Reds4Life

Never in a million years does it matter mate and I didn't want it to seem like an locals vs OOT debate. Someone else said it, it is in the attitude. Bit difficult to comment on your situation when you are born into it (like me) but I really respect people who aren't from Liverpool but follow us to all ends of the earth because of the extra time and cost in some cases. Being an exile in Oz, if you don't keep up you end up falling off the back if you know what I mean so you need to be dedicated. Here I have met some Aussies who have followed the club their entire life, watch us on the tele at ridiculous hours every week (2-3am most nights), know all the players, know all the songs, trying desperately to save up so that they can say once, just once, that they were in the Kop singing their hearts out and that takes some gumption to continue for 25-30 years. Funny but I always think "Ferry Cross the Mersey" should be another of our songs - "People around every corner, they seem to smile and say. We don't care what your name is boy, we'll never turn you away. So, I'll continue to say, here I always will stay" The more the merrier Flasher!

See I thought that I had fallen out of love with football too but realised it's not the footie, it's not the ritual of going to the match (walking down one side of the road, parking the car in the same place, going to the same boozer, clapping your hands before kick off and saying "come on you f***ing red men'), it's not debating footballing aspects of what's transpired on the pitch it is all the other s**** you sift through to get to it. No one talking about the amazing turn x player did, how he completely dominated them etc etc just hyperbole about personality clashes, misdemeanours away from footie, all that other s****. Consoled myself with revert back to basics. Don't read the papers, don't get all bent out of shape with Talks****, Sky etc etc and just stick to those you know and trust - fellow reds. The saddest thing when you contemplate it all is that if this was about divide and conquer then the aim is slowly being achieved. Reds turning on Reds. WTF is that? Reds calling for Kenny's head. WTF is that? Now more than ever we need to focus on the team getting back into the CL. Empty vessels make the loudest noise and all that jazz. As hard as it is for all of us we need to keep reminding ourselves not to fall for it, antagonism is one of the oldest propaganda tricks in the book. One of the greatest days of my life was when we won in Istanbul. Not just because we won but I had this immense outpouring of emotion which had spanned 20 years from Heysel. The pent up emotions that were released when we finally got Big Ears back was intense. This club has a unique bond with the supporters. Respect that. Cherish it. Do everything within your power to help us get back where we belong - amongst the world elite again for all the right reasons. Kev

I am somewhat conflicted in saying this... but thanks "cocknose".... (that made me chuckle!) Seriously ta mate. I can remember that argument clear as day. You know the one where you think you may have gone a bit OTT, especially with yer aul fella of all people.. lack of respect, should have just wound my neck in.. Do remember screaming at him that Murdoch is the Anti-Christ you blind f*****, he'll f***ing ruin it for us mark my words...

Cheers Ed, appreciate the support. Hard to describe you know but hearing YNWA automatically makes me think of me grandad and all the others who have left us in this lifetime, makes me well up with pride that I carry on their legacy and that we can all be happy that we share this common bond. Bit how I feel about what the Kop and Anfield mean to me. Same possies, same people, same families, proud history and tradition passed through the family as a right of passage. I guess what I am trying to say is that after much soul searching I have come to realise that it isn't the football that is the problem, it is the circus which trails behind it trying to dredge up anything they can to create sensationalism, outrage and emotional responses. Liverpool FC and me. That is all I need. I love this club. I love my city. I love my people. We will do what we have always done. Face adversity in the eye, rise above it and conquer it. Unity. Pride. Loyalty. Passion. Respect. Honour. Integrity. Decency. Mere words to some but it is the very DNA that is woven into the shirt and the foundation on what this great club is built on. And when I think of Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish he has all of these qualities and some..... he could play a bit as well you know...

