Liverpool Captains: A Journey of Leadership from the Pitch

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RON YEATS

SHANKLY’S MILLION-DOLLAR MAN

‘Big Yeats was one of the Kop kings. King-size player, a born leader, and great to have around wherever and whenever.’

Ian St John

MUSIC BOUNCES OFF THE WALLS IN THE DARKNESS OF THE Liverpool Echo Arena, the city’s waterside concert venue. Red and blue lights take turns in shining their way through the vapour created by the fog machine on the dance floor. We are here to celebrate the winners of Liverpool’s 2015 Players’ Awards.

The blue light hits a shiny object that turns out to be nothing less than the honorary trophy of the club: its Lifetime Achievement Award. The trophy is floating across the floor, held by the hands of a giant from Liverpool’s history. He has danced for so long now, on this warm May night, that the back of his white shirt is completely soaked. He greets us with a big, hearty smile, this giant of a man who was first brought to Merseyside by Bill Shankly more than half a century ago.

He became an important piece of the puzzle that elevated Liverpool out of the doldrums and into the First Division and then on its path to becoming the most successful club in English football history. Ronald Yeats would also go on to be the second longest serving captain in the history of the club, a mile ahead of the man in third place: Emlyn Hughes.

When he was appointed Liverpool manager in 1959, Bill Shankly came to Anfield on the condition that he, and not a committee as had traditionally been the case, got to pick the team. Shankly promised to build Liverpool up to become a bastion but only if he alone had mastery over his squad. Ron Yeats was an important part of his rebuilding plans: he had been captain of every team he had played for, and was almost immediately – five months after arriving on Merseyside – chosen by Bill Shankly as his leader.

Shankly immediately nicknamed Yeats ‘The Colossus’.

‘Take a walk around my centre-half, gentlemen, he’s a colossus!’ Bill Shankly grinned happily at the press conference in 1961, imploring with enthusiasm and conviction that reporters should ‘go into the dressing room and walk round him!’ Shankly compared Yeats to a ‘mountain’.

On this day in May 2015, Ronald Yeats, centre-back for ten years and captain of Liverpool for nine years, has been honoured along with Ian St John, striker, best friend and room-mate through his entire career at Liverpool. There is not a dry eye in the house as Yeats and St John come on stage to accept their trophies. St John is, as ever, quick with his repartee, but of a sudden goes quiet, just as he is about to start his acceptance speech. The master of words, who still works in radio for good reason, is now looking out over the tables and sees current LFC players and their wives, and former stars like Robbie Fowler, John Barnes, Steve McManaman, Alan Kennedy, Phil Neal, Mark Wright, David Fairclough and Phil Thompson, to name but a few of those who turn up for the club when the Liverpool family comes together. Then he looks upwards to the stands: there are thousands of people who have bought tickets to honour this year’s LFC prize winners. The vocal Scot, who scored shedloads of goals through the 1960s, has gone silent. He draws a deep breath, then finally speaks.

‘The two of us were privileged who were allowed to join the Bill Shankly revolution,’ St John says. ‘This big guy and me have known each other for more than sixty years, ever since we played for Scotland Schoolboy International. The first time I saw this colossus of a man, I thought he was the coach! We’ve been best mates and room-mates for many years, and we’re still Liverpool fans.’

The wordsmith is out of words. Tears are starting to well up as he looks over the crowd. But then the giant at his elbow begins to speak, and I hold my breath. I know these days it can be difficult for Ron Yeats to find the right words. All those years of heading the super-heavy leather ball out of defence, or scoring headers from a set piece, has weakened his memory. He suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, like so many other players from those days, and over the last year some memories have disappeared.

It is safe to say that Yeats, born on a cold November’s day in 1937, has sacrificed a lot for Liverpool FC.

A few days earlier, Ian St John had taken me to visit the man who set the high standard for leadership on the pitch for Liverpool FC. The two friends have not seen each other in the past year. St John has been battling cancer, and one of the operations hurt his knee, making him less mobile. His once supple body had been instrumental as Liverpool climbed into the top division and won their first FA Cup in 1965, led by Ron Yeats.

