This Is Your Life: Bill Shankly

Bill SHANKLY (1913-1981)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Bill Shankly, football manager, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews on platform three of Euston Station in London, having come down south with the Liverpool FC team for a match the following day.

Bill, who came from a small Scottish mining community, played a season for Carlisle United before spending the rest of his career as a footballer at Preston North End, with whom he won the FA Cup in 1938. He played for Scotland 12 times between 1938 and 1943, including seven wartime internationals, and captained the national team in 1941. During the Second World War, he worked at a builder's yard in Preston and later served in the Royal Air Force.

After retiring from playing, he returned to Carlisle United in 1949 as manager. He later managed Grimsby Town, Workington and Huddersfield Town before joining Second Division Liverpool in December 1959. Bill rebuilt the team, leading the club to the Second Division Championship to gain promotion to the top-flight First Division in 1962 before winning three First Division Championships, two FA Cups, four Charity Shields and one UEFA Cup.

programme details...

Edition No: 343
Subject No: 344
Broadcast date: Wed 10 Jan 1973
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Fri 5 Jan 1973
Venue: Euston Road Studios
Series: 13
Edition: 9

on the guest list...

members of Liverpool FC team
Eric Roberts
Agnes - wife
Cilla Black
Bob - brother
Jimmy - brother
Netta - sister
Isobel - sister
Barbara - sister
Elizabeth - sister
John 'Drummer' Murdoch
Hannah Usher
Tom Finney
Jack Beardsworth
Barbara - daughter
Jeannette - daughter
Stan Mortensen - in audience
Tommy Lawton - in audience
Joe Mercer - in audience
Tommy Docherty
Edgar Mosley
David Grunald
Charles Barnes
Mike Smith
Ken Daly
Roger Hoy
Tommy Smith
Kevin Keegan
Billy Liddell
Jimmy Carabine
Tommy Smith
Jock Dodds
Alec Herd
Gordon Bremner
Andy Beattie
Jerry Dawson
Matt Busby
Karen - granddaughter
Holly - granddaughter
Jimmy Tarbuck
Jean - sister
Ken Dodd
unnamed Liverpool FC supporters

production team...

Researcher: unknown
Writer: unknown
Director: Margery Baker
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Match of the Day

tackling football's top names

The secret life of Eamonn Andrews

Weekend Magazine feature on the show's popularity

Photographs of Bill Shankly This Is Your Life

Get It On: How The '70s Rocked Football book

Jon Spurling recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Get It On: How The '70s Rocked Football...

A few short months before he resigned, Shankly was sprung at Euston Station by This Is Your Life host Eamonn Andrews. The video recording was destroyed in a fire at the BBC archives some years ago but the Shankly family was presented with a vinyl copy of the show. As well as being joined onstage by several of his siblings (his sister Netta's voice is as wonderfully rhythmic as her brother's) and legends from Shankly's playing days, including Tom Finney, Cilla Black was also there in person and touchingly told the studio audience, 'He (Shankly) is the best thing that's happened to football since goalposts.'

A clearly humbled Shankly was taciturn. Yet it was still Shankly who delivered the most prescient line of all. When asked by Eamonn Andrews what he thought of his '£2 million team,' he responded, 'They're my living.'

The mood towards him in the London theatre was reverential. 'It was like he was a cult leader,' explained goalkeeper Ray Clemence. Despite the fact he was now sixty, the thought of Shankly not being Liverpool manager seemed unthinkable. However, within six months of his big red book treatment, Shankly had announced his retirement from football.

Series 13 subjects