Don't really know if this is the right thread so apologies mods and feel free to move it if need be... I was talking to me Da yesterday about jibbing football completely. The only other time I have ever felt like throwing it in was around 1992 when the "Sky Revolution" really took hold and I had a massive argument with me Da about where football was heading. I believed back then and I believe it even more to this day that football was seen purely as a "commodity" for the media to turn into a circus and destroy from the inside out. Some rich play thing where individual clubs will be phased out and we are left with "areas" or zones representing a multitude of amalgamated clubs. Eg - "The North West Ninjas" representing Everton, Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool, Bolton etc etc playing their games out of Old Trafford or some other place. The working class game which forged so many strong roots in communities where there was nothing other than football for people to forget about the harsh realities of their own lives, suspend reality for a few hours a week has slowly been eroded away. Believe it or not younger readers but the reason why your households are divided between blue and red could possibly be because your relatives who used to live on Scotland Rd and the surrounding suburbs actually went to Liverpool AND Everton games on alternate weeks. Some of the funniest stories I ever heard me Grandad tell me was when he was at Goodison Park even though he was a red through and through. He told me once that he had just bought this new pair of shoes and told me Nan he was going out. "Don't go to the game in those brand new shoes Alec" our Mary Mac warned him. "It's allright kecks, I'll be ok". Well he came back from Goodison that night with one shoe as he got picked up in the ground swell and lost it. He stayed back after the match for an hour looking all over for it and then walked bare feet home to take the inevitable lumps off me Nan. The most poignant observation from my perspective is the loss of soul and identity that football seems to have undertaken since the advent of the "Sky Revolution". No longer are reports based on footballing feats but rather everything else that can be sensationalised and beaten up from numerous angles in numerous ways to increase the amount of revenue for the media outlet. The immediacy of everything has increased the ways in which we communicate as well as being communicated with. Twitter, facebook etc, etc has created this world where information is directly at hand all the time, any time you want it. The issue with the increase in information is being able to translate and decipher the true meaning of the article or information you receive. Unfortunately whilst there is a dramatic increase in information there seems to be an obvious decrease in application of thought, reason, truth and logic. Therefore we see a proliferation of sensationalist headlines, each one set to illicit an emotional response from people who have the most emotional attachment. We have fallen into this trap too many times over the years, some well within our rights and some cringeworthy at best. The media know that we Liverpudlians have a proud and honoured tradition of standing together, fighting our corner, believing in justice and seeing to it that justice is inevitably dispensed in whatever format that justice is delivered but they have twisted it and manipulated society into a position where we are considered eternal "victims". The "Boy who cried wolf" syndrome is possibly the best way to describe how the media portray us whether we choose to accept it or not. This position is then only heightened when they create another sensationalist headline, knowing full well that we will fight our corner where they can manipulate the masses again and again in finitum ad nauseum. You know what? We have to be the bigger person. We have to appreciate that unsavoury as it is, some people don't like us. In fact they detest us. There is no reason for it probably in a lot of cases and I would imagine if you dug deeper you would find that they have probably never met a Liverpudlian in their lives, only heard that we are bin dippers, tea leaves, muzzie growing, shell suit wearing vermin who have had their minds made up for them and how we have been stereotyped. This stereptype was borne out of jealousy at best, pure contempt at worse. Remember the powder keg that this city has become to politicians over the years, moreso those politicians with a conservative leaning. We can't make people like us but we can keep our dignity, we can maintain credibility and integrity and we do this as we always have done by acting with knowledge and respect. By being open and honest, dare I say it "transparent" in every aspect of our lives we can appreciate and understand that if people choose not to accept that, that is their right but at least we can feel free in the knowledge that we've tried. Football has lost the appeal it had when I was a starry eyed kid wanting to emulate the feats of Dalglish, Barnes, Rush and Beardsley on the Anfield pitch. Scoring the winner against the toffees at the Kop end. I wasn't sure at first if it was from being so far removed now that I am in exile in Oz, but the more I think of it, the more I can't help but feel as though the "Sky revolution" has achieved what it set out to do - slowly eradicate the working class from being able to afford to attend, create a commodity as opposed to a favourite pastime where every last pound can be leeched from the masses and sensationalise everything about a sport around the sport as opposed to the sport itself (WAGs etc) so that the masses can feast on the outrageous headlines created. We need to do what we have always done. Stand together. You'll Never Walk Alone is our song for a reason. Really have a good listen to those words now more than ever, feel them resonate deep within your guts and your heart, feel the tears well up in your eyes through pride and knowledge that your club has such a strong bond with its people, no matter what race, colour or creed. This bond is represented by the colour of the shirt, bound together through thick and thin. They are scared. They sense a red resurgence and they don't like it. They are trying to do everything they can to ensure we don't rise back up to the top. Football is a simple game, only people complicate it. From now on, I choose football and football only. YNWA JFT 96

Yeah, he is a massive LFC fan

f*** bully ray off and get back that Maryse... French Canadian lass wearing the LFC top when she visited Manchester.. All class!

Jan Klaas Huntelaar would be a moneyball signing. Fantastic at Ajax with his partnership with Luis Suarez, never really given much of a chance at Real which I think affected his confidence. Played out of position a lot at AC Milan when he got on the park and seems to be on the resurgance with Schalke. Value is there, potential to be deadly in combination with Gerrard and Suarez and could get decent resale value if we gave 3 year contract. Kuyt / Maxi + few million would be boss. Javi Martinez is another great shout but could cost a little bit more. Not utilised properly at the moment playing CB so could be worth an enquiry. Someone tell Jen Chang I'll have my fence back when they get off it.

