David Peace - Red or Dead

And no man can ever feel more proud. I am a proud man from my head to my toes. This means more to me than anything else. God bless you, God bless you all …

And Bill handed back the microphone. Slowly. Bill walked back towards the edge of the pitch. The Anfield pitch. Slowly. Bill walked around the stadium. The Anfield stadium. Over forty thousand folk had come to watch the testimonial for Gerry Byrne. Fifty-five thousand to watch the testimonial for Roger Hunt. There were not fifty-five thousand folk here tonight. Not even forty thousand. There were empty seats in the stands. The Anfield stands. But Bill did not see the empty seats in the stands. The Anfield stands. Bill had eyes only for the Kop. The Spion Kop. There were no empty spaces on the Kop. The Spion Kop. The Kop full, the Spion Kop heaving. The Kop chanting, the Spion Kop singing, Shank-lee, Shank-lee, Shank-lee …

Shank-lee, Shank-lee, Shank-lee …

Shankly is Our King …

Before the Kop. The Spion Kop. His head bowed. His eyes closed. Bill fought back tears. Bill struggled to breathe.

And you’ll always be our king, you’ll always be our king. You’ll al-ways be our king …

OUR KING!

Before the Kop. The Spion Kop. In a dream. His head bowed. His eyes closed. In a dream. Bill could not fight back the tears. Bill could not breathe. And slowly. Bill turned away. In a dream. From the applause and from the affection. Slowly. Bill began to walk back towards the tunnel. But in a dream, in this dream. The Kop would not let Bill go. The Spion Kop would not let Bill leave. In a dream. Some of the supporters climbed out of the Kop. The Spion Kop. To shake Bill’s hand, to hold Bill tight. Draping Bill in scarves, garlanding Bill in scarves. Liverpool scarves, red scarves. In this dream. Three men dressed in white overalls, white overalls with red lettering, these three men gave Bill a plaque. A plaque entitled The Road to Glory . A complete record of Bill’s years at Anfield. A plaque on behalf of the Kop. The Spion Kop. In a dream. Another supporter handed Bill a silver tankard. A silver tankard engraved To Shanks, With thanks, A fan . In this dream. A young supporter presented Bill with a card. Two feet square. With a thousand signatures. All in red, all in red. From the Kop. The Spion Kop. And in a dream, in this dream. Bill heard the applause, Bill felt the affection. Down from the stands, down from the terraces. In a dream, in this dream. Bill did not want to wake up. From this dream. Bill never wanted to wake up. From this dream,

from this life. Bill never wanted to leave.

Bill never wanted to say goodbye.

Ringing. The bottle on the doorstep. Ringing. The paper through the letterbox. Ringing. The letters on the mat. Ringing. The knocking on the door. Ringing. The telephone never stopped ringing. With invitations and with offers. With offers and with requests. The invitation to come here, the invitation to go there. The offer to do this, the offer to do that. That request and this request. Bill Shankly tried to answer them all. Bill Shankly wanted to answer them all. Bill Shankly tried to accommodate them all. Bill Shankly wanted to accommodate them all. Bill Shankly wanted to keep busy. Bill Shankly tried to keep busy. To visit this hospital, to speak at that dinner. And to host a weekly radio show on Radio City. Bill Shankly wanted to do it, Bill Shankly was happy to do it. If people wanted him to do it, if people were happy for him to do it. That was all Bill Shankly wanted. To give the people what they wanted, to make the people happy –

But the people were not happy,

the people were depressed,

depressed and angry –

The people were demonstrating outside the Radio City building. The people were protesting against Harold Wilson and his Labour government. But inside the building. Inside the studio. In the dark and in the silence. Harold Wilson looked across the table at Bill Shankly. Harold Wilson nodded, Harold Wilson smiled. And Harold Wilson said, I was very glad when I heard you were going to do this and you wrote to me, and I wrote, almost by return of post, I think.

Yes, said Bill Shankly. It was a tremendously quick reply. The leading statesman in the land. In fact, the prime minister of Great Britain. I mean, for you to find time to come here is unbelievable. I mean, I thought that as a football manager I had a hard job …

Harold Wilson laughed.

But I can tell you one thing. Whereas I had to look after fifty-five thousand, you’ve to look after fifty-five million!

Yes, but it’s a very similar job, you know? You know what they said about me? When I formed the Cabinet the first time? Hardly anyone had ever sat in a Cabinet before. We’d been out of office for thirteen years. And it was said, I used to say it myself, that I’d take the penalties, I acted as goalkeeper, I went and took the corner kicks, dashed down the wing. Now I’ve got a very experienced Cabinet and I said, I’m not going to do that. They didn’t believe me. I said, I’m going to be what we used to call a deep-lying centre-half. I couldn’t say sweeper because nobody would understand it outside football.

No, laughed Bill Shankly. No, no.

A lot of kind of people don’t understand football, wouldn’t know. And then, I think it was the Liverpool Post said, Funny, he’s doing more than that. They said, In fact, he’s being a manager. He’s not even on the field. To which I said, I was very proud, from Liverpool, to refer to ‘the Manager’, which means Bill Shankly territory. I said this in a speech, I regard it as a compliment. But I went on to say this: where does the manager usually sit? On the substitutes’ bench. I was reminding my team that I’ve got people on the substitutes’ bench who think they are at least as good as anybody on the field. And I think that’s the similarity of a prime minister’s job and a football manager’s job.

Yes, said Bill Shankly. In other words, you delegated the right men for the right job?

Right. But not only that. Like a manager’s job, if your team gets relegated, as mine did in 1970, then some people start saying they want a change.

That’s correct, said Bill Shankly. Yes. But you have proven, and I hope that you will keep proving, that you are the man.

I’ve been there nearly as long as you were in Liverpool.

In politics longer than that, said Bill Shankly. Than at Liverpool, anyway. Er, Mrs Wilson writes poetry?

Harold Wilson said, Yeah, yeah.

This is true?

Harold Wilson nodded. And Harold Wilson said, She does. She always has, since she was a girl. And then, a few years ago, she was asked to put some in a book, and I think, according to her publisher, it’s the biggest sale of any book of poetry since the war.

Is that a fact, asked Bill Shankly.

Well, it’s all genuine stuff that she still believes in. She writes about human things. She wrote about Aberfan. She was so moved by the Aberfan disaster, when all those schoolchildren were killed. I flew down that night. She came soon after. And she also writes about things like the Durham Miners’ Gala …

Yes, oh yes.

And at Durham this year, she read them both out.

Authentic, said Bill Shankly.

Yes, that’s right. That she feels.

I mean, actually, said Bill Shankly, I was born in the same county as Scotland’s greatest poet, Robert Burns …

Harold Wilson said, Ah yes.

Who was not only a poet. A philosopher, a prophet. Everything. You name it. I think that if he had have lived until he was as old as Shakespeare and Wordsworth and them, I think that he would possibly have been in the First Division and they would have been in the Second Division.