‘I feel very honoured to be able to say I’ve captained all the teams I’ve played for,’ Yeats begins. He is freshly shaven, and side by side with St John, ‘the Saint’, on the sofa. We are in the living room of his tastefully decorated house, and his wife Ann is in the kitchen, making us all coffee and tea.

It was not immediately obvious that Yeats would almost go straight in as Liverpool captain. He succeeded Dick White, who in his turn had taken over the captaincy from Ronnie Moran – the boot room legend who became an important part of Liverpool’s coaching staff after his active career. Usually the honour of the captaincy is bestowed on someone after long and faithful service in the red shirt, as one of the best and most experienced on the team. But Shankly had a lot of faith in his fellow Scot. Yeats had captained Dundee United at a young age, and, standing 6ft 2in tall, had the physical stature of a leader. After five months at Liverpool, Yeats was appointed skipper.

‘It was a nice gesture by Shankly to make me captain,’ Yeats says before I ask him about his leadership qualities. ‘I was big and strong and set the standard for the game. When I played well, that is.’

‘But you weren’t afraid to shout at us on the pitch!’ St John slips in.

‘No.’ Yeats smiles. ‘If I needed to!’ he adds. ‘But there rarely was a need to shout, we were such a good team. They knew how to score and win games.’

Roy Evans says the Liverpool team of the 1960s is the best team he ever saw.

Ian St John breaks into one of those big, hearty smiles.

‘Did he really say that? That’s so nice of him to say,’ Yeats replies, almost with surprise. ‘Roy is a good guy.’

Even old football legends, it seems, thrive on praise and acknowledgement – even long after their playing careers have ended.

Shankly had first seen St John and Yeats in action when they played against each other on different army sides while doing their national service. His plan was to build his new team around the pair.

Shankly convinced the board to buy St John first. He had already made a name for himself, setting a Scottish record for the fastest ever hat-trick. Two minutes and thirty seconds was all he needed to net three for Motherwell against Hibernian in 1959. Players like St John do not come cheap. When Liverpool paid £37,500 for him in 1961, he was not only the most expensive player they had ever bought, they actually doubled their previous record to get him. A price like that might well put an excessive pressure on a player, and football history is full of such examples. But St John was unfazed by any expectations.

‘Feel the pressure? Far from it! We got to play football and we thought it was absolutely fantastic. Imagine, getting paid to play. Even if it was minimum wages, we got paid to do something we loved, in front of supporters who appreciated us. It was wonderful. And no pressure at all. That’s something you put on yourself, if you go around saying: We’ve got to win, we’ve got to win! But Shankly sent us out with a completely different message: Come on lads, go out on the pitch and have fun!’

Ron Yeats smiles so his eyes narrow. You can tell he is reliving some of Shankly’s messages in his mind, while nodding and smiling at his friend who continues to talk about Shankly’s instructions: ‘Enjoy yourselves, keep the ball moving, and when you’re not moving, hold on to the ball and just remain positive; and don’t forget to have fun during the game.’

St John is also full of praise for Liverpool’s fans: their supportiveness and importance in making players look forward to games. The interaction between the supporters and the players was a crucial success factor, he says. The more they enjoyed playing, the better the football, which in turn gave the fans even more reason to be happy watching the games. An enjoyable symbiosis. That is how you play good football, Shankly told them: with joy.

St John got off to a brilliant start, scoring a hat-trick against Everton on his debut in the Liverpool Senior Cup Final before a crowd of more than 50,000 at Goodison. The Reds lost the tie 4–3, but it demonstrated that he was worth the record sum Liverpool had coughed up for him and also helped convince the board that Shankly was on to something when he wanted to invest heavily in his other chosen Scottish player.

Ron Yeats was happy about that. He was still in the army, stationed in Aldershot. He played for his army side, as well for Dundee United and Scotland’s Under-23 team and would regularly travel over a thousand miles per week between the army, his professional team, the national team and his family. Yeats was not keen on flying, and would regularly throw up on board while travelling between Aldershot and Scotland. All the while his wife and two little girls were living in Aberdeen. It was extremely tough for a boy with travel sickness.