That season should be compulsory viewing for any LFC supporter who is wanting to know where Kenny is taking this team. Barnes, Beardsley and Aldridge - 88 Semi-Final McMahon against Arsenal getting to that ball on the sideline and eventually Aldo poached a goal at the back stick. Barnes destroying QPR to put us top with 3 games in hand (first game at Anfield due to some construction work on the Kop) I think BBC that year instead of their top 10 goals competition, just picked 10 of the best LFC goals for that season. Absolute masterclass

Tommy Lawrence played so far forward that when we used to play headers and volleys me uncle would always be "The Flying Pig" making a 45 yard run and diving header... guaranteed to always make you piss yourself watching him donate a pound of flesh off the arms onto the road... daft c***... no me uncle, not the band.. Has to be Clem for me... only just from Pepe but I feel that will change if Pepe is here for another 3-4 seasons.

When you say "dissed us", what did McManaman do exactly that was so wrong? Just curious as to your version of events compared to what really happened...

Seen Carra get away with a few similar shouts in his time where I thought he was very lucky to get the rub of the green. It was a professional foul, Carra knew what he was doing and the ref blew accordingly. Admittedly Walters fell down like a sack of s*** but if there was no contact then he wouldn't have.

Ok, in the context of his football career with Liverpool Football Club I believe tragic mistakes. In the overall scheme of life, probably not. Sure we all agree on that!

I don't think Torres looked s*** the last 4 weeks before we got rid, just my opinion like. Thought I saw glimpses of him really getting back into decent form. Like I said, I believe he has made some tragic, tragic mistakes. Some mistakes you can rectify some not so. Personally, the biggest mistake he made, and Torres isn't the first and won't be the last to do this in today's commodotised version of football is that he felt he was bigger than the club. End of.

Cheers Wayne mate, thought that would be the case. Potential not realised is f***ing criminal.. could seriously be the case with Torres.

I think the lad has made a couple of tragic, tragic mistakes. In saying that, we did get a decent wedge for him (compared to some other Liverpool forward we developed and got 9/10 of f*** all for) which allowed us to reinvest into the squad. Not that that entered his mindset when making the decision to leave mind you but it did help us to start the rebuilding project to a degree. Would he come back? Not so sure. I think he has an extremely fragile mental make up at the moment. Confidence player who is spent in that department. I think he is feeling pretty helpless, maybe seeing London for what it really is, not what they made it out to be... The thing about the transfer was really as someone stated before, our team was set out to try to get the very best out of Torres. It helped Stevie G's game too but did it have a detrimental effect to the way we played overall, as a team and as individual players? New manager, different ideas on what style he wants to play and the players he needs to carry that out. Would the players have him back? Perhaps. But someone will have to move over to accommodate him and the dressing room could be fractured as a result. Maybe if Carra and him had 3 rounds in a boxing ring, belt 7 bells of s*** out of each other and then all is forgiven. Would the management have him back? Very difficult for Kenny to allow that to happen. But if Kenny believed that the kid got it horribly wrong, was prepared to admit he f***ed up and asked for forgiveness maybe. If Kenny had have done the interviews with me (when Torres first signed) about being the next King of the Kop and the mutual respect and admiration was there for all to see. Can't believe that you go from there to then going to handing the same man a transfer request without something else going on behind the scenes. Would the fans welcome him back? At first I was gutted. Absolutely filthy with it but rather than abuse the lad, I realised he is just a commodity to a degree in a fairly commodotised game. It's not the same football landscape i was raised up on. I think I would. He has amazing talent and I think he and Suarez with the supply lines we have brought in would destroy some teams in the PL together. It's funny but our team now is the team that I am convinced would just get the absolute best out of the kid. f*** it still disappoints me!! Get JWH to offer the 15M we got on top of Andy and give it back to Abramovich! Tell him we're doing him a favour and get El Nino back.

Thing is though... if you smoke a joint before a 100m sprint and you spy someone down the other end of the track about to open a packet of twisties... surely you have the upper hand in terms of motivation no??

The money to me bought some semblance of unity back to Liverpool. Substance over style to me has seemed to be the Dalglish / Commolli motto this summer. Torres was arguably the world's greatest striker in '08-'09 but getting continually injured (was it 3 times??) when he was with Spain and never fully fit has robbed him of that yard of speed. We all saw the effect that had on Owen's career and unfortunately will cruel Torres' as well if not properly managed.

