Working with Bill Shankly family an 'incredible honour' for Tipperary couple

Donna Walsh and her husband, Martin, began designing and creating soccer pins and badges honouring Liverpool’s heroes during the lockdown

A business launched during lockdown has resulted in a Tipperary company collaborating with the family of legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly.

Donna Walsh and her husband, Martin, began designing and creating soccer pins and badges (soccerpins.bigcartel.com) honouring Pool’s past and present heroes.

Their work came to the attention of the Shankly family who asked them to create an official pin badge to honour one of Anfield’s most famous managers. 

The pair, who are based in Cashel, described the request as “an incredible honour, something that we could never have dreamed of”. 

Donna explained: “My husband Martin’s business, Premier Sports, was closed from March to June due to the Covid restrictions. One night, we started talking about other options and alternatives while it was closed. Martin is a huge Liverpool supporter and has been collecting pin badges for years and years. 

“During the lockdown, interest in pin badges blew up as people were not going to matches - the traditional place where they would buy them.” 

She continued: “My background is in graphic design and I created one or two badges, sourced a manufacturer in China, and it just took off from there. It has been unbelievable, we have requests and interest from around the world looking to purchase pins and badges. Given that we are all Liverpool fans in the house, we are just concentrating exclusively on Liverpool-related pins. But Liverpool and Celtic would be the two standout clubs in terms of the pin-badge market.” 

The power of social media did the rest: “That is the great thing about Twitter, it opens you up to a global audience and the pin collecting community has been really good in terms of supporting us. We have interest and requests from all over the world. In fact, our biggest problem is the inability to deliver to some countries due to the postal restrictions that are in place in some areas.” 

Walsh’s work was spotted by Claire Carline, the granddaughter of Liverpool’s legendary manager. 

The Shankly family oversee the image rights and merchandise relating to the Liverpool icon (officialshanklyshop.com) and asked if Walsh would be interested in creating a pin badge for their collection.

“The family sent on a number of pictures for me to base an image on and then I sent back five designs which were shown to Bill’s daughter, Jeanette Shankly, and she chose her favourite. It is a huge honour to be working with the Shankly family, I cannot describe how much this means. 

"We will now produce a limited edition of these badges and hopefully we will develop more to create a collection.” 

It has been a whirlwind few months for Donna: “We just started this business and said that we would go along with it for as long as we could. To think we are now working with the Shankly family… I have to pinch myself! This is the pinnacle.”