Keep Your Eyes on the Ball not the Trouble in the Crowd

There is one issue preventing our club moving on from the current mess, Hicks won't sell. We need to focus on making it impossible for him to maintain that position. Recrimination about Parry, Moores and the rest of it are merely a sideshow. Gillett wants to sell but not to Hicks and by thwarting Hicks he is acting as an ally. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" never was more apt than in this situation.

I guess that the sustained enmity of the majority of fans against Hicks is a factor in his inability to convince anyone to help him raise funds to offer to buy out Gillett. Proof of that lies in the obvious attempts of his useless PR people in infiltrating the various websites with pro-Hicks posts. This has backfired spectacularly and there are signs of desperation, as the days count down, in Hicks lashing out at Parry. The counter-coup is gathering strength and Hicks knows he is losing his grip on our club.

Those fans tiring of the whole business and wishing it would settle down should recall what this week means to us. What more contempt could be shown for our club, our history and our fans than to plunge the club into more controversy at the very time we wanted emphasis to be on our fallen fellow fans and their grieving families. 

Nineteenth Hillsborough memorial

Sobering to think that this was 19 years ago and yet those heartrending scenes are still fresh in the memory. Turbulent times right now for our club pale into insignificance at the scale of the loss of loved ones in such circumstances. In being at one with those grieving families I also remember the support and sympathies of those outside of and even of rival clubs, Evertonians in particular. The emotional occasion at Anfield this season when Z-cars theme was played and Rafa’s embrace of another grieving mother also attest to the spirit these tragedies should reinforce in us. RIP YNWA

Moores Hits the Right Notes

The interview in the Echo today was fascinating in that David Moores came down firmly on the side of both Rick Parry and Rafa whilst soundly castigating both the warring owners. It could be asked why he waited until his main ally in the club became embroiled in the morass before speaking out after all the fans have been suffering this circus since the Rafa/Klinsmann business came out last year.

I would also argue that to bleat about the old "Liverpool Way" is a bit pointless after months of all sides using the media to influence events. Surely David Moores isn't claiming it would have been better if all this nonsense had been kept behind closed doors. None of it would ever have happened had a proper due diligence been done on hicks and Gillett. According to Doug Ellis it only took him a phone call and a quick google search to establish that Gillett didn't have the finances for Villa. It appals me that Moores can say even now he knew little about Hicks even whilst handing the club he loves over to him. Did he take Gillett's word on Hicks? Was that the "Liverpool Way" to hand over our club to strangers?

Having had my moan I do say that with this frank interview David Moores is coming in from the cold. He covers the main issues openly yet behind his words I get the message, these two have to go asap and we should worry about who comes in once they are on the way out of the door. It is obvious to me from the way the order of battle is shaping up that most people at the club are desperate to see the back of both of them but that Hicks in particular has shocked them with his plans to bleed the club dry.

 

Time to put the Holy Trinity first Mr Moores

David Moores has agreed to talk to the Liverpool Echo in an interview to be published tomorrow. This is the opportunity fans have waited for and David Moores owes it to us to be frank and comprehensive in his answers to the questions put to him. The Echo need to be open and tell their readers whether any preconditions were imposed by David Moores in agreeing to talk. 

For David Moores it is a chance to put the record straight on so many issues and he knows our mettle, if he is straightforward he can regain a lot of respect. We want the facts as he sees them we don't seek to have him dress anything up in diplomatic doubletalk or evasive answers. He holds the chairmanship and this period of his tenure has been disastrous with only the ability of our manager and the efforts of our players have kept all the nonsensical behaviour of our owners from adversely affecting results.

Rick has grown a big pair

I watched the brief interview with Rick Parry this morning on SSN and I've got to say I was moved. I am going to start here with an apology to him for any post I have made which contained personal insinuation or attack. I can't recall having done so but if I have I am sorry. 

I stick to my opinion that Rick Parry has been a very poor CEO of our club and there is enough evidence (albeit anecdotal) of big signings missed, marketing potential unrealised etc, etc. to warrant him losing that job. BUT I admire Rick Parry the Liverpool fan which he undoubtedly is. It took a lot of bottle to go into work this morning in that calm frame of mind given that he had been told of the Hicks letter by his family who had seen it on the TV news.

At owner level George Gillett has today come out in support of Parry and also restated the Board of Directors voting position. (source; Daily Post article this morning)

It is also an indication that Rick Parry believes he has widespread support within the club as if not he would find it impossible to do his job under the cloud of  uncertainty. I hope we now hear from David Moores on this whole mess. Come on David it is time for good men to stand up and be counted.

