Came as a surprise to me
Shankly was a Blue
- Thread starter bluebell
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His Missus wouldn’t let him pull the curtains over the window to the back yard when he retired.
The thread title is of course nonsense, but Shanks' departure from the club got complicated and sadly that was at least partly down to the great man himself. I loved Shanks and we're all standing on his shoulders today, but he realised quite soon after leaving that he'd made a big mistake and then started turning up regularly to training at Melwood. The players were still calling him "Boss", and Paisley - a brilliant manager but never just the kindly uncle he was sometimes taken for - wasn't happy with that. Eventually the chairman Sir John Smith "had a word" with Shanks and asked him to come less often, at which Shanks took umbrage. How the Everton connection started isn't clear (my guess is that Shanks went to a few games as a spectator and was soon recognised) but Shanks did say later that they were kind to him.
It is a very well known part of Shank's story that he was welcomed to attend matches at Goodison. Saying it made him a Blue is ridiculous. Shanks was a football nut, and would have watched any game (famously regularly joining local lads in their kick-abouts into his 60s). There's that anecdote from an interview where he was asked about taking his wife Nessie to watch some lowly side like Scunthorpe on their wedding anniversary. He corrected the interviewer, no, I took her to see Scunthorpe reserves. So if he was given a free ticket he'd have gone, like the football obsessive he was. Saying it means he was a blue is fucking heretical.
"And it was her birthday.
As if I would get married during the football season"
was the rest of the story............
Haha. Yes!
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