Smith
was a schoolboy from a poor working class family in Liverpool when his mother
first took him to meet Shankly. He joined the ground staff at the club when he
was 15 and having waited another three years to make his first team debut went
on to amass 632 league appearances for the Reds winning every domestic honour
and two European Cups along the way.
Football was a different sport then.
It was the game of the working man.
There was little money on offer by
today`s standards and Smith is ultra-critical of the way the game has developed
and the lack of value placed on their earnings by many of today`s players.
Media
coverage, saturation broadcasting by TV companies and former club captain, the
late Emlyn Hughes, also come in for some sharp scrutiny in the book.
Now
aged 63 Smith is ravaged by the physical battering his body took during an era
when football truly was a contact sport.
Last year as he completed this
book he suffered a massive heart attack.
He is a red through and through.
Proud of what the club has and continues to achieve. Yet he is never slow to admit
that without the discipline, attention to detail, loyalty, talent and determination
of Shankly, Paisley, Joe Fagan and the rest of the Anfield back room staff the
story of this club could have been very different.
I would call it a
must read for any sports fan.
