It was Bill Shankly who popularised the image of football manager as messiah. At Liverpool he wasn’t just the secretary who sorted out hotels and acted as a conduit between the board and the coaching staff, nor was he the drill sergeant bawling his players to greater effort. He was rather a benign dictator, canny, tough and charismatic, and his job was not merely to pick the team, but to rally support behind the club.
Shankly set the mould for the British manager. Jock Stein, Matt Busby and Don Revie might argue they were doing much the same, just in a less eye-catching way, but after him came the likes of Brian Clough, Malcolm Allison and Tommy Docherty, larger-than-life figures whose greatest gift was their capacity to inspire.
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