Famous 'This Is Anfield' sign could fetch £15k at auction

The original "This Is Anfield" sign from Liverpool's stadium tunnel could fetch up to £15,000 at auction.

The words famously hang above the passage to the pitch and Reds players traditionally touch the sign before matches as they pass.

Auctioneer Budds said legendary manager Bill Shankly chose them in 1972 after rejecting "Welcome To Anfield" as too friendly.

The original sign was removed in the 1970s and given to Ronald Wilson, a former member of the club's boys' team, whose family displayed it in an Isle of Man hotel for more than 20 years - until now.

The sign will have a guide price of between £10,000 and £15,000 and will be offered during a two-day sale on 8 and 9 September.

Budds said famous players including Alan Hansen, Kenny Dalglish and Frank McGarvey had been pictured with the sign after joining Liverpool between 1977 and 1979.

The feature remained at Anfield during Liverpool's first two European Cup victories, in 1977 and 1978.

Budds said a groundsman proposed the original idea for the sign to club secretary Peter Robinson before Shankly suggested the amendment to "This Is Anfield".

Shankly said the sign was intended to remind Liverpool players who they represented while acting as a form of intimidation for visiting teams as they walked out into the ground.

The auction house said former player Roy Evans, who managed the club between 1994 and 1998, gave the sign to Wilson.

It was displayed in Wilson's family's Rutland Hotel in Douglas from 1979 until 2000 before passing to his children. The sign was later displayed in his son Ian's office until his retirement in early 2026.

Former Anfield stadium announcer George Sephton, who worked at the ground from 1971 until 2025, said he also followed the players' tradition of touching the sign.

"I used to go past that and touch it every week, I consider that to be a real privilege," he said.

Former Reds player George Scott said Shankly wanted any opposition player passing beneath the sign to know they were "going into a cauldron and they weren't going to come out with a win".

However, football historian Peter Kenny Jones noted how the sign's later surroundings were far removed from the tension and excitement of the Anfield tunnel.

"It's just been sitting there as part of the knick-knacks on the wall in a hotel in Douglas," he said.

"It hasn't had this grand setting, so now it's going to get its appreciation."

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