Yeats had first played football as a five-year-old in Aberdeen’s bomb craters and dirt roads during the Second World War. He gives a lot of credit to his football-mad teacher, Miss Allen of the Causewayend Primary School, for his becoming a footballer, although his father had played to a high standard with the armed forces too. Miss Allen was beautiful and soft-voiced, and knew a lot about football. In the 1940s, she got Yeats into the school team, and regularly came to see him in their games. She also ensured Ron got into a new school team when the family moved and he changed schools.

Many years later, after Yeats had been appointed captain of Liverpool and was at the height of his fame, he was strolling around the streets of Aberdeen. Suddenly he came face to face with a lady who smiled at him. ‘I knew you’d make it, Ronnie, and I’m so happy for you!’ Yeats recognised his old teacher immediately. To him her words meant as much as all the praise from important personalities in Scottish and English football.

When Shankly arrived at Liverpool in 1959 he started a massive rebuilding process in every aspect of the club. He began by preparing a better training field, then moved on to improve Anfield, both for players and fans. He wanted them to have better conditions and be proud of their team, and that meant the home arena could not look like a shabby, giant toilet. He saw to it that the pitch was improved, he had water installed and restroom facilities added. The apprentices, including a young Tommy Smith, were responsible for keeping the facilities spotless, in addition to cleaning the senior players’ boots – as well as their own training duties.

The most important part of the upgrading job was to improve the quality of the squad. The first time Yeats spoke with Shankly, he asked if Yeats knew where Liverpool was. Yeats thought it was a geographic question, but he was wrong.

‘We’re in the First Division of the English league,’ Shankly said, answering his own question.

‘Oh, I thought you were in the Second Division, Mr Shankly?’

‘Yeah, but we’ll play in the First Division after we sign you, son!’

His memory may be fading, but Ron still remembers this conversation vividly. From that day in 1961, Ron knew that this was the man he wanted to play for.

‘Shankly made me feel like a million dollars,’ Yeats says, smiling at me with the eagerness of an impressionable young man.

Both Yeats and St John grew up in poor homes in Scotland, Ron in Aberdeen, on the northeast coast, and Ian in Motherwell, an inland steel town further south, between Glasgow and Edinburgh. While Ron’s neighbourhood was full of craters and bombed-out houses after the Second World War, St John dryly remarks that he wishes theirs had been bombed too – it was in such a state of disrepair it ought to have been demolished. They lived in miserable conditions and poverty was omnipresent.

Yeats grew up in a family of six, the third in a flock of three boys and a girl. Both parents worked to make ends meet, his father in a slaughterhouse. ‘I guess they both worked way too much,’ he says now.

Before joining Liverpool, and even as they made their way as young players in the Scottish leagues, both Yeats and St John worked in ‘civilian’ jobs to provide for their families in Scotland. When Yeats played for his local team Aberdeen Lads’ Club as a teenager, he trained as a mason at his uncle’s firm. He had left school at fifteen, and the thought of making a living as a footballer did not cross his mind. At the time, he believed he simply was not good enough.

The masonry firm soon went bankrupt and so Yeats followed his father to the slaughterhouse. Working as a butcher’s apprentice was not for the faint-hearted. Yeats had to rise at three in the morning to be in time for work. They were long days, and football training came afterwards. Life took a turn for the better when he could kick Leeds shins instead of pulling shins of beef. His time at the slaughterhouse kept him out of trouble and away from the temptations of teenage life. There are few opportunities to go out for a drink and a dance if you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to work. That was how he kept in shape. And it paid off. When he was seventeen, Yeats was picked to play for Scotland Under-19s against England, Wales and Ireland representative teams. It was in one of these games that his and St John’s paths first crossed.

Life is full of coincidences, marginal turns and roads taken. One small step could lead you in the exact opposite direction. Serendipity and fate eventually led Yeats to Liverpool. Yet his career could have taken a completely different turn and he could have stayed in Scottish football instead of the English league, if Bill Shankly’s brother had snatched Yeats when he was manager for Falkirk.

