Issue 65, Summer 2004
By Steve Kelly
And off we go again. Usual crap out of the way first. After pleading poverty for contributions on the forum, I of course ended up with far more than I needed. Most if not all will be used in the next one. I dumped a four-page article of my own if that’s any consolation! I want to get 66 out sooner rather than later, but you know it’s a stuck record and we could be talking about November here.
There are also one or two surprising omissions. The Scum’s so-called apology has been mentioned in one or two articles, but I confess their barefaced effrontery never ceases to take me by surprise. I can get quite paranoid, and even now I’m beginning to think their snapping up of Merseyside’s latest superstar was designed solely to wind us all up and twist the knife deeper still. Good for those blues who criticised Rooney just as much as we did, by the way. I’m not sure if long articles about the evil of the Scum make much sense in this fanzine, since if you bought this I assume you can read and so what would you want with that shithouse rag in the first place? How to get the club to assist us in educating newer/younger fans about the subject? Well, that’s not so easy. The club should really be taking a more hands-on approach with regards to the growing ‘Shipman’ menace, but they never did for Munich so why should they start now? It’s left to us to fend for ourselves – as usual.
People will also search in vain for the Houllier retrospective from yours truly, although plenty of others have had their say. It’s a subject that I got into so much in the recent diaries – where he was taking us, what he was saying etc etc – that I feel a little burned out on it. There is also the small matter of guilt, which I also suffered in the immediate aftermath of Evans’ departure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going soft in my old age. This is our club and no matter what you may think of the manager as a person (and I wasn’t fussed, obviously) it’s how he does the job that matters and all diplomacy is useless. Harsh things (if true) have to be said, but I’ve often gone too far and regretted it later. In time, I will be glad Gerard was at this club and grateful for everything he got right. At the moment, I’m still acutely aware of a small trace of bitterness inside me that it took everyone so long to see through him. I will write that piece this season – I believe psychiatrists call it “closure”! – but not right now. Just like with Roy, if his successor starts to get us back on track we can let the recent past fade away and remember the good times instead.
I think Parry has come of age with the Benitez appointment. I’m still not happy about Stanley Park and kowtowing to Thailand made me sick to my stomach, but if we once looked to Peter Robinson for guidance and ingenuity maybe we can forget him now? It helped that Rafa wanted to come here (the rumour merchants claim he was sounding us out for months beforehand) but it has given everyone a massive boost at a time when the rest of football might have been waiting for us to slink into a corner somewhere and die quietly. How little they know us. On a top 5 coaches list to replace Gerard, he would have been on it. Definitely. That said, the last time we were this tingly about a new boss was in 1991 – so don’t say you weren’t warned!
All of that renewed zest for football nearly evaporated when Gerrard and Owen started playing silly beggars. It is speculation like this that will be death of football clubs like this one. I know most fans around the world will say “especially us” because everyone thinks they’re special, but even as a neutral I would hope to be able to say that another club had a special affinity with its fans - and we’re one of them. Or we ought to be. When players gaze lovingly at pastures new (richer, better prospects, brighter lights bigger cities etc etc) how can you get behind them 100% when you know they don’t even begin to feel the same way back? Since money took over the game, fans have hypnotised themselves in a way. They won’t look at anything too closely, because if they did it would all look like a hollow, heartless sham. Everyone on the outside says “ah well, that’s the way things are nowadays” “that’s the reality of the situation” – but we carry on in our own dream world refusing to see the greedy gets for what they really are. Does it honestly take Michael Owen 12 months to sign his name? I knew he wasn’t one of the brightest, but that’s a new one on me.
The new ground has come a little bit closer, and I just wonder if some Reds (mostly of my generation or older) will see that as the last straw? Football has always been at its ugliest when immersed with politics, and somehow I don’t see the club getting a smooth ride on this. Those who oppose the move find themselves in the same camp as attention-seeking gasbags and batty old spinsters who need somewhere for their numerous dogs to shit. And if that doesn’t put you off, then let’s try a little groundshare hysteria to get everyone back on board. Since that is seen as the skin-peeling hell to end them all, some Reds quite rightly quiver at the thought of losing our independence. Let’s face it, tied to that creaking shambles over the way we’d most likely get dragged down with them.
It’s always the same argument: we need the new ground for £££ and we need the Thais for ££££ and we must let Sky fuck us about for ££££££. Yeah, right. For a dozen years or more Liverpool have spent and spent – and for what? To finish further behind the leaders than we’ve ever done, to lose track of everything that made us great in the first place. A number of individuals, meanwhile, are becoming fabulously, obscenely wealthy in the process – but keep shovelling the cash onto the flames because that’s what will ‘eventually’ work in the end. Cretinous beyond belief, really.
I’ve been asked for years where the end of my tether is. I’ve always written like I’m on the verge of exploding, so because I’ve done it for ages people assume that it’s a mechanism, a spur to write better (or at all, really). Well, yes and no. I do a weekly column for a paper in Ireland, and the money’s nice. Can’t say the same for the fanzine, since its popularity has dwindled quite badly over the years. Part of me really enjoys getting things off my chest, part of me doesn’t see the point because the same old problems never get solved. I’ll keep on going for this season and see what happens. If I had an ounce of ambition or energy, I’d write the damn book I always said I would! I kept waiting for the call from Gerard to ghostwrite his autobiography. Maybe he’s forgotten my number...
Anyway, I’ll let you get on with the rest of the mag. ‘Enjoy’.
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