Shankly's Last Stand

[Originally published in Well Red magazine, November 2013]

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Of course, none of us realised at the time.  To the massed ranks of Liverpool fans crammed into Wembley that May afternoon in 1974, we were simply witnessing further confirmation of Bill Shankly’s Midas touch.  Another trophy for the collection, following swiftly on the heels of the previous season’s League and UEFA Cup double. There were plenty of reasons to be optimistic that the Shankly Empire would continue its inexorable journey towards football supremacy.

It would be another couple of months before reality intervened, bringing the events at Wembley into stark focus. Because the emphatic Cup Final defeat of an impotent Newcastle side would herald not just an addition to Anfield’s burgeoning trophy cabinet, but, unthinkably, the end of the Shankly era.

Many theories have been put forward to explain Bill Shankly’s decision to resign that summer.  And while it’s no doubt true that there were multiple contributing factors, the football idealist in me leans towards the romantic explanation – that he saw the Cup Final performance as the culmination of 15 years work, the point where all his hopes and dreams for Liverpool Football Club coalesced magnificently in one devastatingly ruthless performance that provided a template for the club’s future success. And, as a boxing devotee, Shankly knew that the best time to go out is when you’re at your absolute peak.

                                                          

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In many ways, the 1973/74 season would be a defining one in terms of shaping the ethos that would eventually allow Liverpool to dominate both home and abroad.   Although Shankly was always ready to refine his approach and had long prioritised players with game awareness who were comfortable in possession, one particular opponent caused a rethink in the famous Bootroom as the campaign progressed.

In the autumn, Yugoslav champions, Red Star Belgrade defeated Liverpool in the second round of the European Cup. While Shankly was never one to accept a loss with good cheer, this felt somehow different.  Not since the defeat to Ajax seven years earlier had he seen his team so comprehensively out-thought, let alone outplayed.  It emphasised that, if Liverpool were to reach the next level, they would need to adopt the basic tenets of the continental game and blend them with their own tried and trusted methods.

With a nod to both Red Star and the wildly effective Dutch team spearheaded by Johan Cruyff, the structure of the new Liverpool would be firmly rooted on principles of retaining possession, building from the back and positional fluidity.  Traditional stopper, the previously ever-present Larry Lloyd, was sacrificed.  Players with greater technical qualities, Hughes, Smith and the fledgling Thompson, all with experience of operating in midfield, were asked to redefine themselves as ball-playing defenders.  Heighway and Keegan interchanged across the front line, Cormack, Hall and Callaghan were intelligent enough to switch roles in line with the development of play.  Students of Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool can trace the origins of his much vaunted philosophy back to Shankly’s realisation, in the wake of the Red Star tie, that the need to adapt was fundamental to prolonged success.

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In the domestic league, Liverpool had been unable to overhaul a Leeds team finally fulfilling its immense potential.  A second place finish was respectable enough.  But it wasn’t first; it wasn’t a trophy. 

The FA Cup, now derided, undermined and staged more as a corporate sponsorship convention than an historic sporting event, was still, in 1974, the most glamorous football tournament in the calendar.  It also held significant sentimental value for Bill Shankly; the 1965 triumph, the club’s first in the competition, would always be his most treasured memory.

Having dispatched perennial bogey-team, Leicester City, in a semi-final replay, with the Toshack – Keegan partnership in perfect synchronicity, Liverpool prepared for the challenge of an unpredictable Newcastle United at Wembley.

The build-up was dominated by talk of how Newcastle centre forward, bow-legged braggart Malcolm Macdonald, was going to destroy the Liverpool back-line.  That such talk emanated, in the main, from Macdonald’s own mouth couldn’t disguise the fact that Newcastle, at their best, would provide a stern test.  In fairness, Macdonald had notched a hat-trick against Shankly’s team on his Newcastle debut a couple of years earlier and had grabbed a brace in the semi-final with Burnley to secure the Magpies’ place at Wembley.

But if Macdonald’s bravado was a clumsy attempt to wrestle the psychological initiative away from Liverpool, he overlooked the fact that, in Bill Shankly, he was dealing with the master.   Without so much as a word, Shankly pinned Macdonald’s threats up in the team hotel prior to the game.  Effectively, his team-talk had been done for him. 

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The match started cautiously, both sides probing without genuine intent, each wary of the danger posed by the other.  Gradually, Liverpool established a degree of control, though scoring opportunities were few.  There was, however, a sense that Newcastle were becoming increasingly stretched, that they were exerting maximum effort to merely keep Liverpool at bay.  Liverpool, you felt, had higher gears to ascend to.

In the second half, to tumultuous effect, all gears were engaged.  It was as if Bill Shankly had entered the dressing room at half time and said to his players, “Show them what you can do,” giving the green light for a performance of confidence, incisiveness, mobility and crushing superiority.

The nominal 4-3-3 system Shankly now employed, with defenders encouraged to carry the ball forward to start attacks and positional flexibility paramount, provided full license for Liverpool’s array of talents to be displayed.  Keegan buzzed like a hyper-active bluebottle; Heighway’s intelligent probing opened crevices in the Newcastle back-line; Callaghan offered tireless running and unerring accuracy; Thompson deposited Macdonald, mouth and all, in his back pocket and left him there for the rest of the afternoon.

It was just a matter of time.  Lindsay rampaged from his own half deep into Newcastle territory, collected a rebound and exploded a missile of a shot from an oblique angle into the roof of the net.  One of the great cup final goals.   Disallowed.  An over-zealous linesman flagged for offside, wrongly assuming the return pass had come from Keegan; replays confirmed the injustice.  As an aside, the look of utter dejection on Lindsay’s face when realisation dawns is enough to crack the steeliest heart.

But this was justice delayed not denied.  Shortly afterwards, the deluge began.  Keegan controlled on the edge of the Newcastle penalty area before lashing a fierce volley into the top corner.  1-0.

Heighway latched on to a Toshack flick, cutting in from the left wing, Keegan’s run drew two defenders away from the middle, Heighway arrowed a low diagonal drive of control and precision back in the direction he’d just come from.  2-0.

Further chances were spurned, as Liverpool put on an exhibition that was as close to the fabled ‘total football’ of Rinus Michels’ Holland as anything yet seen from a British team.  The final goal only served to emphasise it.  In a sequence of play resembling a ‘pass and move’ masterclass, during which Keegan started on the left wing, Tommy Smith toyed with the ailing Newcastle defence down the right wing and Cormack finished up as centre forward, the coup de grâce was applied from close range by Liverpool’s number 7.  3-0. Game over.

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In the immediate aftermath of Liverpool’s second FA Cup triumph, all seemed well.  The club basked in the praise that came its way, as the most complete Cup Final performance in recent memory was widely acknowledged.  With a team ready to prove itself the best in the land and a manager who inspired unparalleled devotion from players and supporters, the prospects were brighter than they had been for nearly a decade.

Shankly knew the club’s future was assured.  He also suspected that the structure he had established, and the knowledge base honed over the previous fifteen years, would ensure a line of continuity long after his departure. 

And, unbeknown to most, he was tired.  Traditional Messiahs granted themselves a day on which to rest; Bill Shankly had no time for such luxuries.  For him Liverpool was an all-consuming passion – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. 

So, he felt it was the right time to step aside, safe in the belief that a secure, long-lasting framework for sustained success was in place.  And, regardless of his later regrets and the fractured relationship with the club he built (but not the supporters – never the supporters), in that he was absolutely spot on.

Shankly had the satisfaction of seeing all his work come to fruition.  The performance at Wembley in 1974, where Liverpool reached heights few even aspire to, stands as a fitting testament to everything he created.