Yeats was still a teenager when he married Margaret and they were expecting their first child. As a slaughterhouse apprentice the young family man only made £4 15s (£4.75) per week, and the outlook was modest, if not bleak, for the young family. That is why they were happy to see him presented as a possible Falkirk player in the paper, and he was invited for a try-out. But it coincided with a rare off-day for Ron, or maybe the pressure of expectation made him under-perform. Falkirk reserves lost 3–0 and the young defender struggled to keep up, felt out of his depth, and had a sore knee.

It turned out he needed cartilage surgery, and as soon as he recovered from the operation he was a much better player. It did not take long before two representatives from Celtic contacted him, and told him not to sign for anyone else before he heard from them. Yeats had high expectations, but as the weeks passed he heard nothing, and hope faded. When Dundee United approached him and offered him a contract, Yeats accepted it on the spot. The ALC received an £80 transfer fee, and Ron got £20. It made him feel like a millionaire.

Christmas 1957 was only a few weeks off, and the £20 jackpot – a month’s salary in the slaughterhouse – magicked away any financial worries in time for the festive period. Indeed, it was enough to pay for presents to both sides of the family. Later, Yeats learned that Celtic’s two scouts had been in a tragic car accident, killing one of them and severely injuring the other. Had it not been for that crash, his prime years as a footballer might not have been at Liverpool.

Yeats continued to live in Aberdeen, about seventy miles north of Dundee, and still worked at the slaughterhouse. It was tough, especially on match days. He would have to get up at three in the morning, go to the slaughterhouse in a suit and change to working clothes, work as fast as he could to slaughter ten or twelve animals before nine o’clock, and then get washed and changed back to his Sunday suit, catch the 9:20 train to Dundee and sit there for an hour and a half, worrying that he would be late for the game. For away fixtures there could be even longer train rides. Dundee United were in the Scottish Second Division and everybody on the team worked part-time: players, managers, coaches and those with other responsibilities. The club, though, was financially sound thanks to its membership-based organisation and as many as 80,000 to 90,000 members.

In his second season at Tannadice, Yeats was appointed captain. He was only 21 and still a slaughterhouse apprentice on the side, something appreciated by the home fans, who would shout, ‘That centre-forward is just a hunk of meat, Ron. Parcel him up!’ Yet when he did not play as well as the fans had come to expect, he was told off good and proper: ‘Tak’ ’im awa’ to the slaughterhouse.’

At the end of that season, United decided to hire a full time manager. Yeats had finished his apprenticeship and was a fully trained butcher by then, but had been called up for national service and sent to Aldershot, where he was made a physical trainer. Fortunately, each battalion were allowed three professional footballers who could continue playing for their teams, as well as playing for the army team, and this helped Yeats develop as a player. Playing against other army teams he met other Scots who were already professionals in the English league system. This taught him a lot about the uncompromising English league, and gave him much harder competition than any of the boys in the Scottish Second Division where he usually played with Dundee United.

Yeats was young, ambitious and ready to take on the world. The year was 1961. Yet another season was drawing to an end at Dundee United, who were now in the Scottish First Division. It was time for new wage negotiations, and Yeats was frustrated. He knew very well what his army mate, Alex Young, made at Everton, whereas he could not afford a house of his own. He was also starting to get tired of travelling between Aberdeen and Dundee.

His self-confidence grew as press rumours would have it that Hearts, Manchester United and Liverpool were all interested in signing him. But it was Liverpool that were quickest to move. In spring 1961, Margaret Yeats read in the paper that her husband was moving to Liverpool. Bill Shankly had signed Big Ron.

Both Ian St John and Ron Yeats were born in the late 1930s, and were toddlers when the Second World War broke out. They can still remember sirens going off to give warning about air raids. Both recall running to the nearest shelter: the fear, the chaos and the lack of food. In one of the bomb raids, Yeats’ childhood home was bombed to smithereens and they lost everything they owned. Both of their fathers were conscripted; St John’s father never returned. He was six years old when he lost his dad. Luckily, other father figures appeared in his life. Teachers who cared that little extra, football trainers; dedicated men.

In 1961, when St John and Yeats were 22 and 23 years old respectively, they met the most important father figure of them all: Bill Shankly.

