This quite magnificent family photo was taken around 1930 and contains two of Britain’s more successful football managers.
It is the Shankly family gathering and was taken in the Ayrshire village of Glenbuck, and I’m assured this has never been printed before.
It features Bob, Dundee FC’s legendary title-winning manager from 1962, along with his younger brother by three years Bill, who, of course, is idolised by The Kop at Liverpool FC’s Anfield.
Bob was born in 1910, Bill in 1913, so I would reckon both were teenagers in this picture.
The photo was sent in to me by Margaret Briggs, wife of the late Dundee United full-back Jimmy, and daughter of Bob Shankly, with the words: “John Brown will love this for his Friday column”.
Indeed, I do, and I hope this fuels much debate.
All five players played for the legendary Glenbuck Cherrypickers, who were in existence for 50 years six of these in the junior grade.
Bob and Bill’s career in football has been much debated for well over half-a-century but something tells me the other three brothers all dabbled in senior football after leaving the Cherrypickers.
Perhaps some BwB readers can enlighten me.
And how did the Cherrypickers team get their name.
Two theories have come my way.
(1) It was derived from local men from Glenbuck or Muirkirk serving in the 11th Hussars (The “Cherry Pickers”) in the Boer War.
(2) Almost all of the men associated with the club, players and officials, worked in the local pits where one of the jobs was sorting the good coal from stones and other material as it passed on a conveyor belt.
The lumps of good coal had to be picked out and the workers who performed that task were known as cherry-pickers.
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