World cup: priorities in the aftermath...

[Eric The Viking]

I'll 'fess-up: I'm not a football fanatic in any sense, but I do have low immunity to the collective fever at World Cup time, and thus also get the hangover after the usual result.

(brightens) I've got a friend with a Collie that can chase footballs, and it was born here...

Anyway, for quite different reasons, I found myself looking at the Wikipedia entry for Bill Shankly, legendary player, Liverpool manager, and probably the best England manager we never had (after Clough, arguably). I hadn't realised he died so long ago -- I can still hear him being interviewed on Grandstand, probably by Coleman, but this lot made me laugh out loud. Note that some of these quotes are 'approximate', but it doesn't diminish the man at all. Oh for such passion these days! (warning: there a couple of rude bits!)

• o "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."
  
  o "There are only two teams in Liverpool; Liverpool and Liverpool Reserves."
  
  o If Everton were playing at the bottom of the garden, I'd pull the curtains."
  
  o (about the offside law), "If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be."
  
  o (when Tommy Smith told him Tommy couldn't play), "Take that poof bandage off, and what do you mean, 'your knee,' it's Liverpool's knee!"
  
  o Shankly supposedly had taken his wife to a Rochdale game as a wedding anniversary 'treat'. Eventually someone plucked up the courage to ask Bill if it were true: "Of course I didn't take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present, it was her birthday. Would I have got married in the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves."
  
  o (on being asked how a top star of the 1970s compared to his former Preston North End teammate Tom Finney): "Aye, he's as good as Tommy, but then Tommy's nearly 60 now."
  
  o (on playing for Scotland), "It's fantastic. You look down at your dark blue shirt, and the wee lion looks up at you and says 'Get out after those English sprouts!'"