The Boot Room

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Main article: Anfield

The famous Liverpool Boot Room was a room at Anfield, home of Liverpool F.C., during the 1960s - 1980s where the coaching staff would sit, drink tea and discuss the team, tactics and ways of defeating the next opposing side.

It was actually a room that stored the squad's football boots that Bill Shankly also changed into a coaches tea room, it was an informal and a relaxing atmosphere that paid dividends for Shankly who was rebuilding Liverpool at the time. After Shankly left in 1974 the bootroom tradition was carried on by the likes of Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish during the most illustrious era of the club's history.

On match days the opposing managers and staff were invited in for an after match drink, any manager or coach who had visited the room would have a comments and stories to tell about the place, all were in agreement that the Boot Room worked for the Anfield club.

The Boot Room was also used for the training of future Liverpool managers (graduates), it became 'the Liverpool way' to promote from with in so that the wheels would carry on turning smoothly in the event of a manager resigning or, how it used to be at Anfield, retiring. Paisley, Fagan and Ronnie Moran, who stepped in as caretaker manager on several occasions, were all trained, without them realising it, in the Boot Room.

The room became effective as the likes of Paisley, Fagan and Reuben Bennett would discuss football as fans, implementing their ideas from their vastly differing backgrounds and experiences.

Paisley knew the Liverpool way of doing things, having started as a player and then going on to become a physiotherapist and then a coach, he also knew what the Liverpool faithful expected from their side. Fagan was quiet but very astute and a favourite of Shankly who tried in vain to sign him as a player whilst he was the manager of Grimsby Town. Bennett was a friend of Shankly's as well as a work colleague, he knew the man and his family and used to be a decent player in his own right.

Although managers Dalglish and Graeme Souness were not 'educated' in the Boot Room they realised the values that it brought and kept it during their tenures. It produced yet another manager when Souness left the club, Roy Evans took over at the helm after a long education that began under Shankly, although the club didn't win half as much under Souness and Evans they kept the Boot Room running producing coaches like Sammy Lee and aiding established coaches such as Doug Livermore.

With the advent of the 'modern' game Gérard Houllier closed the door on the Boot Room for the final time but kept up the tradition of bringing in Liverpool people, he hired former Red's skipper and coach Phil Thompson who also took over the running of the club when Houllier had to enter hospital to have an operation on his heart.

Current man in charge Rafael Benitez also knows about the value of the Boot Room and although he hasn't established a room of his own he has reintroduced a lot of the values and ideas, albeit, with a more modern approach.