Bravehearts of the Kop: How Scotland made Liverpool into a 'bastion of invincibility'

Liverpool FC has been blessed with the impressive contributions of many nationalities down the years, but the impact of Scottish players and managerial staff is arguably unequalled at Anfield.

Quite simply, without Scottish influence, Liverpool FC would never have become the wildly successful world class club it is today.

In fact, take away the Scottish inspiration from the club and Liverpool would in all probability be…Everton! And what could be worse than that?!

The Scottish influence on Liverpool began decades before proud Scot Bill Shankly revolutionized the club. In 1892, self-made Irish businessman John McKenna was appointed manager of the club and immediately drafted 13 Scottish professionals into the team.

The impact was immediate: Liverpool won the Lancashire League in their first season, and were elected to the Football League Second Division for the 1893–94 season. Liverpool’s Scottish all-stars ended the season unbeaten as Second Division Champions, and were promoted to the First Division, the highest level of English football at that time.

Over the years, more and more Scottish players arrived at Anfield, including the likes of club legend Billy Liddell, who many people still believe is the greatest player to ever turn out for the club; Bill Dunlop, who won two league titles with the club; Tommy Lawrence, who had over 300 games between the sticks and Willie Fagan, who played with Bill Shankly at Preston prior to moving to Liverpool.

Then, in 1959, the most important moment in Liverpool footballing history arrived: Scottish genius Bill Shankly signed on as Liverpool Manager. The impact Shankly had on shaping the philosophy and winning mentality of Liverpool cannot be overstated, and it is no exaggeration to state that Shankly is the most important figure in Liverpool FC history.

The Scottish players just kept on coming, with the likes defensive giant Ron Yeats; goal-scoring legend Ian St John; powerful striker Bobby Graham and ex Rangers player Willie Stevenson becoming important components of Shanks' resurgent team and helping the club to win a plethora of trophies.

After Bob Paisley took over at the helm, the roll-call of Scottish greats continued with the arrival a triumvirate of true Liverpool legends: Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness – three players who were instrumental in Liverpool’s domestic and European domination of the 70s and 80s.

During the exciting tenure of Dalglish, Hansen and Souness, Liverpool amassed an incredible 26 trophies, including 9 league titles and 3 European Cups. No other period in Liverpool history was this successful, and it is doubtful if the same success will ever be replicated again, in England or indeed anywhere in the world.

Given the incomparable impact of Scottish players and Managers on the Liverpool’s outstanding success, it is perhaps ironic that the club’s decline at the came at the hands of one of its most inspirational figures - Graeme Souness.

The rot was arguably already setting in under the stewardship of King Kenny, but Souness, with his poor signings (Paul Stewart anyone?) and exclusion of quality players like Peter Beardsley, was instrumental in the club’s downward spiral at the beginning of the 1990s.

Sadly, Scottish influence has waned at Anfield over the last 15 years, with only Gary McAllister and Dominic Matteo making a significant impact at Liverpool in recent years.

This is a real shame given the fact Liverpool’s history is built on the shoulders of Scottish players and their grit, skill, determination and excellent leadership and motivational ability.

Here is my all time Scottish XI:

----------------------- Tommy Lawrence

Steve Nicol --- Alan Hansen --- Ron Yeats --- Bill Dunlop

Willie Stevenson - Graeme Souness(c) - Peter Cormack - Billy Liddell

------------------- Kenny Dalglish

----------------------------- Ian St John

Substitutes

Bert Slater (GK)
Willie Fagan
Gary McAllister
Donald McKinlay
Jimmy McDougall

Total appearances combined: 10,705
Total goals combined: 1396

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Liverpool’s Luton snub is the ultimate betrayal of Bill Shankly’s legacy

Liverpool’s refusal to donate their share of Sunday's FA CUP gate receipts to ailing Luton Town is a disgraceful betrayal of the values and philosophy instilled in the club by the late, great Bill Shankly.

The gravity of Luton’s situation cannot be understated: They are in administration, losing ₤400,000 a month, are unable to pay their staff and are on the verge of folding. Liverpool is one of the richest clubs in the world, with an annual turnover of ₤120m+.

If Liverpool waived their gate income, they would be losing approximately ₤100,000 – basically what Fernando Torres or Steven Gerrard earn in a week. In the grand scheme of things, the club would suffer no negative financial impact whatsoever, but the consequences for Luton could be utterly devastating.

Additionally, if Liverpool win the game, they will receive a ₤40,000 prize money, which would offset the gate receipt loss somewhat and present the opportunity to play another money-spinning tie with even bigger prize money on offer.

