My dad still works for Royal Mail.
When he was younger, one of the stops on his round was a garage in Knotty Ash. Bob Paisley used to sit in there watching the racing because his mate owned the place.
By then, Paisley had already won six league titles and three European Cups as Liverpool manager.
One of the greatest managers football has ever seen, sitting in an old garage watching the racing.
That probably tells you something about Bob Paisley.
And maybe something about why we don’t talk about him enough.
Bill Shankly will always occupy a special place in Liverpool’s history. He transformed the club. Even decades later, when Jürgen Klopp rebuilt Liverpool, it was Shankly whose name was so often invoked.
None of this is about diminishing him.
But when Shankly retired in 1974, Paisley had one of the hardest jobs in football: following a legend.
We are constantly told how difficult that is.
Manchester United have provided the obvious modern example since Alex Ferguson retired. The next man inherits the expectation, the comparisons and a dressing room accustomed to somebody else’s authority.
Paisley’s situation had another complication. He wasn’t an outsider.
He had worked alongside Shankly for years. He knew the players. They knew him. But suddenly the relationship was different.
Paisley was making the decisions.
He was picking the team. He was leaving players out. He was the one who had to take responsibility.
Shankly’s final Liverpool side had finished second in the First Division and won the FA Cup. In Paisley’s first season, Liverpool finished second again.
Then Liverpool took off.
Over the following eight seasons, Paisley won six league titles.
He won three European Cups.
Three.
It remains an extraordinary number. Alex Ferguson won two European Cups in more than two decades at Manchester United. Pep Guardiola won the Champions League once during his time at Manchester City.
That isn’t an argument that Paisley was categorically better than either of them.
It is an argument that he belongs in the same conversation.
And the trophies aren’t even the whole story.
There is an easy argument against some of this: Paisley inherited Shankly’s team.
Of course he did.
But he didn’t spend nine years managing Shankly’s team.
The great Shankly side gradually disappeared. Paisley had to replace it, and the recruitment during his reign was extraordinary.
Phil Neal came from Fourth Division Northampton Town for £66,000.
Terry McDermott came from Newcastle United.
Alan Hansen arrived from Partick Thistle for £100,000.
Graeme Souness came from Middlesbrough.
Ian Rush was signed from Third Division Chester for £300,000.
Then there was Kenny Dalglish.
Liverpool had just won their first European Cup when Kevin Keegan left for Hamburg in 1977. Losing your best player immediately after becoming champions of Europe could have been the beginning of a decline.
Paisley replaced him with Dalglish.
Liverpool somehow got better.
Dalglish scored 31 goals in his first season and scored the winner at Wembley as Liverpool retained the European Cup.
The recruitment continued. Alan Kennedy. Mark Lawrenson. Bruce Grobbelaar.
Legend after legend.
And many of them weren’t bought as Liverpool legends. Paisley and the people around him identified players who became them.
The Boot Room mattered, and Paisley did not build those teams alone.
There can’t have been many better runs of recruitment in English football history.
More importantly, it undermines the idea that Paisley merely maintained what Shankly left behind.
Shankly built a great Liverpool side.
Paisley inherited it, sustained it and then gradually replaced its core with another collection of great players.
And Liverpool kept winning.
That is what stands out to me when I look properly at Paisley’s nine years.
Six league titles would be enough to define a managerial career.
Three European Cups would be enough.
Doing both while rebuilding one great Liverpool side into another is what separates Paisley.
Yet Shankly remains the more imposing figure in Liverpool mythology. Perhaps that’s inevitable. Shankly had the personality, the words and the story. He helped turn Liverpool into Liverpool.
Paisley was different.
He was quieter. Less interested in being the centre of attention. His achievements did the talking for him.
Which brings me back to that garage in Knotty Ash.
My dad wasn’t watching the manager of Liverpool by then.
He was looking at a retired man sitting in his mate’s garage watching the racing.
Six league titles.
Three European Cups.
Nine years.
For me, Bob Paisley is Liverpool’s greatest manager.
Others will choose Shankly, Klopp or another of the men who have shaped the club. That’s part of football.
But Paisley belongs in a bigger conversation than Liverpool alone.
When the greatest managers in football history are discussed, Bob Paisley should never be an afterthought.