Bill Shankly made the people happy – and 62 years after he swept into Liverpool, he remains the untouchable reference point for a club's success and a godfather of Scouse culture.
As a football manager, he transcended greatness, rising from the pits of the Ayrshire coalfields to become the undisputed author of Liverpool's place among football's giants.
When rivals talked about knocking the Liver bird off its perch, it was Shankly who built the perch – although it was more of a plinth, a pedestal, a monument to excellence.
It was Shankly who created the Boot Room dynasty at Anfield, the conveyor belt of wisdom concealed in a broom cupboard under the main stand which became one of football's greatest think-tanks for 40 years.
It was Shankly who came up with the inspired 'This is Anfield' slogan which turned opponents' optimism into sheer trepidation.
And it was Shankly who used to eyeball visiting players in the tunnel as they filed out for almost certain defeat by warning them: “Aye, you can run - but you can't hide.” Delicious trash talk.
In the week of the Merseyside derby, and the anniversary of his appointment as Liverpool manager, it seems a good time to recycle some of the great man's best one-liners, which were often delivered from the twilight zone between rapier wit and acerbic observation.
“If Everton were playing at the bottom of the garden, I'd pull the curtains,” Shankly once observed.
On the vagaries of the offside law, he said: “If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be.”
Of course, there was his quote for the ages – often abbreviated, often abridged, but never bettered: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
But a personal favourite was Shankly's finite, almost dismissive, appreciation of controlling factions in the boardroom: “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 cheques.’’
If ever his barb was vindicated, it was his failure to persuade Liverpool's bean-counters to come up with the 'readies' to bring a livewire Scottish striker he had signed for Huddersfield to Anfield when he left the Terriers for Merseyside in 1959. His name was Denis Law.
Months later, in March 1960, Law would sign for Manchester City for a then-British record transfer fee of £55,000.
But the Boot Room culture Shankly established at Liverpool was priceless, because it had the spiritual powers of a holy shrine.
Liverpool’s coaching brains trust would convene there every Sunday morning, with religious fidelity, for a ritual Bob Paisley compared with “popping down to the local”.
It had no natural light, the air was heavy with the aroma of leather dubbin and liniment, and apart from a kettle, the threadbare carpet and tacky calendars on the wall, it was as homely as a potting shed.
But the Boot Room was home to a dynasty of legends, and when modern managers prattle on about “philosophy” now, none of them can hold a candle to Shankly's finest invention.
For almost 40 years, it was the nerve centre of Liverpool’s success, a chapel which also served as a post-match suite to entertain visiting managers with a nip of Scotch from a teacup.
When the lineage of football knowledge established by Shankly was broken in 1998 – and Paisley, Joe Fagan, Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans had all served their purpose - it was as if the Liver bird itself had flown the Pier Head.
Although Rafa Benitez, now struggling across Stanley Park, and Brendan Rodgers came to landing the holy grail Shankly delivered three times between 1964-73, it would be another 22 years before Jurgen Klopp won the title and restored the Liver bird to its perch.
Everywhere you look at Anfield now, the spirit of Shankly endures: The eponymous gates, his statue outside the Kop as an ode to triumph, the waves of red shirts on the pitch now under Klopp's direction with definite undertones of that Ayrshire growl.
Where Manchester United will always be the club Sir Matt Busby laid quake-proof foundations, Liverpool will always be the club where Shanks didn't just win 407 football matches.
He was the doctor who wrote out 407 prescriptions for happiness. That's some legacy.
