The rise and fall of the Liverpool Boot Room

by Roger Domeneghetti

The Boot Room; three legendary words infused with success and soaked in nostalgia. It was an institution which provided the foundation for Liverpool’s domination of English and European club football in the Seventies and Eighties.

Well, that’s what some people think, anyway. Others suggest it’s just a myth – a room full of boots – and the club was simply lucky to stumble upon a rich seam of gifted managers.

For me, I’ll go for option one, please. The Boot Room Philosophy was the ultimate corporate ethos – a unified vision developed and fiercely adhered to by a close-knit, committed management team before its seemingly self-perpetuating success was disrupted by an outsider.

When Bill Shankly arrived in 1959 Liverpool was languishing in the Second Division, despite having been League Champions only 10 years before. He was just what the club needed – an outsider with a personality forceful enough to wake a sleeping giant and lay down a template of enduring success.

Yet in a sense the stability began before Shankly arrived. All the key members of his Boot Room revolution – Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett – were at Anfield before the man himself (and so was Ronnie Moran, albeit as a player).

Shankly asked for their loyalty and gave them the chance to buy into and help shape his vision, and to their credit they didn’t let him down. When Shankly left, he bequeathed his successor a bountiful legacy and the club’s board recognised Paisley had the attributes which would make him a great manager. They also learned from the mistake Manchester United made by allowing Sir Matt Busby to ‘move upstairs’ when Wilf McGuiness took over.

Shankly was shown no such sentiment and was not offered a continued role at the club. Furthermore, when Paisley had a crisis of confidence early on, Liverpool’s board and the players rallied round him – the unity of purpose established in Shankly’s years meant nothing would be allowed to disrupt the club’s success.

Paisley was a different character to Shankly, so he when he quit, he was appointed to the board. He was happy to only give advice when asked, but just like Shankly, he left his successor a team in rude health.

Like Paisley, Fagan displayed no ego. Both made only minor changes to a winning formula – they had helped establish the ethos that had brought success and made sure it endured. Paisley became the club’s most successful manager while Fagan oversaw the club’s most successful season – winning the League, European Cup and League Cup treble in 1984.

So, where did it all go wrong? Who was the man responsible for disrupting the rhythm of success? Step forward the first Boot Room outsider; Kenny Dalglish. Graeme Souness often cops the flack for Liverpool’s decline but, it was under Dalglish – the man who now wants to bring the spirit of The Boot Room back to Anfield – that the seeds of failure were first sown.

Despite his success, Dalglish had served no apprenticeship in the hallowed classroom and he made several significant personnel changes. Perhaps the first mistake was actually the board’s; maybe Ronnie Moran, another unassuming Boot Room old boy, who closely fitted the Paisley/Fagan template, would have been better for the club’s long-term success.

Reserve team coach Chris Lawler – an important part of Fagan’s set up – was unceremoniously sacked and Geoff Twentyman the club’s chief scout, who had unearthed so many great players, was replaced by Ron Yeats, who had no scouting experience. Where previously older, perhaps wiser heads, had recognised the value of evolution over revolution, Dalglish became the original Tinkerman.

He also changed the club’s playing style. Released from the shackles of the caution needed to win in Europe (his tenure exactly coincided with Liverpool’s Continental ban) he started playing a more expansive game. It was great to watch, but meant a departure from the style of play which had served the club so well for a generation.

So, when Souness returned as manager, the ethos had been undermined; the pattern of stability already broken on and off the pitch. As with the appointment of Roy Evans three years later, the club believed he would preserve continuity but that continuity itself had long since gone.

Roger Domeneghetti is a new contributor to Just Football and editor of his own blog Who ate all the goals.

(photo via JeanM1 on Flickr)

English Premier League, Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool, Rise and Fall