Who was Liverpool legend Ron Yeats as the former captain dies aged 86

Liverpool FC legend and former club captain Ron Yeats has died.

The Scottish defender spent a decade at the club, captaining them to six trophies in the mid-1960s.

He was the first Liverpool captain to lift the FA Cup, and was famously nicknamed 'colossus' by manager Bill Shankly.

Yeats died, having "lived with Alzheimer's disease for some time" the club said, aged 86.

But who was the Liverpool giant, and how did he come to make such an impact at the club?

Born in Aberdeen in 1937, Yeats grew up with his two brothers and sister.

His childhood home was bombed during the Second World War and they lost everything, and he played football in the bomb craters and on the dirt roads of his home town.

But, he says, he owed much to his Causewayend Primary teacher Miss Allen who spotted his potential and got him into the school team.

He left school at 15 and trained as a mason, but when his uncle’s firm went bust he followed his father to the slaughterhouse, making £4 15 shillings a week (£4.75), with its 3am starts.

When he was 17 he was picked to play for Scotland Under-19s against England, Wales and Ireland and soon two representatives from Celtic contacted him telling him not to sign for anyone else before he heard from them.

But as weeks passed he heard nothing, and when Dundee United offered him a contract Aberdeen Lads’ Club got an £80 transfer fee and Yeats a £20 bonus.

He later learned the two Celtic scouts had been in a car accident, with one killed and the other severely injured.

Yeats continued to live in Aberdeen, 70 miles from his new club, and was still getting up at 3am on a Saturday to work at the slaughterhouse, slaughtering up to 12 animals before catching the 9.20am train to Dundee.

Former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly spoke to Granada Reports about Yeats

Four years later he was approached by Liverpool.

“Shankly made me feel like a million dollars,” Yeats would recall.

“We were coming down the M6, with vice-chairman Sidney Reaks, who had a Rolls Royce at the time, and me and Bill in the back. I was only 23 and didn’t know what to say.

“Bill just turned round and said: ´Ron, I want you to captain the side. You will be my eyes, my ears and my voice on that pitch’, I thought to myself, ‘bloody hell’.

“I did that for him, captain Liverpool, for 10 years. It was the best 10 years of my career and my life.”

On his arrival at Anfield, Shankly told the waiting press: “Take a walk around my centre-half, gentlemen, he’s a colossus!’

Yeats, known as Rowdy by the Kop, helped steer the Reds out of Division Two in his first season and to the Division One title inside two years before that historic FA Cup win, forming a formidable partnership with Tommy Smith.

“I was 6ft 2.5 inches and 14.5 stone so when I tackled someone he must have felt it. I wasn’t dirty as far as dirty is concerned. I used to make sure I was there or thereabouts,” said Yeats.

“At that time we had these big centre forwards to play against. I always knew if there was going to be a battle I would win the battle. I wouldn’t come second to nobody.”

Yeats speaks about being the first to wear the famous all-red kit

Yeats played with Smith for seven seasons, adding: “We let the ball go past us, but never the ball and the man.”

Incredibly he won just two Scotland caps and after 454 Liverpool appearances he left to be Tranmere’s player-manager for three years, followed by a brief spell in America in his late 30s before returning to Anfield in 1986 as chief scout, a role he held for two decades.

He said his proudest achievement was signing Sami Hyypia, a centre-back and leader like himself.

Alzheimer’s was to take hold in later life, with Yeats feeling the football of his era played its part.

“The football itself was incredibly heavy, especially when it was wet,” he said.

“Most of the times you headed it you’d just think Jesus Christ! It’s almost impossible to imagine.”