Kop icon John Aldridge was a wide-eyed young fan back in the days of Bill Shankly. Here he remembers a man the Kop regarded as a god.

As a Liverpool fan, I have so many great memories of Bill Shankly.
 
The 1974 FA Cup final and his antics on the touchline spring to mind, but winning the league against Leicester on the last day of the season with a 0-0 draw in 1973 is a personal favourite.
 
I vividly recall it was a sunny day and wasn't a great game, but we only needed a draw to win the league.
 
I was in the Kop that afternoon and it was packed. I only managed to get into the corner, when normally I'd be in the middle - it was that crammed.
 
We got the draw we needed and people stayed behind to sing Shankly's name incessantly for a long, long time. He came onto the pitch and it was just a fantastic day.
 
His personality was brilliant and when he spoke, everyone stopped and listened. I was there that famous day he spoke at St Georges' Hall and you could hear a pin drop amongst the crowd.
 
Sadly I never got the chance to meet him, but it goes without saying that I would have loved to.
 
I've read countless books on him and he laid the foundations for the club. He built us up from nothing.
 
It wasn't a nice environment to work in when he arrived, but he just picked it up almost single handedly and took it to where it is now.
 
The main legacy he left was his training methods - which were so simple, yet so effective - for Bob, Joe Fagan and Kenny to keep the ball rolling.

You look at Premier League teams training now, take Arsenal for instance, who currently play the best football in the Premier League, and they do what Shankly brought to us - pass and move.
 
Liverpool is a very working class city and Shankly's character suited that. He was 100 per cent working class.
 
Glaswegians are very similar to Scousers in many ways and Shankly loved the humour and people of the city. He integrated brilliantly and I think we learnt more from him than he did from us.
 
He'd be a journalist's dream these days. The Premier League needs characters and unfortunately there are very few around at the moment.
 
He would have brought that light entertainment when it was needed.
 
In a footballing sense, Shankly was like a god to me. For me, he is Liverpool Football Club.