JRC

Fair enough, and thanks for 'Solidarnosc'.

Amidst all the talk of what a Real Supporter is or does, or how we should have reacted to Tuesday, can I just point out that, for me, with over 40 years of regular attendance, being an LFC Supporter has been, and always will be, a privilege. The things I have experienced through LFC - good and bad - in that time have added immeasurably to the quality of my life., and I thank my Dad every time I talk to him for putting me on this path. I'm not pretending that fans of many other clubs can't feel the same - Mancs, Arsenal, even EFC - but no-one can deny how many special things have happened to us So next time you feel like booing, moaning, walking out etc remember - we have been, and will continue to be, privileged to be Fans of LFC. Don't undermine that. YNWA

Indeed there is, and it is an act of intellectual and moral cowardice not to oppose them, or to allow them their views because it is 'their opinion'. That's not to say I'm condoning genuine violence, but by the standard of Forum 'debate', the comments were aggressive but not unusual, whereas your response implied - and I'll accept your denial of this if you wish - that he, and we, should 'chill' about people with these ill-informed and rancorous opinions about Hillsborough/Scousers/LFC fans. - referring to them as a 'perspective of what happened' seems a calculated attempt to deny their offensiveness.

No they didn't. They did in 1988, and one of the reasons the FA justified returning to Hillsborough - despite all logic and fairness saying it should have been at OT -was that the 1988 Police operation had been good - which it had, generally. But SY Police put a different officer in charge, with NO experience, and he didn't use the same approach. The 1988 policing may have prevented the disaster, NOT because of ticketless fans, because that is actually a total Red Herring, and can be proven to be - but because the cordon helped to control the access to the (inadequate) turnstile area, and maybe would have mitigated the build-up that lead to the crush etc.

R% had a number of testers adding their 2 pennorth sbout Heysel etc, which is sick - like there's some kind of t**-for-tat that justifies McKenzie/Hillsborough because of Heysel. What disappointed was the Liverpudlian presenter asking the Mercury guy if it would help if the victims families accepted that some blame was due to the fans outside. Truth is, McKenzie can get away with talking about Ticketless fans - of course there were, there always is, especially when demand is guaranteed to outstrip supply - that some fans didn't have tickets is a truism. But no-one can ever say how many there were, or what their impact was - if any. What is sure is that Hillsborough didn't need there to be ticketless fans in the crowd to happen. And the whole point about Police negligence is that they should have implemented a plan -as they did simplay and succesfully in 1988, supposedly the reason they got the SF again - to filter them out before they reached the turnstile area - i.e. act in the interests of Crowd Safety & Control. (Also, of course, even if the chaos outside was actively caused by ticketless fans, rather than the crucial decision not to re-direct the fans once the gate was opened would still have been the primary act of negligence.)

Actually, it did hit him on the shoulder, but he went down pretending it was his head. Even then we were saying that if it had happened here, we'd have been thrown out, but UEFA did nothing about it.

One journo last week had it that our OVERDRAFT was £80M. The £17.2M figure is the one I believe to be closest to a meaningful debt position.

Two favourite Smith moments. Once, against Ipswich - when they were good - he calmly trapped a high hopeful punt, stone dead, on his instep as Paul Mariner and 2 others flew in at him, on the edge of our Area, made a dummy that took all 3 out, then played a first time pass to free a forward into their half for a goal - Robson was enthusiastic in his praise of a wonderful piece of skill. Also - against ManU, keeping his eyes on a high ball as wannabe hard man Joe Jordan hurtled across to take him out; then stepped back at the last second as Jordan shot past and ended up in the front row of the Paddock. Brilliant.

More impeccable logic from the moron Williams - Paletta looked terrible, why did Benitez choose him.....yet implicitly acknowledging that the same question should have been asked of Wenger and Aliadiere - who has looked hopeless in the past. Of course! It's because Wenger is a genius for persevering with youngsters to let them develop even when they struggle at first, whereas Benitez is a muppet, because he picks a youngster (who plays for the Argentinian U-21, I believe) who has a bad game.

