John Bennison was an unsung hero of Liverpool's famous bootroom. Here he tells us about his time under Bill Shankly.

Bill Shankly was simply a man with sheer enthusiasm for the game of football.
 
He spoke about little else, but that suited me, so we quickly became good friends.
 
I wasn't playing for Liverpool when he first arrived, but I had friends at the club so I met him through them.
 
A year or so later, I became a part-time member of the coaching staff when Shankly convinced me to come in and look after the youngsters on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
 
I could have actually taken up a full-time position, though having been brought up during the great depression of the 1930s, it was always at the back of my mind that I had to have a job.
 
My dad insisted on it, but neither of us saw football as a 'job' at that time.
 
Eventually, as I began to understand more about the professional side of the game, I realised if I went full-time I wouldn't be doing myself any harm, so I eventually became a full-time professional at Liverpool.
 
A fond memory I have of him was one afternoon when I had the youngsters on the training pitch. During a game, I called out one lad's name but played the ball in the opposite direction to him and I always remember Shanks shouting from the touchline, 'You beat him with the call John!'
 
As a man, Shanks was full of enthusiasm and never had a bad word to say about anyone - and that was genuine.
 
You come in of a morning and he'd say something like, 'You're looking great today, John.' It would give you a lift.
 
There were times when he would get upset over things, like if someone had fallen over inside the box and given away a penalty, but generally he was the perfect manager. Nine times out of ten he was bouncing about.
 
It was a good life under Shanks. There was a community spirit between him, the players and anyone he met.
 
As I said, I wasn't at the club when he first arrived as I was playing my football in Wales, but he tried to get things right from the very start. He wanted to sort the basics out and get a decent ground.
 
He'd always look at the pitch and the goalmouth and want the little bumps and divets flattened out.
 
Everything he did was for the players. He would even make sure they had the right boots.
 
He also brought in some great players such as Ian St John and Ron Yeats. When he was in charge, there were no poor players at the club.
Shankly wouldn't accept defeat, but if we got beat 1-0 at home, which admittedly didn't happen very often, he'd say the other team were lucky, tell the players to forget about it and to make sure they bounce back in the next game.
 
More or less his life was 100 per cent football and the players definitely responded to his coaching and enthusiasm.
 
He was a great inspiration to me and a good man to work for.