One of the first steps of the legendary Bill Shankly’s revolutionary tenure as manager of Liverpool was clearing the weedy, pebble-strewn surface of the club’s Melwood training ground. As mesmerizingly detailed in Red Or Dead, David Peace’s mildly-fictionalized novel about the Shankly years on Merseyside, the visionary Scotsman - who saw the upkeep of a pleasant workplace as crucial to ensuring a dignity for the club’s players to live up to - spent his first training session sixty years ago gathering sacks of rocks and broken glass with his staff while the players jogged. It wasn’t until just last month that Liverpool moved out of the Melwood complex to a new £50 million facility in Kirkby, with the opening serving as a poetic bow on the new trophy-winning empire built at the club by current manager Jurgen Klopp.
Are the Red Bulls (still) looking for a new training facility?
