Shankly: Nature’s Fire (2017) Review

A fascinating insight into one of football’s greatest legends.

Whenever you ask a die-hard Liverpool Football Club fan or indeed a well-versed football fan to name an icon in football management then the name of Bill Shankly has a high probability of popping up. Widely regarded as one of the greats in football management history, the Scotsman rose from the likes of Huddersfield Town and Preston North End to make his mark as the leading man at Merseyside’s biggest club.

To celebrate the great man and his many accomplishments, Mike Todd’s Shankly: Nature’s Fire tracks back to Shankly’s origins, with interviews spanning his family members, former players and those he has inspired in the fans circle. Harking back to the glory days where Wembley finals actually meant everything, victory in the FA Cup was a prized possession and television was still in black-and-white, this is an essential documentary for any football fan, Scouser or otherwise.

What Shankly: Nature’s Fire does do is paint us a fascinating picture of just how loved Shankly really was once he stamped his mark in Liverpool. A Manager who was very much all about the fans and giving them what they paid to see, Shankly really did deliver upon those famous words that grace his statue outside Anfield these days – He Made The People Happy. This is very much evident from interviews with the likes of Ian St John, a player under his wing during his heyday, and those family members who fondly remember how he would invite all and sundry into his house for chats. This is a man who would see the kids climbing the walls at the Melwood training ground and tell them that without an education they could never play for Liverpool; a true role model in every sense of the word.

Featuring archived footage of matches, essential interviews with players of past glory days and a real personal edge with soundbites of the great man himself, Shankly: Nature’s Fire is an essential documentary for football fans alike and really highlights how iconic Bill Shankly became in the world of football and sport as a whole. A must-watch.