Hicks asks Parry to do one

I wonder if the timing of this is due to the pressure coming from the need for substantial reinvestment in the team this summer. Rafa has stirred the pot in precisely the same terms as he did before christmas (One senior signing and two frees is what he lined up then but was slapped down by Hicks). This time Hicks knows he won’t be able to thwart Rafa so publicly. The money isn’t lying around in the club coffers and he famously doesn’t put his hand in his own pocket so more borrowing might be needed. Who would get in the way of more debt being loaded on the club? Rick Parry for one. Is David Moores the next in line for a letter from Hicks suggesting he might like to resign?

A day of developments

Hicks asks Parry to resign - Parry sticking to his guns - DIC decide to stand off until the warring parties sort themselves out one way or another and I get the following eMail from Rogan Taylor at ShareliverpoolFC.

Dear friend,

Work is continuing on our quest to bring fan ownership of Liverpool FC, and I wanted to give you a quick update, as well as ask for your help.

Our formal proposal to enable ShareLiverpoolFC to be an investment vehicle to enable us to bid for the club is on the verge of approval by the Financial Service Authority (FSA). This is a complex, yet necessary step in the practical requirements needed, and we thank our specialist lawyers, Cobbetts, for their work on our behalf.

The heart and soul of Liverpool FC rests in L4, but Liverpool FC would not be the global force it is today without the support we have attracted all over the world. So we continue to take the concept of the fans owning the club to our international fan-base around the world. Members of the ShareLiverpoolFC steering group have been meeting with key contacts from Norway, the US, Republic of Ireland and elsewhere, and I myself have just returned from Japan, where I was able to promote the concept on Japanese national TV and radio.

In the UK, we continue to attract national and local media coverage, though we need to keep our message in people's minds as the saga of Hicks and Gillett's ownership rumbles on, and DIC await in the wings. Only fan ownership can bring the club management run in the interests of the supporters and the community.

This is where you can come in. We'd like you to get on the websites and forums and talk about ShareLiverpoolFC, and the concept of fan ownership. Where people are discussing the ownership of the club on phone-ins, please get on the phone and talk about it.

We're serious about this project - that's why we're taking the time to get it done properly. You can help us keep the momentum going. Tell your friends, and get involved - let's do this together.

Best wishes

Rogan Taylor,

On behalf of the Share Liverpool Steering Group
www.shareliverpoolfc.com

RICK

This is my cyber pet. It is neither fish nor fowl, is good for absolutely nothing and changes colour according to who it wants to please next. I call it RICK.

The US paradigm

Reading posts on various fora from US based fans it seems to me that there is a basic difference in looking at acceptable business norms. How otherwise would posters who are obviously genuine supporters of the club and are concerned at its well being seemingly have difficulty understanding the implacable opposition of most of us over here to what Hicks represents.

Is it that in the US version of the loosely regulated free enterprise system entrepreneurs like Hicks are admired precisely for their freebooting cavalier approach. An oil analogy seems apt: for every gusher you have to sink 20 dry wells. The buy low sell high mentality is prevalent and the victims have themselves to blame for selling on the cheap. Institutions are transient for the most part anyway. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you will get my drift.

In Europe probably and the UK definitely a different view is taken of the “soul” of an institution like LFC and we are more risk averse when it comes to threats facing our clubs.

There is also the custodianship versus proprietary ownership issue dividing us. We baulk at the “it’s my property I’ll do what I like with it, build what I like on it” approach. Are there not examples of US sports franchise owners simply upping sticks and moving the franchise, lock stock and barrel to another city or even state. We regard the owners of the shares, the manager and even the current squad as being of the moment, here for the time being, whereas the “Club” consists of timeless elements like the historic achievements, those managers and players who have achieved “legend” status and most important the fanbase.

CL. Liverpool 4 Arsenal 2

Comparisons are being made of last night’s match with the legendary St Etienne game and for extremes of emotion it is a fair comparison. Rafa’s use of Babel last night was inspired. He has faded badly early in the second half of the games he has started and has looked a fish out of water sometimes out wide. Rafa solved both these problems by using him as an impact sub and he also found himself in his favoured striker position for his goal. I felt both Babel’s and the goal Walcott assisted were down to the fatigue of the opposing players and not to any individual brilliance.Our back four were the unsung heroes especially in the first half when Arsenal were rampant. Skrtel had another blinding game, the experience of both Jamie and Sami was crucial and Aurelio had his best game in a red shirt. On the other hand we played the first 30 minutes without a mid-field. Gerrard and Alonso were off the pace and the extra pressure on Mascherano told. Thankfully the coincidence of Sami’s goal and Arsenal’s frenetic pace dropping allowed the midfield to regather.Both sets of players were shattered at the end testifying to the tension they must have suffered in the build up to the game. No yellow cards for us and I wonder if our midfielders were concentrating on this in those first 30 mins. The game was a wonderful ad for the sport not just the drama and the goals but the spirit it was played in.  

Incident in the Sandon - now that the spit has dried!