‘Shankly’s ambition was to be best,’ St John says. ‘He demanded that we always strove to be the best we could. Never second best, never settle for mediocrity. He set the standard incredibly high for us. He never tired of telling us to aim high. He expected us to give our best in both match and training. If you didn’t give a hundred per cent in training – perhaps you’d been out the night before and had a few beers – he could tell immediately. He didn’t like it and would be at you at once.’

A good father notices you. A good father dares to discipline you, in the hope that it will help you improve. A good father cares about you. Shankly was the father figure of both of these men.

‘I had a guy like that on my boys’ team, he helped me to a higher level, and that helped me progress to become a professional footballer,’ St John adds. ‘And then there was Shankly. Our new father figure. Whenever he spoke, we listened.’

Ron nods, and confirms that Shankly was like a father to him too.

‘He was a wonderful man.’

As captain, Yeats did not have to do a lot of talking before games or at half-time. Shankly took care of that.

Ron continues: ‘Before a game he would give us instructions about what to do, and his half-time instructions were spot-on. He was very clear on where we had to do better or what we needed to focus on. He inspired the team with his well-chosen and tactical words, and his extreme charisma.’

Shankly’s management skills, his coaching staff and the new captain from Aberdeen soon brought results. After just one season in the red shirt, Shankly was proven right in his prediction that Liverpool would make the top division with Ron Yeats in the team; after eight years in the Second Division, Liverpool were promoted.

There are books filled with great Bill Shankly quotes. He was certainly both charismatic and eloquent, and knew how to use big words to attract people’s attention and inspire his players. But even though he was well known for his press conferences and his speeches to the public, he could be brutally honest in communication with his players. Shankly strongly believed that you should aim at being honest in all aspects of life, and live up to the expression: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

St John says of this ethic: ‘Shankly couldn’t stand people who were given a chance in the starting eleven, but who didn’t give everything they had. He hated people who were dishonest. He even said that if he’d been a street sweeper in Liverpool, it would have been the cleanest street in the city. That was his view of life: it didn’t matter what you did, as long as you were the best at what you were doing. We should always strive to be the best we can be, and always be honest. Always do our best even if working with menial tasks. That was the message he drilled into his players.’

St John and Yeats are convinced that this perspective on humanity helped build a team of thoughtful, considerate and compassionate people – good team-mates. Shankly’s message was clear: work for each other, help each other, pull together, turn someone’s bad passes into good passes. That way, as team-mates and friends, you could change bad days into good days for the rest of your team. That way you could lift a bad game and make it a good one, when someone took that extra responsibility for a mate who was having a bad match or two. It was a matter of running that little extra, encouraging your team-mates, fighting for two. Not wasting any time yelling at people or accusing them. Next time it could be you having an off day, in need of some extra support.

St John smiles his crooked, friendly smile, the one that makes his eyes narrow to two slits, as he thinks back. ‘In life, as it is in football, it’s first and foremost about how you treat other people. Shankly was incredible at this. He’d set himself high standards in life, and he lived by them. He’d worked down the mines in Scotland and learned how important it was that everybody gave all they had, and worked for each other. He was a fantastic role model and man. He could have been a politician and a better prime minister than any of those we’ve had till now!’

Shankly went by many names: ‘Mr Football’, ‘Shanks’ and ‘Mr Liverpool’. But for his new Liverpool players he simply went by ‘The Boss’. He kept a little black book in a desk drawer in his sparsely furnished office at Anfield containing a list of all the players that lived up to his high standards – and who would be good enough for Liverpool. This was the Shankly bible: a small book that helped him keep track of players that were on their way into – or out of – the team; a bible he had started using when he was manager of Carlisle. This bible was crucial for making lists of who would have to go and who he wanted as replacements in the squad, from when he took over as new manager for Liverpool.

One of Shankly’s good ideas, five months after signing him, was to appoint Yeats as his manager on the pitch by making him captain. The manager, though, did not give his captain any special instructions. Yeats’ job was to make sure everyone was OK, and that everybody did the best they could for the common goal.

St John was well pleased with the leadership of his new captain. His great ability and contribution really did lead the team in battle. Yeats worked tirelessly, but would never point a finger against any of his own.

