T WAS as if the outspoken football manager had been sitting in the back of David Peace's mind for years, his Scottish tones silenced for once as he patiently waited for the author to alight on his name as the subject for a novel.

Because in the moment that Bill Shankly was suggested to the writer as a subject for a screenplay - by Liverpool-born film maker Mike Jefferies - the idea instantly took hold.

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"Before he'd even finished the sentence I was like 'this is it'," says Yorkshire-born Peace.

"It was one of those odd moments where I knew straight away I was going to do it. I support Huddersfield Town (where Shankly was manager from 1955-9) and my dad and grandfather used to talk about him.

"I had a feeling he had been sat there all along, waiting."

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However, before there could be a film, Peace felt he had to write a novel.

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Although Peace is probably best known for his first football book, the Damned United about the worst 44 days in Leeds United manager Brian Clough's life, his other novels have been wide-ranging. They include the Red Riding quartet, which centres on police corruption around the time of the Yorkshire Ripper murders; a fictional portrayal of the mid-80s miners' strike in GB84 and a crime series set in Tokyo, where he lives.

Having surrounded himself with misery and murder for so many years, Peace was on the look out for a happier subject. Just as the LFC board had felt in 1959, Shankly was the best man for the job.

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"I wanted to write something about a good man and I think you'd be hard pushed to find a better man than Bill Shankly," says Peace, who includes many of the famous Shankly tales in the book - his complaining to the board about the state of the spectators' toilets; cleaning up the neglected Melwood training pitch by hand... "

 

His relationship with the supporters of Liverpool Football Club seems different to any other manager's relationship with his fans.

"Not only did he know how important the supporters were to the club, he made the supporters realise how important they were.

"He built a communal strength, a communal self-belief that really drove the whole club up. He was able to inspire levels of devotion and fervour among the fans that I think is different to what other managers have done."

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Writing " Initially, Peace wanted to write about Shankly's retirement - which the Scot announced at a surprise press conference in July 1974, just two months after Liverpool FC won the FA Cup for the second time.

about such a But he realised "I couldn't talk about retirement without talking about the work" so the book grew into the 715-page tome it is now.

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At one point it was even longer and included a description of every single Liverpool match played during Shankly's reign.

"It became a bit unwieldy so we cut it down to a manageable 270,000 words," laughs Peace, 45.

"To get it down to that slim volume you see before you now has taken some editing."

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It is still packed with matches however - wins and losses - including the 1966-7 European Cup defeat by Dutch team Ajax (which taught Shankly a new style of passing that he incorporated into LFC's future European games) and Liverpool's first FA Cup victory in 1965.

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Peace's descriptions weave the crowd's chants into staccato bleats of commentary to create a fast, energetic blur of movement and emotion - "Corso found Peiro. Peiro found Mazzola. And Mazzola found the net. Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart".

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The book's style is defined by its repetition - both of phrases and events - reminiscent of Biblical passages. It expresses the idea that Shankly's life story has been passed down orally for generations, repeatedly told until it has become part of Liverpool's mythology.

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A quotation from Shankly himself helped Peace structure the first part of the book.

"He said football was like a river that went on and on and on and while you were in it there was no stepping out of it," he says.

"I wanted to try and convey what being a football manager is like, the monotony of the routine and how that can sustain you if you're passionate about your work.

"If you read a biography it will say 'Shankly trained every day for 15 years' but if you stop to think about what that must mean, it's an incredible thing at his age going through the training day in, day out whatever the weather."

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Red or Dead took two years to complete - split between research and writing. Peace read newspaper reports of every match on microfilm in Tokyo's national library (including those by Liverpool Post football reporter Horace Yates, who appears in the book).

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Biographies also came in useful, including The Real Bill Shankly by his granddaughter Karen Gill - "from the announcement of Red or Dead's publication they've been very supportive and excited about the ideas of the book," reveals Peace.

He discovered anecdotes from fansite noticeboards and listened to interview tapes recorded by John Roberts when he was ghostwriting Shankly's autobiography, Shankly: My Story, in the 1970s.

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"They're fantastic tapes because you hear things like Ness, his wife, bringing in the tea and biscuits," says Peace. "It's really moving actually."

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It's important to get the facts right when you're turning real life into fiction, he adds, although he is expecting fans to point out the odd mistake.

"I wouldn't presume to say 'this is the truth'," he says.

"This might sound really pretentious, but what I would say it is as if the book is like painting a picture of Bill Shankly as opposed to taking a photograph of him. As with any portrait, some people might say 'that doesn't look like him'."

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Peace was determined to accurately capture Shankly's voice, but also the essence of the man.

"He had an incredible use of language and intelligence, it's more than just the one liners that are passed down," says the author.

"I wanted to convey his complexity.

He was a man of great principle and there's a certain beauty to the way he spoke."

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Writing Red or Dead has "changed my life" says Peace, a phrase that sounds oddly out of place in his mouth.

"This was a man of tremendous principle," he says.

"A socialist who lived his life on those principles. Liverpool weren't nothing, they'd won things before, but they were in the Second Division so to build them up to where they were in 74 when he resigned and that sacrifice... "Reading and writing about him was such a humbling and inspiring experience."

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The novel's official launch will take place at Liverpool's Epstein Theatre next week at a reading, book signing and in conversation event hosted by Mirror and former Liverpool Post journalist Brian Reade.

"I'm going to many cities but this is the big one," says Peace. "It will be a special evening."