Unlike Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea, Liverpool have always been a club that neutrals respected; It was seen as 'The Peoples' Club due its humbleness and lack of arrogance.

Not anymore.

This snub of Luton will lower the club in the estimation of many, and will create negative feeling that will shatter the goodwill of neutral fans built up over the last hundred years.

With the above in mind, what is the compelling reason Liverpool could *not* grant Luton this comparatively tiny concession? For the last 3 years, Liverpool have played Wrexham in pre-season, donating their gate receipts to the Welsh club in the process, which usually amounts to about ₤100,000.

So why Wrexham and not Luton?

Who cares *why* Luton are in their current predicament? The typical response from people is ‘well, Luton got themselves into that position, so tough luck!’ There is, however, a wider issue at stake here - namely the steggering financial gap between the top clubs and those in the lower leagues

Whilst the likes of Gerrard, Torres and Mascherano wallow in obscenely inflated salaries and all kinds of club bonuses, teams in the lower leagues desperately fight for survival, scrimping and saving every penny to ensure they can make it through the next week.

The Premiership’s television deals bring in approximately 900m a year, with only a little over 1% shared amongst teams in the football league. Conversely, premiership teams are drowning in money, with top clubs swallowing up ₤50 or ₤60m a season. Even relegated teams can expect to take home ₤25-₤30m a year.

Despite these riches, Liverpool have chosen avarice over philanthropy and decided that making money is more important than a selfless act of vital generosity – An act which would embody Bill Shankly's brand of humanitarian socialism.

Well tonight, Bill Shankly will be turning in his grave.

As a staunch socialist, Shanks strongly believed in doing things for the greater good and valued team-work and team spirit above everything else.

"The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That's how I see football, that's how I see life."

These are the very beliefs that endeared Shankly to Liverpudlians and made him so revered by the Kop. These are the ideas that Shankly infused into the fabric of the club, creating a new socialist-driven philosophy, which separated Liverpool from every other club in the world.

Liverpool is a working class city and many of its inhabitants, like Bill Shankly, are no strangers to hardship, which is why the club's insensitive dismissal of Luton’s plight is so disappointing. Indeed, given its history, Liverpool is the one club that should be able to empathise with Luton’s predicament.

Using Shankly's comment above, the 'goal' for Liverpool (and all premiership clubs) should be to preserve the integrity and survival of English football. Luton Town has been in the football league for 110 years - this is what Liverpool would be helping to save. Looking at the wider context and ignoring who's to blame, isn't helping a long-standing member of the footballing fraternity worth the 100k?!

Going out of business may not have any direct impact at Anfield, but it’s bad for football as a whole.

Liverpool’s dispiriting response to Luton’s plight is indicative of the selfish, insular attitude that pervades modern football. Corporate narcissism is the name of the game, and the only thing that matters is the ever-increasing wealth of players and shareholders.

Of course, the painful reality of top flight football’s gluttonous greed should come as no surprise to Liverpool fans. A survey in 2007 by Intelligentgiving.com, a not-for-profit company based in London, revealed that, for the 2006-2007 financial year, the club made no direct financial contribution to any charitable organization.

Manchester United were almost as bad, stumping up an embarrassingly meager ₤7000. Everton donated ₤82,984, whilst at the top end, Spurs contributed ₤4.5m to charitable causes.

The club can try and spin this by arguing that players do Charity work, but that is just glossing over the cold hard fact that despite making millions through sponsorship and television deals, the club decided not to directly donate any money to charity.

The fact is, the depressing greed of modern football has infected Anfield, and as much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the Liverpool we know and love is dead.

Irrespective of the consistent destruction of Liverpool’s enduring legacy over the last 16 years, I always retained the (foolish) hope that the spirit of the club I love was still there somewhere, laying dormant but still alive and ready to re-emerge. Well, Liverpool’s refusal to help Luton is the final nail in the coffin, and Bill Shankly’s vision of Liverpool is now officially dead.

All true Liverpool fans should be disgusted with the club’s behaviour and demand that the decision to ignore Luton is reversed. Fans should also consider the club’s actions in relation to what Liverpool FC is supposed to stand for.

Apathy will rule though – too many so called fans just don’t care about Liverpool’s past and have no sense of history. Furthermore, these blasé fans are happy to just ignore petty distractions, like the fate of a club on the verge of oblivion. After all, what do they care – it doesn’t affect them, does it?

As I said above – Bill Shankly’s Liverpool is dead, replaced with a soulless, unfeeling, commercialised, self-serving imitation.

