Football might be largely the same game it has always been, but there have been countless changes to the sport over the years. Bill Shankly didn’t live to see the abolition of the back pass rule, much less nation states owning football clubs or refereeing decisions being made by officials watching videos hundreds of miles away. It’s fascinating to wonder what he might have made of it all.
The great man was in charge of Liverpool when one innovation graced the beautiful game for the first time though. Substitutions were allowed in English football from the start of the 1965/66 season, and it was Geoff Strong who made a small part of Reds history in the seventh league game of that campaign.
He was both Liverpool’s first ever sub and first man to score from the bench, grabbing the equaliser in a 1-1 draw with West Ham at Anfield ( via LFCHistory ). It says everything for how important in-game changes have since become that the Reds got more goals from subs in 2005/06, as an example, than Shankly managed in the final nine years of his managerial career.