Beat me to it Case! How is it Andy Carroll's fault if he is having the ball humped up to him and trying to knock s**** down??!! You get a few bad passes, your touch lets you down, you are making runs expecting a ball to feet and get it up around your Adam's apple. I saw him coming deeper more when he came on against Bolton to pick the ball up which was played to feet and he started a nice little move down the right, pass and move footie and we were nearly in. The lad has dynamite in his boots when it comes to shooting and is useful in the air. He has the pedigree and I think KD & SC are working on the attitude to ensure the ability matches the potential. The extra lads being brought in will help his game enormously. It will take a bit of the sting off the transfer amount and when he gets the confidence up, is fully fit and gets on the end of a 20 pass move with a bullet header whilst knocking 2-3 defenders out of the path then he's on his way. I think the more games Andy has with Luis and especially when Stevie is back then we'll see the development of a flourishing partnership begin.

Whilst I can appreciate the loose parallel, we don't sign 5 year contracts when we start work and if we don't meet the expectations and benchmarks set by our employers, we are not given the choice to just hang around whilst the company brings in someone else. The retired reference is purely after football. You may not earn as much as when you were supposedly a football player but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from picking up a brick or two or sweeping a street after football. I guess it comes down to actually being a "professional" and to me you become a football playing professional because you have aspirations of achieving the highest accolades. When you are in a physical condition where achieving these accolades may not be attainable, then the decisions crossroads loom large on the horizon for you and you must make your choice. Surely it is a matter of pride... would you choose (as a professional football player) to amass fortunes and achieve f*** all or play for someone (hopefully the team you support) and win as many honours as you can because that is what drives you on for a lesser amount... we don't play football when we are growing up because we want to sit around doing f*** all for 3 years but we have a bank balance that says otherwise, we play because we love the game, we respect the game, we want to leave the game in a better position than when we started playing, we want to create a reputation for ourselves about increasing the good of the game and we want to honour what being a "professional" is all about. Being able to look in the mirror and all that jazz.

Can't cop some of the antics of players today who we lovingly refer to as "deadwood". Apparently there is a slight giveaway in their title.... "football players".... You are not a "football player" if you sit around on your fat a*** doing nothing but collecting pay cheques... and not playing "football"... Seriously, some of these guys should be embarrassed. You are taking the piss when you are earning EVERY WEEK what some people who are PAYING YOUR WAGES earn every 3 years for doing f*** all... I thought the dreams of football players are playing every week, scoring the winning goal for your boyhood team down the supporters end like the Kop or somewhere, captaining your boyhood team, captaining your country, playing in the World Cup, winning World Cup goal... you know winning stuff and PLAYING.... Seems some prefer to do a new PB from collecting the shirts off everyone at training or putting out the witches hats for the 5-a-side at Melwood rather than live up to their title... and actually feel aggrieved that the punters (who are paying this ridiculous wages) are upset that they are still hanging around... can't ever remember playing out that fantasy in my backyard.... only two witches hats to collect and 5 seconds to go... looks like a new personal best.... and IT IS!!!! YES!!!! YYYEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!! Sure, we can all defend them and say "Well if it wasn't for the cancers and if it wasn't for Purslow or Parry or any other x t***" they wouldn't be here but have some f***ing self-respect and respect the club you have signed for. Realise that you have earned a decent wedge, you won't be playing and you probably should go elsewhere because you are a long time retired boys. End rant! YNWA JFT 96

Wesley Schneijder... Let Inter have Raul + Aquilani for Schneijder and $5m .... roughly $20M both ways. Really wanted us to get him when he was leaving Real and he went to Italy for a steal.

Once upon a time there was the Liverpool Way. An aura that was highly coveted by opposition supporters but could never be replicated. A time when we clapped opposition teams and acknowledged inspired bits of footy. A time when the Kop clapped opposition goalkeepers. Knowing that you were passing down the greatest of legacies to your sons, daughters and grandkids in the same traditional ways that they were passed down to you. An insatiable appetite to become a learned scholar of the game. Digesting every shred of footy news. Dissecting every team in detail. Looking at the managers and the tactics they employed. Passion. Knowledgable. Inspirational. Proud. Gracious. Witty. Respectful. Just wanting the lads to give their absolute all every time they pulled on that shirt. The blood red shirt that represents the blood of its people. The acknowledgement between team and fans that they each play an integral role in the success that they taste. This is the Liverpool Way to me.

Proven Premier League player and great finisher... would be a good asset for the team for a season and a half... and would get up the Mancs f***ing noses no end... get him in! Scoring the winner against those f*****s at the Stretford End to send us top would be f***ing brilliant

He's a f***ing OOT anyway... doesn't have purple bins yadda yadda yadda... same as that JC c***...