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et’s begin not quite at the beginning. Season 1958/59:
twenty-year-old striker Roger Hunt signs for Liverpool from
Stockton Heath as the Reds finish fourth in the Second
Division and go out of the FA Cup at non-league Worcester
City in the third round.
Season 1959/60: manager Phil Taylor resigns and Liverpool appoint
Bill Shankly, previously boss of Huddersield Town, as his successor on
Tuesday 1 December 1959.
The new man tells Echo reporter Horace Yates: “When I come to
Liverpool I shall be taking my jacket of and I shall expect everybody
to take their jackets of. The First Division is where Liverpool should
be, and that is where I aim to put them.”
Former boss Taylor tells the paper: “Please tell Mr Shankly that I wish
him all the luck in the world. I hope his highest ambitions are realised.”
The Reds come third and Hunt scores 21 league goals.
Season 1960/61: Liverpool are third at the start of 1961, third still at
the end of the season. Striker Dave Hickson, signed from Everton just
before Shankly’s arrival, scores 16 goals including a hat-trick versus
Leyton Orient. Season 1961/62: promoted! Boosted by summer signings
Ian St John and Ron Yeats, the Reds are top from start to inish and endthe campaign eight points clear of runners-up, Leyton Orient again.
It’s a return to the top-light after eight long years, and Shankly tells the
Liverpool Daily Post: “Shall I let you into a secret? When I was asked to
become manager in November 1959, do you know why I accepted? It
was because I had played at Anield and known what it was like to have
that Kop to beat as well as the team.
“And I knew that the people who produced that roar were men just like
myself, who lived for the game and to whom football was their abiding
passion.
“Football is my life – and that’s how it is with them.”
Season 1962/63: a creditable eighth-place back in the top light
(neighbours Everton are champions) and an FA Cup adventure that ends
in the semi-inals with defeat to new bogey-team Leicester City.
Season 1963/64: champions! It’s a sixth First Division title as Shankly’s
Reds inish four points ahead of runners-up Manchester United; they
move into top spot on 30 March 1964 and stay there.
Liverpool take the crown on Saturday 18 April 1964 with a 5-0 win
over Arsenal in front of almost 50,000 at Anield; all the goals are scored
before the hour-mark. On the day of the game the Echo describes the
scenes before kick-of: “Thousands were locked out when the gatesDECEMBER
MAN
Sixty years ago this
month Bill Shankly
arrived at Liverpool
FC and things
would never be
the same again
SHANKLY 59