‘Ronnie was a brilliant tackler and good in the air,’ St John says. ‘In addition, he was feared by our opponents, and played a kind of football that set an example for the rest of us.’

Yeats used to charge forward on corner kicks. When St John saw the ball approach, he would think, this one’s mine! But his captain would shout, and come charging in to head the ball instead. Yeats scored quite a few goals that way; sixteen in total, none of them penalties. Neither he nor St John took penalties. The old forward describes penalties as ‘an odd business’.

‘You need to have a few regular penalty-kick takers, who aren’t afraid to miss,’ he says. ‘I was so worried I might miss that I didn’t want to take any. And our games were never decided on penalties. What do you think, Ron, looking back at the first rounds in the European competitions? The matches were settled by the toss of a coin if there was no decision after two legs and a neutral replay…’

With that, Ian laughs heartily by my side, and Ron joins in. Ian brings back memories of matches where the captain’s intuition and a fifty-fifty chance of calling heads or tails would decide whether you won the game and went through to the next round. As captain, it was Yeats’ responsibility to call heads or tails if the cup tie had not been decided even after extra time and a second rematch.

Liverpool had a good season in 1965, and English supporters at the time had started to discover European football tournaments. There was quite a bit of money for the clubs in these competitions, and they also gave the clubs a lot of esteem, which was an added motivational factor.

Sometimes the coin fell on the right side for Ron and Liverpool. In the quarter-final of the European Cup they met FC Cologne, and both the home and away games were goalless draws. A play-off was then held in Rotterdam, and ended with another draw: 2–2. The match was now to be determined by the toss of a coin – or, more precisely, by tossing a round, wooden platter with one white and one red side. Ron was scared of what lay ahead. He had already lost two toss-ups that day: at the start of the match and at the start of extra time. He went for the obvious red side, and won. He jumped a whole yard in the air when it was announced that Liverpool would be going through.

That was a stroke of luck, yet St John has no doubt that Liverpool were successful first and foremost because Shankly’s players were in such a good shape:

‘People say players today are so fit. I’ll tell you who was fit! Believe me, fifty years ago Liverpool Football Club had the fittest players ever!’ he says.

Really?

‘Without a doubt. We played matches in Europe, flew home and played matches in the league and in cups. Nobody was rested. You played, went home, played again. You played the entire game and added time. And both the pitch and the ball were heavy as lead. I don’t think today’s Liverpool fans realise what we had to go through. People say football players’ fitness level has developed over the years, and I’m sure it has, but trust me, we were in incredibly good shape. And definitely the fittest team in the league.’

While players today make astronomical sums of money, and clubs outbid each other to snatch the brightest talents, clubs were less greedy in relation to their profits in the 1960s, Ian St John believes.

At the same time, when it came to pay negotiations it was the duty of the captain to negotiate as best he could on behalf of the entire team. Yeats’ successor as captain, Tommy Smith, practically served as a shop steward. Ron, while less forceful, had similar duties. When Liverpool won the Second Division title in 1962, salaries jumped from £30 to £40 a week. With relatively modest weekly wages, the bonus plans were important. One of them was the crowd bonus, a reward for the players based on how many supporters were attracted to the stadium. With Liverpool promoted to First Division, that job was pretty well taken care of. Because Liverpool’s home record was strong, more and more people started flocking to Anfield. The supporter bonus meant one pound extra for every 1,000 fans over 28,000 supporters present, to each player. On the best days, 50,000 were let in through the gates of the stadium. Ron played a key role in negotiating this supplement.

In 1961, indeed, England became a very attractive country to play in for professional footballers from both Scotland and Ireland after the maximum wage of £20 per week was abolished. Johnny Haynes, the England and Fulham captain, made the headlines when he was awarded a £100 per week salary by his chairman, comedian Tommy Trinder.

In 1962, the Liverpool players received – in addition to the crowd bonus – an added four pounds in victory bonus. So Liverpool stars earning up to £74 pounds per week were among the best paid in the league.

We have been talking for a couple of hours, travelling back in time. Ann, his second wife, comes in with mugs of coffee