Fifty years ago next summer, a young Granada TV reporter called Tony Wilson walked the streets of Liverpool with his microphone, breaking shocking news to men, women and children. The expressions on their faces made it clear it was news that they desperately did not want to hear.
Wilson, who went on to become a figure of great cultural significance in the north west as the co-founder of Factory Records, had come straight from Anfield where the Liverpool chairman John Smith had held a press conference to tell the world Bill Shankly had retired.