Top 50 Bill Shankly Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.”

— Bill Shankly

Featured in: Athlete Quotes, Coaching Quotes, Victory Quotes, Football Quotes, Soccer Quotes

2. “Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.”

— Bill Shankly

Featured in: Dreaming Big Quotes, Boldness Quotes, Encouraging Quotes for Students, Goal Setting Quotes, Football Quotes

3. “If you can’t support us when we lose or draw, don’t support us when we win.”

— Bill Shankly

4. “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.”

— Bill Shankly

Featured in: Silly Quotes, Football Quotes

5. “My life is my work. My work is my life.”

— Bill Shankly

6. “Liverpool was made for me and I was made for Liverpool.”

— Bill Shankly

Featured in: Football Quotes

7. “My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. Had Napoleon had that idea he would have conquered the bloody world. I wanted Liverpool to be untouchable. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up until eventually everyone would have to submit and give in.”

— Bill Shankly

8. “In my time at Anfield we always said we had the best two teams on Merseyside – Liverpool and Liverpool reserves.”

— Bill Shankly

9. “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.”

— Bill Shankly

10. “I was in the game for the love of football – and I wanted to bring back happiness to the people of Liverpool.”

— Bill Shankly

11. “We are a team. We share the ball, we share the game, we share the worries.”

— Bill Shankly

12. “Football is a simple game made complicated by people who should know better.”

— Bill Shankly

13. “It’s the greatest thing in the world, natural enthusiasm. You are nothing without it.”

— Bill Shankly

14. “I want to build a team that’s invincible, so that they have to send a team from bloody Mars to beat us.”

— Bill Shankly

15. “The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.”

— Bill Shankly

Featured in: Soccer Quotes

16. “A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.”

— Bill Shankly

17. “Me having no education. I had to use my brains.”

— Bill Shankly

18. “If Everton were playing down the bottom of my garden, I’d draw the curtains.”

— Bill Shankly

19. “At a football club, there’s a holy trinity – the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the checks.”

— Bill Shankly

20. “A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.”

— Bill Shankly

21. “I have been received more warmly by Everton than I have by Liverpool. It is scandalous that I should have to write these things about the club that I helped build into what it is today.”

— Bill Shankly

22. “Well the Kop’s exclusive. The Spion Kop at Liverpool is an institution. And if you are a member of the Kop you feel as if you are a member of a big society where you’ve got thousands of friends all roundabout you. And they’re united and loyal.”

— Bill Shankly

23. “If you get to the edge of the penalty area with the ball and don’t know what to do next, just stick the ball in the net for now. We can evaluate the other options later.”

— Bill Shankly

24. “Fire in your belly comes from pride and passion in wearing the red shirt. We don’t need to motivate players because each of them is responsible for the performance of the team as a whole. The status of Liverpool’s players keeps them motivated.”

— Bill Shankly

25. “Its great grass at Anfield, professional grass.”

— Bill Shankly

26. “The very word ‘Anfield’ means more to me than I can describe.”

— Bill Shankly

27. “If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be.”

— Bill Shankly

28. “If you’re not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we’ll discuss your options afterwards.”

— Bill Shankly

29. “I was the best manager in Britain because I was never devious or cheated anyone. I’d break my wife’s legs if I played against her, but I’d never cheat her.”

— Bill Shankly

30. “I’m a people’s man – only the people matter.”

— Bill Shankly

31. “Train the right way. Help each other. It’s a form of socialism without the politics.”

— Bill Shankly

32. “I’ve been a slave to football. It follows you home, it follows you everywhere, and eats into your family life. But every working man misses out on some things because of his job.”

— Bill Shankly

33. “I always look in the Sunday paper to see where Everton are in the league – starting, of course, from the bottom up.”

— Bill Shankly

34. “Of course I didn’t take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present. It was her birthday and would I have got married during the football season? Anyway, it was Rochdale reserves.”

— Bill Shankly

35. “Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week. Pressure is not the European Cup or the Championship or the Cup Final. That’s the reward.”

— Bill Shankly

36. “What a great day for football, all we need is some green grass and a ball.”

— Bill Shankly

37. “It’s a 90 minute game for sure. In fact I used to train for a 190 minute game so that when the whistle blew at the end of the match I could have played another 90 minutes.”

— Bill Shankly

38. “Forget the Beatles and all the rest. This is the real Liverpool sound. It’s real singing, and it’s what the Kop is all about.”

— Bill Shankly

39. “Although I’m a Scot, I’d be proud to be called a Scouser.”

— Bill Shankly

40. “When I’ve got nothing better to do, I look down the league table to see how Everton are getting along.”

— Bill Shankly

41. “Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.”

— Bill Shankly

42. “Chairman Mao has never seen a greater show of red strength.”

— Bill Shankly

43. “Tom Finney would have been great in any team, in any match and in any age, even if he had been wearing an overcoat.”

— Bill Shankly

44. “Tommy Smith wasn’t born, he was quarried.”

— Bill Shankly

45. “Yes, Roger Hunt misses a few, but he gets in the right place to miss them.”

— Bill Shankly

46. “I have always had the deepest respect for Bill Nicholson as a person and as a manager. The Spurs boss is an honest Yorkshireman and you will go a long way before finding a straighter character than that. Bill has never wavered in his determination to give White Hart Lane fans the best.”

— Bill Shankly

47. “Ian Callaghan is everything good that a man can be. No praise is too high for him. Words cannot do justice to the amount he has contributed to the game. Ian Callaghan will go down as one of the game’s truly great players.”

— Bill Shankly

48. “The difference between Everton and the Queen Mary is that Everton carry more passengers!”

— Bill Shankly

49. “I have not been short of invitations to other clubs and have been received more warmly by Everton than I have by Liverpool.”

— Bill Shankly

50. “I’m just one of the people who stands on the Kop. They think the same as I do, and I think the same as they do. It’s a kind of marriage of people who like each other.”

— Bill Shankly