilities, right next to the entrance to the Liverpool Museum, a statue built in 1997 also reminds Shankly. Under the bronze structure that shows the coach offering a kind of hug there is a phrase that portrays the idyll: "He made the people happy". Yes, Shankly made people happy. Now, after his death in 1981, he is a perpetual memory and flag. He is also proud of one of the most recognized fans in the world.

When he arrived at the club in 1959, defeats were a frequent occurrence.Liverpool played in the second category. With him the stage was transformed: Anfield became a party on all sides. In its stands, packed as always, the hymn that today is a letter of introduction to the world began to be heard in those days: "Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart, / and you'll never walk alone, / you 'll never walk alone" (Walk, walk, with hope in your heart, / And you will never walk alone, / You will never walk alone). Since then, that unanimous cry has been part of the Anfield rites.

The song composed in the forties by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein (lyrics) is at this point in time a universal tribute to Shankly, the inspiration for Liverpool.

He lived for soccer. He gave it such intensity that his anecdotes seem like a succession of lies or exaggerations. A phrase exhibited (and exhibits) the place that soccer occupied in his life: "Some believe that soccer is only a matter of life and death, but it is something much more important than that." He had a facility for impact. And to charm the fans of Liverpool. It was not just a matter of results. He knew what he was saying, how he was saying it, and why he was saying it. He offered such dedication that those led by him felt compelled to follow him. He went so far as to say before a decisive match: "No disease would have kept me away from this game. If I had been dead, I would have had the box taken out, put it on the stands and made a hole in the lid."

He had another specialty added: taunting the city's arch-rivals, Everton. Two examples that last as longing in Anfield: the first, "if Everton played in my garden, I would draw the curtains"; the second, "when I have nothing to do I look under the table to see how Everton are doing." Just as those from Liverpool adored him, on the sidewalk facing him the mere mention of his name, his surname or some nickname generated rejection. It was the face of the enemy.

It was very logical to assemble his teams: effort plus inspiration in precise doses.And, above all, winning spirit and commitment. She told it in a handful of words: "A soccer team is like a piano. You need eight people to move it, and another three to play the damn instrument." Sacrifice to recover, individual talent to solve in someone else's area.

The journalist Diego Torres once recounted Shankly's work methods in the Madrid newspaper El País: "The cornerstone of Shankly's training sessions were the so-called five-a-sides, five-on-five matches and rounds in which the passes short, the unmarked and the controls were capital. With Shankly everything revolved around the ball". With that recipe he built a wonderful cycle at Liverpool. He directed 753 matches between 1959 and 1974, won three Leagues,

He adopted Liverpool as his city, as if he had grown up around The Cavern, the bar where The Beatles were born. He was born in a Scottish town of 700 inhabitants called Glenbuck and became one of the great figures in British football. At Anfield he became a kind of ambassador. He would say to visitors from London or other parts of England: "How do you feel now that you are in heaven?"

In that sky, Shankly was - for the Liverpool faithful - a kind of god dressed in red. His farewell was no coincidence: his remains were veiled in Liverpool Cathedral, thousands and thousands of fans and admirers mourned him there. Others recounted his pain from a distance during the BBC's live broadcast. Now his story and his legacy live on at Anfield.

Source images: Shankly.com