Liverpool's Bill Shankly once said he was the best manager in the game because he was never devious or cheated anyone. To me, he summed up what made football beautiful:
"Train the right way. Help each other. It's a form of socialism without the politics."
Shankly knew what he was talking about. He came from the Ayshire mining village of Glenbuck and started his working life emptying coal trucks.
The local team, the famous Glenbuck Cherrypickers, produced some 50 players who made it as professionals before they folded in 1931, following the closure of the colliery. Not bad for a wee village whose population was never more than twelve hundred.
They included Bill's older brother, Bob Shankly, who won the League as manager of Dundee and took them to the semi-final of the European Cup in 1962-63. They defeated AC Milan 1-0 at Dens Park before losing 5-2 on aggregate after a heavy defeat in Italy.
Shankly believed that footballers should help their team mates in the same way that miners looked out for each other in the pit. I wonder what he would have thought of Eduardo?
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