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Hicks' raps Rafa in unprofessional public outburst

In an astoundingly unprofessional display of one-upmanship, Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks has delivered a stinging public rebuke to Liverpool Manager Rafael Benitez.

There are clearly differences between what Rafa wants and what the Americans are willing to provide, and given what could be perceived as a veiled attack by Rafa in Friday’s press conference, it is understandable that Hicks may be slightly perturbed.

However - Hicks' response shows a dispiriting lack of class and tact. There is NO EXCUSE for making critical public comments such as the following:

“After the Champions League final in Athens, Rafa made certain demands of us and we responded to those demands in the summer. We brought in some good players and spent more money than has ever been spent before at this club.

“We now have some crucial games coming up in the Premier League and the Champions League and we want to see if we can win these games with the players we have.This was the message we gave to Rafa recently and I think during the international break he must have grown a bit frustrated about this.

“We told him to concentrate on the games coming up and nothing else and I guess he didn’t like that. But, for the time being, we just need to be focused on what happens on the pitch.

“George and I will be over in mid-December and that is the time to talk about other issues. It is really time for Raga to quit talking about new players and to coach the players we have.”

With some crucial games coming up in the next two weeks, such comments will have nothing but a destabilizing impact on the club. If Hicks had a problem, he should have discussed it with Rafa IN PERSON and behind closed doors.

Public attacks of this nature are not the Liverpool way, and choosing to ‘deal’ with the situation this was hugely amateur mistake on Hicks’ part, who seemed intent in stamping his authority and showing everyone in the world who was boss.

I happen to agree with Hicks’ contention that Liverpool should be getting the best out of the players already on the books. However, anyone with an ounce of sense knows that washing your dirty laundry in public will only make things worse.

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'Proper Scousers' push for 'Fan Apartheid'

The Kop should be segregated from the rest of Anfield and preserved for ‘proper scousers’ only…

This is the pig-ignorant view of a growing minority of extremist Liverpool ‘fans’ who believe that anyone born outside Liverpool is incapable of being a proper fan.

It all sounds depressingly familiar. Apartheid anyone?

Apartheid is generally defined as: ‘A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups’.

The idea that the kop should be segregated just for 'real scousers' is a moronic idea, underpinned by insidious discrimination and xenophobia...


The further notion that Anfield would be louder and more intimidating if the Kop was full of scousers is also nonsense. In my experience, the dwindling atmosphere at Anfield is more to do with bitter, cynical scousers spending more time complaining about ‘wools’ than focusing on the game.

Respecting the worldwide fanbase

These same ‘true fans’ are the ones who always go on about how you can’t be a ‘real fan' unless you watch games at Anfield. This simplistic view ignores the practicalities and realities of the situation, illustrated by simple mathematics:

1. Anfield Capacity – 45,000
2. Worldwide fanbase – Millions+

Even if every fan *could* travel to Anfield, it would be impossible for the vast majority to even into a match. Tickets are ridiculously hard to come by and general sale is very limited anyway.

The simple fact is this: Without overseas and out of town (OOT) support, Liverpool FC would wither and die. Of course, proper scousers will never accept this point, claiming that they are the ‘lifeblood’ of the club and have a greater affinity with the club due to the fact they are Liverpool born and bred.

The vast majority of LFC's huge fanbase is outside Liverpool and the UK, but I suppose they should just be ignored them because they're not 'proper' scousers?

Proper scousers should be thanking the overseas and OOT town support, not denigrating them, as it is this support that provides the lion's share of LFC's merchandising income, which allows the club to attract top players and managers to the club.

Massive Scottish influence

I myself am a Scot, and I feel I have as great right as any 'proper scouser' to stand on the Kop, considering that a large part of LFC's enduring legacy was built on the shoulders of Scottish managers and players. Take away the Scottish influence from LFC and the club would still be languishing in division 2, a million miles away from the world class club it is today.

I'm proud of the Scottish impact on Liverpool, and it is this influence and the contribution of a multiplicity of different nationalities that has made LFC into the greatest club in the world.

On a related note, LFC's success has *never* been founded upon the talents of homegrown 'proper scousers'. *All* of Liverpool's success in the modern era has been created by managers and players born outside Liverpool. Hardly any homegrown players featured in the all-conquering sides of Shankly, Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish, which again makes a mockery of the idea that scouse fans should take precedence.

This should be reflected and *is* reflected in the worldwide fanbase, and to suggest that 'proper scousers' are better fans or should have priority on the kop is arrogance and ignorance in the extreme.

The fanbase is representative of the historical demographics of the club. That is the way it is and the way it should be.

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