What is surprising is that The Fiver (A Guardian on-line offshoot) had one of the most perspicacious pieces on the other night, pointing out that Liverpool Reserves getting beaten by Arsenal Reserves in the Pontins League wouldn't merit a line of copy, certainly not talk of a crisis, and asking when the League Cup became so significant again that failing to progress merits the kind of apocalyptic dunderheadedness that Williams - a recognised ****** - is spouting off here. When we HAVE won the LC in the past, we were constantly told that it is the MM Cup, and celebrating such success proves how far we have fallen. TBF, MU fans didn't make too much of their win last year - even they must have realised how hypocritical that would have been - and don't seem to have been unduly worried by defeat by Southend this year. If anything, the argument that we should have reversed the policy of playing youngsters and 2nd stringers in these games -as we have for 3 years now, apart from the 05 Final - to take advantage of the fact that Arsenal had a youth team out, so that we still had a chance of 'Silverware', would be no less indicative of a poor season than the defeat we actually suffered. It would hardly feature as a great addition to our history would it - one commentator pointed out the MacLaren was at the game, and he realized the importance of the LC to Boro, so always played his strongest team when they won it....which kind of makes my point, although I don't think that was how it was meant.

I remember Alladiere's first game, I believe, for Arsenal; it was against us and he was so utterly and completely hopeless you wouldn't have put him out for an U-13 team. He was young, he improved, as we saw. So can Palletta. Not saying he will, but I don't think he has looked that bad on the other matches he has played.

Good as Arsenal were - and they were - they hardly scored a Goal last night that a competent defence/goalie wouldn't have stopped easily - the stats I saw were 6 goals from 7 shots, which is incredible. Going forward, we scored 3 decent ones, and forced Almunia into decent saves - unlike our keeper. I'm not suggesting we didn't deserve to lose last night, but it was, well, weird. Some perspective - Wenger is rightly getting praise here, but in addition to the link earlier (about Arsenal going out of the 2 Cups in 4 days to Wigan and Bolton last year), remember that after initial success in his first year or two, he went 3 years without any silverware - by the logic here, he should have been sacked (and there were many Gooners saying so - they have know-nothing knee-jerk morons as well, dontcha know) - especially when a key rival (ManU) stuffed them...6-3 as I recall. The Arsenal youngsters are good - but not all from the academy; 2 of them cost around 20M pounds, didn't they - and Rafa's youth policy - scouting youngsters from around the world - is identical, if not the outlay. Perhaps 10 years in, we will be gushing over a Rafa 'kid's' team like Arsenal's last night - as long as we don't give in to the the delusional miserabilists.

I've just started taking ky lad awayy, and that's a tonic, as he is getting fed up with the ridiculous moaning g******** (sic) in the Main Stand - I could be near our 6'4'' friend above from his description, but sadly we could be in entirely different parts of the MS - it has become a real rancorous pit, I'm afraid. St Etienne? In the Kop, but no location clearly defined to within about 50 yards.

I only caught their second goal - they ought to take the World Player award off Cannavarro for his pathetic effort to prevent it. I was looking for Pongo, but didn't recognise him - that kit must make you look taller. Always liked him - the little spin/turn/dummy against Arsenal ("Viera's going to need a ticket to get back in after that") was priceless.

Didn't Les Ferdinand score one (a hat-trick) and then get sent off when playing for QPR at Anfield? (And we still won as I recall).

What's the capacity and build cost of the Valencia stadium? Looks impressive.

Actually, it's that last bit I was angling at - not asking why he would be attractive to a gay man (or straight woman; or even a flexible and open-minded straight man); that's reasonably obvious. Just wondered if he was 'obviously gay'. and why.

Back to the theme of the original, slightly disturbing post - when the guys chose to do their Xmas party at Garlands, and received an enthusiastic and, ahem, warm welcome from the clientele, it was suggested Xabi was one of the prime centres of attention; anyone know if that was true? If so, can any of our gay or bi-sexual posters suggest whether or not he registers more highly on their gaydar than the other (fit, toned, wealthy) players at all, and why? Just interested, see..

