Shankly was appointed Liverpool manager in December 1959, and he promoted Paisley to work alongside him as his assistant in a management/coaching team that included Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett.

Bob Paisley was born on Thursday 23 January 1919, in the small County Durham coal mining village of Hetton-le-Hole which is seven miles from Sunderland.

In 1926, during the General Strike when he was seven, he had to scramble over slag heaps to collect coal dust that his parents could mix with water to create a crude fuel.

[11] Paisley was an outstanding footballer at Eppleton Primary School and helped his team win seventeen trophies in a four-year period.

The FA Amateur Cup final was played in Durham at Roker Park where the Bishops defeated Willington 3–0 after extra time.

[12] Paisley's last match for the Bishops was on Saturday, 6 May 1939 in the Durham County Challenge Cup final against South Shields, also played at Roker Park.

I was met at the station and after that long trek up Scotland Road in a tramcar, I found there were only one or two youngsters at the ground – Billy Liddell, Eddie Spicer and Ray Lambert.

[12] Following pre-season training, Paisley took part in two reserve team games at the start of the 1939–40 season but all competitions were cancelled after war was declared on 3 September.

[12] Paisley was twenty when the Second World War began and in October he was called up into the Army who assigned him to the Royal Artillery in which he was a gunner in the 73rd Medium Regiment.

He got his revenge soon afterwards on 1 April 1940 when he played alongside Matt Busby and Billy Liddell in a depleted Liverpool team who "sprang a surprise" by defeating Everton 3–1 at Goodison Park.

[19] John Keith recounts that Paisley's football skills saved him from a posting to the Far East which would inevitably have resulted in his becoming a prisoner of war of the Japanese.

He spent Christmas in Egypt and then received his first mail from England which turned out to be a postcard from George Kay asking him if he would be available to play for Liverpool against Preston North End (Bill Shankly's team) in the season opener three months earlier.

More importantly, he had a month's training on firing anti-tank guns, a skill he needed in the desert as a member of the Eighth Army in Operation Crusader which relieved the Siege of Tobruk.

He only suffered an injury once when he was temporarily blinded by sand sprayed into his face by explosive bullets fired from an aircraft during a Luftwaffe attack on his unit.

Whilst he was on active service in Italy he received the news that his younger brother Alan, aged fifteen, had died at home from scarlet fever and diphtheria.

In Florence, Paisley saw boxing exhibitions by Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson which generated another sporting interest and one for which he and Bill Shankly shared a passion while they worked together.

She recalled her father being unimpressed that she had met a soldier who was a professional footballer in civilian life so she added that Paisley had worked as a bricklayer too.

The family always lived in Liverpool and Jessie outlived Bob by sixteen years until she died in the early hours of 8 February 2012 as the result of a heart infection, aged 96.

[24] In the 1945–46 season, the Football League decided not to revive the championship programme as, with the war only recently concluded, many players were still in the forces and travel could still be difficult to arrange.

Instead they organised North and South divisions on a geographical basis to keep travel to a minimum and enable clubs to re-establish themselves without the pressure of official competition.

Shankly began a Liverpool tradition, later upheld by Paisley and Fagan, of holding daily meetings in there to discuss strategy, tactics, training and players.

Paisley, as a trained physiotherapist, argued that a person needs to cool down for about forty minutes after heavy exercise because, if they go into a bath while still sweating, their pores remain open and they are more susceptible to chills and strains.

Following victory in the 1974 FA Cup final, Shankly unexpectedly announced his retirement; the Liverpool directors appointed Paisley as his replacement in the hope of maintaining continuity.

[32] Though initially reluctant to take on the role, Paisley became a huge success and, apart from his first season, won at least one major trophy in each of his nine years as manager.

With characteristic modesty, Paisley was reluctant to assume the reins and urged Shankly – an almost Messiah-like figure on Merseyside and a seemingly impossible act to follow – to change his mind and carry on.

Between 1978 and 1981 Paisley's team went 63 league games unbeaten at Anfield, a club record until it was surpassed by Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool side in November 2020.

[33] Liverpool's dominance in England was primarily challenged by Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough, and Aston Villa under Ron Saunders and Tony Barton between 1977 and 1982.

Paisley remained the only man in history to manage three European Cup winning sides until Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane matched the feat in 2014 and 2018 respectively.

[31] In January 2020, a statue which depicts a scene from 1968, when Paisley carried the injured future Liverpool captain Emlyn Hughes off the field, was unveiled outside Anfield.

"[34] The 8 ft sculpture was unveiled by some of Paisley's players, including Ian Rush, Sir Kenny Dalglish and Phil Thompson, with Liverpool chief executive Peter Moore calling it a "fitting tribute to his legacy".