• Premier League

Liverpool move Anfield's Shankly Gates as part of expansion

Liverpool's Shankly Gates have been placed into safe storage to allow work to continue on the expansion of Anfield's main stand.

The gates, which feature the club motto 'You'll Never Walk Alone', have stood at the Anfield Road end of the stand for more than 30 years.

They were erected as a tribute to Bill Shankly, who transformed the club from a second-tier side into one of England's leading clubs during his 15 years as manager between 1959 and 1974.

Watch a free clip from Anfield as the Shankly Gates were temporarily moved into storage: http://t.co/cj9oA4wwte #LFC pic.twitter.com/tSbxUMnNZA— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 25, 2015

His widow Nessie formally unlocked the gates in August 1982, 11 months after Shankly's death.

The gates will return to the ground when construction work on the main stand is completed during the 2016-17 season.

Construction company Carillon arrived at Anfield in December to begin work on the expansion project, which will add 8,500 seats to the main stand and increase the stadium's capacity to 54,000.

In a separate project, work has begun on a football-themed hotel that will include a museum exhibiting previously unseen memorabilia belonging to Shankly's family.

Memorabilia to be included in the exhibition includes the key to the Shankly Gates and badges given to the Scot by astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong when they visited Anfield in the 1970s.

The 83-bedroom city-centre Shankly Hotel will cost around £20 million to complete, and will be in the former Liverpool City Council building on Victoria Street.

Work on the hotel - a joint venture between a development company and Shankly's family - is likely to be complete in August.

Chris Shankly-Carline, the former Liverpool manager's grandson, told the BBC: "We have identified some truly unique, unseen pieces of memorabilia from within the family collection to display."

The Shankly Gates have stood at the Anfield Road end of the main stand for more than 30 years © Getty Images

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