• Tributes pour in for Moran, also known as Mr Liverpool • Member of the Anfield boot room for more than three decades

Ronnie Moran, also known as Mr Liverpool for his outstanding contribution to the club’s success for almost 50 years, has died aged 83.

Moran’s son, Paul, announced the death, which followed a short illness, on Wednesday morning, prompting a flood of tributes to a true Liverpool legend whose impact ranged from making his debut as an 18-year-old in 1952 to developing players such as Jamie Carragher four decades later.

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He served the club as player, captain, reserve-team coach, first-team coach, physiotherapist and caretaker manager for 49 years. He won the First and Second Division titles during his 379 appearances for Liverpool between 1952 and 1968 and as part of the famed Anfield boot room, was a key influence behind the scenes as the club won four European Cups, 13 league championships, five FA Cups, five League Cups, two Uefa Cups and one European Super Cup.

His remarkable impact extended over the careers of nine Liverpool managers –from George Kay to Roy Evans – and he was first invited on to the coaching staff by Bill Shankly in 1966.

“There are a lot of legendary figures involved at Liverpool football club in the history,” Carragher said on Wednesday. “Ronnie Moran would be close to number one. The managers, the four or five great managers that started with Bill Shankly, Ronnie Moran was a big part of that.” The former Liverpool defender also tweeted: “The man who decided at 18 I should play centre back before anyone else had even thought of it. Thank you Bugsy!”

Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) Very sad news with the passing of Ronnie Moran this morning, a legendary figure @LFC & learnt me & others an awful lot. R.I.P.

Moran was born in Crosby on Merseyside and joined his boyhood club on a part-time basis in 1949 while serving as an apprentice electrician. He signed as a professional three years later, earning £14 a week during the season and £11 a week in the summer, and formally retired from playing in 1968-69. By then he was part of the Anfield boot room alongside Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Reuben Bennett and Tom Saunders, and a permanent fixture on the Liverpool bench as the club enjoyed unprecedented success at home and abroad.

Such was the respect he commanded as a coach, one with a no-nonsense reputation, that successive Liverpool managers from Paisley to Fagan, Kenny Dalglish to Graeme Souness and Evans kept Moran on the backroom staff until his retirement in 1998. He twice served briefly as caretaker-manager, in 1991 after Dalglish’s shock resignation, and in April 1992 after Souness underwent heart surgery.

Dalglish said on Wednesday: “The contribution and help he gave me was enormous and I’ll be eternally grateful for that – both as a player and a manager. I don’t think anybody that worked with him during his spell at Liverpool will have anything but total admiration and respect and gratitude for what he did for them.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the most successful spell in the club’s history, Ronnie Moran was of great importance to it. He was there at the outset with Bill Shankly, and the football club as it stands today is because of what Bill Shankly set in place and Ronnie was a big part of that.

“His contribution to the football club should never, ever be underestimated. Although it might be understated, and he might be understated, he made a massive contribution.”

Liverpool’s current captain, Jordan Henderson, paid a touching tribute to Moran on Instagram. He wrote: “The reason being captain of Liverpool Football Club is such a huge honour is because legendary figures like Ronnie Moran held it before I did. I wasn’t lucky enough to work with Ronnie but I had the great fortune of being in his company on the occasions when he came to Melwood to walk around the training pitch and although we all regarded him as a true great, he was as humble and down to earth as anyone you could ever come across. I know I speak for all of the current players when I say that we are all deeply saddened by Ronnie’s passing and the greatest tribute we can pay to him is to give everything we’ve got for Liverpool Football Club just as he did each and every single day during the 49 years he spent here. YNWA”

A book about Moran’s career – appropriately titled Mr Liverpool – was launched a fortnight ago with Evans, Carragher and the European Cup-winning captain Phil Thompson among those in attendance. “He was truly wonderful,” Thompson said on Wednesday. “Inspirational, our guide. Throughout all those glory days you needed somebody to keep the feet on the ground of all these super stars and this guy was the man.

“Every day he was a driving force. No matter whether we’d won 4-0, 5-0 at the weekend, you’d come in Monday morning and he’d be bellowing out instructions, ‘You got nothing for last Saturday’, and we had this for year upon year. Sometimes as a young man you used to think, ‘Nothing satisfies this man’, but without him we wouldn’t have won half the trophies and I do say this, and it’s not just a flippant comment: Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, great, but Ronnie Moran is up there with those two greats.”

Ian Rush MBE (@Ian_Rush9) It's a sad day in Football! RIP Mr. Liverpool #RonnieMoran you will be greatly missed! @LFC

Tributes to Moran, who remained a regular visitor to Liverpool’s training ground long after his retirement, also came from across Stanley Park as former Everton players remembered a major influence on Merseyside football.

Peter Reid said: “I’m devastated. Ronnie was a good football man who had a wicked sense of humour. One of my best memories of him were the derbies, which as we all know, are fiery affairs. One year, they beat us at Anfield and as I was walking off the pitch, Ronnie came over to me and said: ‘Hey lad, you played well.’ Let’s just say I gave him an Anglo-Saxon response. The following year we beat them at Anfield and I couldn’t see Ronnie in the tunnel so I marched straight into the boot room, found him, and said: ‘Unlucky, you played well.’ I got the same Anglo-Saxon response!”

Moran was diagnosed with vascular dementia four years ago and last October his family took the difficult decision to admit him to a care home where he could receive 24-hour care.