We now have eye-witness reports and statements from Hicks jnr and the Sandon management so we know that the initial picture painted by The Sunday Times and posters on these boards of Hicks jnr running from the pub in a hail of spit and ale was OTT. Someone spat in his direction, someone else threw the contents of his glass at the departing Hicks party, who were not fleeing but leaving normally to attend another appointment.

Over the weekend, before the truth came out there were posters on here doubting the seriousness of the incident, others questioned Hicks jnrs’ motives in going there. A minority of wilder fans thought he got off lightly.

The overwhelming majority of the response,though was of the sanctimonious, holier than thou kind, attacking other posters who did not outrightly condemn the reds in the pub for not letting Hicks jnr enjoy a quiet drink with his minders and ‘fellow fans”. We were told we should hang our heads in shame - we were dragging our club and the city through the mud , the club should identify them and ban them, blah blah blah... ... ...

Liverpool Football Club’s fanbase has within it representatives of every creed, nationality, social and ethnic group. We also have bigots and xenophobes of every stripe and all of the criminal classes from murderers to pickpockets, BUT and it is big but, so does every other Major football club in the land and every city, town, village and hamlet. The behaviour of the two cretins who showed violence towards Hicks jnr last Saturday is not defined by their accents, nor by the club they support. It is defined by their actions end of. If the government, local authorities and police forces of the country can’t control such mindless idiots nor limit the bully culture we live under, why should our football club have to do it?

If all 40,000 of us who attend the match were to walk on our knees from Anfield to the cathedral steps singing mea culpa and wringing our hands in shame, it would not affect the typecasted image we have. I feel for the members of the scouse diaspora who have to live with the shell suit jokes and all sorts of criticism when these incidents happen. The answer is not to come on these boards half cock attacking fellow supporters who are only suggesting calm thinking and a sense of proportion. The answer is to stand up : our club is going through difficult times at the moment but that is only temporary - our class however is permanent so stand up for your club. Similarly, our city has, for once in a long time, more positives going for it than negatives so stand up for your city.

Unfortunately such incidents will happen from time to time, but ashamed, not me, I didn’t do it, I abhor violence of any kind and to the extent that it is condusive to my teeth remaining in my mouth I would remonstrate with anyone acting like those two. Hicks had no right to expect a quiet dialogue with fans in that particular pub on that particular day in the tense circumstances that prevailed. The least he could have expected was to be asked some searching and pointed questions about his family’s involvement with the club, he is a director his own right after all, and be left in no doubt as to the strength of feeling there is on the issue. The violence he received was unacceptable.

Next time I hope we allow the dust to settle and the facts to be established before turning on fellow fans.

Can the Anfield crowd suss out a result in advance?

I think it was in the 60s the use of the Think Tank as a means of foretelling events or trends was instigated. Was it in Boston? The Hudson Institute and Gulbenkian comes to mind. No matter, the idea was to get together a number of experts in a particular field of study and have them deliberate in an intense discussion session session behind closed doors and try and agree what would be the most likely future developments in their field of study.

I remember that there were remarkable results reported when they had the group try to answer questions about the past. For instance they might have been asked to guess at the population of Egypt in the year 1066. Despite having only their brains to call on , no reference materials being within reach, they scored remarkably well, way beyond what would have been expected via probability theory! So they were getting within 90-95% every time so they would then move on to obscure questions about the present again with results beyond belief. So, the theory went, why could they not attempt to predict future events and developments?

Anyway, enough of the background, my point is that at Anfield on any matchday is gathered the most educated group in the world in terms both of football in general and Liverpool Football Club in particular. Is it feasible that such an immense aggregation of brainpower can take into account the various factors at play and collectively guess the outcome? Further does this explain the weird changes in atmosphere and home crowd mood from game to game?

Think about it, the great Champion’s League victories have been electric from before the kick-off. In Istanbul there was a feeling at half-time that all was not lost yet the crowd should have been despondent. Other games I can remember the atmosphere was dead from kick-off to final whistle and we got a performance to match it. The recent Derby match was a case in point. We did not get the second goal but there was none of the electric tension experienced at the Villa home game when you could feel the crowds expectancy that Villa would equalise and possibly win. So what comes first? Does the celebrated 12th man set the tone for the 11 players, when they come out of the tunnel, having already sussed out the result?

First Post

I have started this blog out of frustration with the situation on the various other sites dedicated to LFC. Many of them are infested with windup merchants and fans of other clubs bored with lack of action on their own sites or simply jealous of our achievements. Some are subject to the whim of moderators who resent views which are opposed to theirs. This can get to the stage where the forum becomes less of an interchange of fan views and opinions and more of a platform dedicated to a single strand of thought. I figured it would be better to commit my input to a separate blog which can be taken or left as the reader sees fit.