As an Everton fan, I shouldn’t really like the Shankly, which opened in Liverpool last autumn. As well as providing the usual hotel services, it’s a temple to the memory of Bill Shankly, the Ayrshire–born manager of Liverpool FC, who turned the team’s fortunes round between 1959 and 1974 and is credited with establishing the Red megabrand.
There’s Shankly memorabilia – photographs, programmes, a pair of boots – in the lobby, and Shankly clan tartan and crests everywhere you look. Behind reception is one of many Shankly quotations: “Liverpool was made for me and I was made for Liverpool.” I pass a mural charting his career en route to my bedroom, where there’s a bust of him on the table and a long, adoring homage to him – penned by his grandson, Chris, who’s the hotel manager – on the ceiling above the bed.
Overkill? Well, yes, but, thanks to austere interior design that suits this airy former council building, you can almost forget the godlike persona for a few seconds at a time. Apparently, owner Lawrence Kenwright fits out all his properties with dark wood, marble, brown padded walls, gilt-framed mirrors, antlers and faux vintage furniture (including, here, old birdcages filled with brown leather footballs). It’s expensive-looking – the Shankly is a £20m project – and very male, but it would have to be.
There are 57 bedrooms over three floors; a fourth floor has apartments, popular with stags and hens. My first-floor suite (from £81 booked online) has a huge double bed, as well as two singles, a huge whirlpool bath, a huge telly, and long windows overlooking Victoria Street. It’s well-heated and soundproofed: I can see the passing buses without hearing them.
Lime Street station, the Liverpool One shopping complex and Mathew Street – site of the Cavern and some of the city’s older pubs – are all less than 10 minutes’ walk away. Even the docks are only quarter of an hour away, so food and fun are all within easy reach.
My brother, who lives nearby and is a Red, comes in for a pint. He loves the hotel and names the players in the photo above my bed with fond nostalgia: St John, Callaghan, Hunt, Milne … The following night, FC Augsburg are playing Liverpool, and lots of German fans are staying at the Shankly. The place is booked solid on weekends and match days for months.
Breakfast is in the Bastion restaurant (from a Shankly quote about LFC being “a bastion of invincibility”). It’s a decent, if mainly old-school, spread, with the usual hot items, and smoked salmon and cured meats on a low shelf. At night it serves local dishes including Croxteth Hall Farm sausages. Kevin Keegan and Emlyn Hughes are scoring goals on three silent screens, and I spot a red This Is Your Life album in a cabinet. It’s a bit like living inside a mad fan’s psyche, but with the volume down.
The Shankly isn’t finished: they’re still building a conference space and rooftop bar. By late summer it should be done and the only noise will be from the bus station. In a city short on hotel beds but not on attractions, this is a welcome upmarket curiosity.
The Shankly demonstrates that there is no limit to theming. Why not a Bunnymen boutique hotel? A Royle Family inn? The Shankly name has a special kudos, my brother insists. “He was a fans’ manager, a genuine, warm-hearted bloke.” But he would say that.
Up the M62, Hotel Football at Old Trafford, owned by former Manchester United players Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs, was an instant hit when it opened last year. And coming any day soon is my own Dixie Dean campsite.
• Accommodation was provided by the Shankly, 0151-236 0166, doubles from £72, breakfast £10
Ask a local
Harriet Gilmour, Liverpool blue badge guide
• Drink Dr Duncan’s, round the corner on St John’s Lane, is a great pub with Victorian tiles and real ales. It’s named for William Henry Duncan, Liverpool’s – and the UK’s – first medical officer of health.
• See Stroll around well-tended St John’s Gardens, admire the neo-classical Victorian civic palaces of William Brown Street on its northern edge, and pop into the Walker Art Gallery to see the major Pre-Raphaelites exhibition (until 5 June, £7).
• Secret site Walk down Victoria Street to Castle Street and see if you can locate the 13th-century Sanctuary stone in the pavement, the oldest object in Liverpool city centre.
• This article was amended on 7 March 2016. An earlier version incorrectly described Lawrence Kenwright as the son of the Everton chairman, Bill Kenwright.