Took my Lad to only his second awy game today, after the dismal day at Bolton. It was superb, re-ignited his passion (he is getting fed up of Anfield Main Stand negativity) and showed him what it ough to be like. Stood up and sang for 90 minutes, shattered and no voices left; awesome performace by the fans today.

Can we get a RTMS campaign going? Except I'm not sure there's much to reclaim, given that the Main Stand have traditionally been miserable b*stards. My son is getting close to losing interest in actually going to the game because of the constant loud-mouthed, boorish, 'hilariously sarcastic' negativity emanating from all around us (Row 29, 123-4). There is a particularly obnoxious tw*t about 3-4 rows back who simply never stops, his pearls of ignorance delivered in a stentorian bellow throughout the 90 minutes, sometimes holding a vicious diatribe of a 'conversation' with his mate about his latest target(who looks suitably embarassed at least) who is about 5 rows in front and 10 seats along from him. He's not an old git either, nor was the young lad standing at the top of the stairwell shouting 'You're f*cking crap, Liverpool' between his spittle-flecked boos at the end. Perhaps he thinks that means he is showing his passion and commitment, to me it's, well, not what being a true supporter is all about. ( cue sound of can of worms opening) Now I'm not going to pretend that we were good last night (although there are mitigating arguments, too many players were poor), or that Pennant was anything other than dreadful; but seeing reports on Sky of the Manager having to defend him from the booing fills me with sadness, especially as I can't deny it. He took dreadful stick from the first minute, and if his confidence looked shot by the time he was taken off - which it looked like it was to me - I can understand why. As my loud-mouthed peer observed, witout any sense of irony (after about 5 minutes) 'Why don't you f*ck right off, Pennant, you worthless f*cking c*nt. (Then to his mate) He's playing like he's got no f*cking confidence, the tw*t". It seems fewer and fewer take pride in always showing your support and backing for whoever is in a Red shirt (at least while they are out there playing), more and more delighting in the sound of themselves mouthing off. I can understand that people get frustrated - my outbursts last night contained many a despairing groan - but I simply don't see how anyone thinks the constant moaning, carping, berating and booing is going to help things. Last night was not a pleasant match to watch, a frustrating experience, but it was made 10 times worse by having to listen to the miserabilists sat around us.

As I understand it, like you, the NWDA money was agreed to 'match' the Objective 1 Money - which has been approved. That all goes to the Regeneration project. Whilst agreeing to the Regeneration Project was essential for the Planning consent, that is actually a Council project - none of the Objective 1 or NWDA cash goes to the Stadium building costs. So...as we have satisfied the Council sufficiently to get the Obj 1 approval, surely the release of the NWDA money is a matter between the Council and NWDA? If NWDA renege on their matching offer, it's not us who have broken the terms of the planning consent, so could that be revoked? Would the Council not have to find the remainder of the Regeneration money ? (Or sue the NWDA for it). If Flo is not sh*t -stirring, as she has been wont to do, that tells me that we are bang to rights on this one. Broomhead can go f*ck himself.

He started to talk about us always being present at disasters, so Stubbs cut him off. He was compaining about us whinging, about not being from Liverpool anyway, 'Peoples Club', blah, blah, blah... If he hates whingers, I hope he didn't have Radio Merseyside on after Villa won at Woodison....

It was the PSV fans singing, bizarrely

In the 60's, 70's and 80's, it was certainly true that Liverpool under John Smith and Peter Robinson - and Paisley, if not Shankly - were about as Press friendly as Myra Hindley, whereas Utd were just a constant Soap Opera - Best, relegation, premature hairloss, affairs with staff wives, ball-juggling alien-encountering impoverished potential owners, ticket tout directors, black market wartime profiteering owners, perverted rugby-loving get rich quick chairmen etc.. - and they milked it all. To be a pressman dealing with Utd was to have a stream of stories (even though the team was cr*p for the most part) AND you were well looked after in the traditional business manner of the day, iykwim, allegedly. At Liverpool you might get an extra sugar in your tea if you were lucky and they liked you.

Might just roll up for that - although there's a 1st team match the night after, isn't there - Portsmouth? - so might need a pass out. Decent chippy next door but one as well - except it's always full at 5 past 9 on 'Slimmers World' club night