From Soccernet:

Matt Busby and Bill Shankly, names carved in the folklore of British football, shared a common bond in an understanding of what it means to go hungry.

Their subsequent comfortable lifestyles were in sharp contrast to their humble, and at times almost impoverished, beginnings in a Scotland much more accustomed to hardship than opulence in the early years of the century.

Both were born into a culture of hard work and struggle, Busby in 1909 in the village of Orbiston near Bellshill, Shankly four years later at Glenbuck, a mile or so from the Ayrshire/Lanarkshire border.

Both made their mark in football management after beginning life down a coal mine in communities whose very existence was dependent on the fruits of the pit.

Busby fell heir to the role of family breadwinner following the death of his soldier father during the First World War, and Shankly, too, was a much-needed provider for a family of ten.

Both later found escape from a life of unrelenting toil through their skills as footballers. But the experience of working at the coal face shaped the personalities of both men for the remainder of their lives, particularly when football beckoned.

The pair matured in their sporting passion to become more than adequate players, ironically in the same wing-half roles, and were even considered good enough to represent their country, Busby, who played for Manchester City and Liverpool, gaining a solitary cap and Shankly, who plied his trade with Preston North End, representing his country five times.

Shankly, recalling his upbringing in Glenbuck, revealed: "At school we were brought up on tales of Bruce, Wallace and Burns. We thought England was our enemy. Later on, when I became an international, I was like all Scots when confronted by England. We tend to revert to being savages for 90 minutes."

Both were FA Cup winners and runners-up before venturing into football management where, between them, they presided over a total of 14 major trophy wins.

Yet, in spite of so many remarkable parallels, these two men were complete opposites in how they nurtured and encouraged the talents of those in their charge.

Busby was a quietly-spoken, almost shy man, whose fatherly approach and apparent understanding that footballers have a tendency to transgress at times won him the respect and affection of his players. Who else could have harnessed the skills of wayward genius George Best so effectively?

Shankly was a very different character, loud, brash and quick-witted. It is testimony to Shankly's sharp wit and ability as a story teller that so many of his former players, in particular Ian St John and Emelyn Hughes, have turned him into a figure of legendary status on their travels round the after-dinner speaker circuit.

In spite of that, Busby and Shankly also had much in common as both were blessed with strong character and a rugged determination to succeed where other lesser mortals might so easily have failed. It was the blunt, hard, unyielding Scot in them.

Denis Law, who played under Shankly at Huddersfield and Busby at Old Trafford, said: "Shanks was the extrovert but Matt was not flamboyant like Bill. But he was always in charge.

"There were people outside the club who might have thought that he was soft because he was quiet spoken or gentle mannered but his players knew better than to try to cross him."

Matt also proved himself to be as physically tough as old boots when he hovered between life and death in the wake of the Munich air disaster in February 1958, a tragedy which robbed Manchester United of eight of his Busby Babes, among them the uniquely-gifted Duncan Edwards, who had been tipped to become a true England great.

Busby, who suffered horrific injuries to his chest and legs, was not expected to survive and was given the Last Rights as he lay unconscious in his hospital bed.

But survive he did. However, Busby was a man with a tortured mind as he attempted to digest the sickening facts of a tragedy for which he felt responsible.

He questioned whether he had been right to lead his team into Europe in the first place and wondered if the pursuit of excellence in any sport could ever be deemed to be worth such an appallingly high price.

He said: "I remember that when we returned to playing in Europe I was taking the team overland by sea and the more I thought about it the more I knew it could-n't go on. I said to myself: 'Matt, you have to face this sometime, you have to do '."

Busby, a deeply religious man with strong Christian principles, learned to live with his grief. But it was another ten years before he was able to exorcise his demons on the evening in May 1968 when his beloved United at last won the European Cup they had strived so long and painfully to achieve.

We will never know exactly the full gamut of emotions Busby savoured during the triumph which had been such a long time coming, but it is reasonable to presume that his original Busby Babes were never far from his thoughts as a new generation of Red Devils realised a cherished dream.

United, whose fortunes had been guided by Busby for more than 20 years before the fulfilment of that dream, had also enjoyed five championship wins and two FA Cup triumphs between 1948 and 1967.

Liverpool, prior to their FA Cup victory over Leeds, had achieved nothing in the way of post-war greatness prior to 1965.

But the coming of Shanks to Anfield in 1959 helped change the face of English football.

He was the master of the outrageous overstatement: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure them it is much more important than that," is just one example. But he was a man who knew a player and knew how to get the best out of them.

For example, the brash, gravel-voiced Bill brought players of the quality of Ron Yeats, Ian St John, Hughes, Kevin Keegan, Steve Heighway and John Toshack to Anfield over a period of 15 years, during which time he transformed and delivered the once Second Division side to become three times First Division champions and FA Cup winners twice.

Although denied the opportunity to emulate Busby's feat of winning the European Cup when the Board decreed that his time was up in 1974, Shanks did deliver a notable European prize when Liverpool beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 3-2 on aggregate to secure the UEFA Cup in 1973.

If the Liverpool directors found Shanks hard to handle because of his outspoken, often highly-contentious views, to the Kop he was a god.

The much more politically correct Busby became Sir Matt in the wake of the European Cup having been won and was subsequently invited onto the Old Trafford board after had relinquished the managership in 1969. For Shankly there were to be no such honours.

While it might be a shade fanciful to suggest that Shankly, who predeceased Sir Matt by 13 years, died of a broken heart in September 1981, the flames of passion that burned so deep in him were at least partially extinguished when he ceased being manager.

But Shankly's presence is indelibly stamped on Liverpool, just as the spirit of Sir Matt presides over Manchester United in a new age of achievement by a club that literally rose from the dead.

Two men so very different in so many ways yet kindred spirits whose shared experiences of life in the raw enabled them to rise from humble beginnings to etch their names on the century's list of sporting legends.

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