Len Ashurst: Sunderland AFC Legend

Liverpool - it was never to be

These Indelible Nine Words.

‘Lenny, you should have been a Liverpool player laddie’.

This was the only comment that was uttered to me by Liverpool manager the great Bill Shankly, as we met under that famous trademark logo at the end of the players tunnel at Anfield, which simply says ‘This is Anfield’. As he walked away I stared after him, humbled by his words.

‘‘SO I WAS NEVER TO BE A HERO IN MY OWN LAND’’

Commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme, who three years later would be making football history at the World Cup final at Wembley, was heard to remark to his TV audience, “If you think the goalposts are an off white, they are in fact pink, as some Liverpool supporters climbed into the Everton ground overnight and daubed them with red paint.”