Issue 64, Spring 2004
By Steve Kelly
Welcome to issue 64, proving that I can pull my finger out when I want to. The delay between 62 and 63 was embarrassing but I’ve become a bit more workmanlike about it all now. I need to put a little distance between supporting the team and writing about the team. I’ve even written an article about it, see ‘I used to be disgusted’. I also swallowed my pride and begged people to write. Many thanks to those who responded. You’ll see one or two new names, and hopefully you’ll be seeing more in the future. I hope to use everything that was sent to me, some of which had to be held back.
I’m writing this the day before Blackburn, where the team in general (and the boss in particular) are in the same old position. Win, and no-one will be too bothered. Lose, and there’ll be the usual uproar. I guess that’s to be expected in a manager’s fifth full season when his team is SO far behind the champions. We could be talking about the biggest gap between ourselves and top spot since the relegation season. And we may still be 4th! An indictment of the belief in some quarters that this season is anything other than a massive failure.
And what do the club intend to do about it? Well, of course money is going to play a big part. Again. They really should have worked it out by now: when finance took over the game, Liverpool slid further and further back. Check the star players in the last ten years, check the bulk of the Treble winning team – Ingenuity, Coaching, Fitness are all the major factors. We can’t buy our way out of this, but of course if at first you don’t succeed……we’ll get it from Morgan or from Thailand, so unless Morgan is under investigation for human rights abuses he has to be the obvious choice.
Looking through the fanzine in general and the diary in particular, it is quite sobering to see some of the references to Houllier. I could have gone back and edited out such words as ‘conman’ ‘bastard’ and ‘fraud’. Even by fanzine standards, that’s close to the bone, but I feel they have to stay. Even the ‘AIDS’ thing and the death threat, though ugly, can be read as some people simply snapping with the frustration of it all. We’re only just past the second anniversary of Gerard’s Roma return – how did things end up in such a sorry state so quickly? It’s possible that this may even be the most unpopular manager of all!
People can blame the style of play, the continual excuses, the barefaced triumphalism about a lame league position that hasn’t even been clinched yet. Despite the cup success, Gerard has only been involved in one title race during his 6 year stay at Anfield – when he was ill. In actual fact, none of the other ‘title races’ went beyond Christmas. In the cold light of day, 2002 looks freakish: a result of exceptional circumstances which will never (I hope) be repeated. After Roma, the Italian press said that we were on drugs. Without dignifying that with a response, you could understand why they thought that. Now, you never see a Liverpool team give everything for 90 minutes.
My contempt for Houllier is almost total, but that’s nothing compared to how I feel about Moores. Gerard is desperately trying to save his own skin, and although his lies are regrettable they are at any rate understandable. Moores has no such excuse. He has the good of LFC, of all of us, in his care – and he has been found wanting. I know I’m paranoid, but I can’t help thinking back to 1999. Things were desperate then too, and Liverpool fans barely murmured as 10% of the club was sold off. Is the same thing about to happen again? With Liverpudlians prepared to turn a blind eye again (as long as the team is okay), what have they got in the pipeline? If it’s cash from Shinawatra, that would be bad enough. If it’s a ground-share with the shite, they will not smooth that through easily.
Moores talks about a European Elite. What, us? European Obsolete, more like. Oh sure, the wages, the transfer fees, the ticket prices, the big talk, the players’ puffed-up sense of their own importance – that’s all top of the range. Performance, passion, excitement, fitness, regard for the fans, ambition? All of those are at an all-time low. You may be reading this before or after the15th Anniversary of Hillsborough, depending on how quickly it’s printed, and I hope you will spare/have spared a moment of reflection for the 96 comrades we lost on that dreadful day. We are told (or were duped into thinking?) that things have vastly improved since then, but they haven’t. For all the smears about late fans in the awful aftermath, they don’t make it any easier. The game with Arsenal was put back to noon on a public holiday - and there was barely a word of surprise. We are still treated like dirt, only know we have our wallets emptied at the same time. Fans have had enough.
Once again there are no book reviews in the fanzine. I feel a bit bad if I have to criticise because I know (on a small scale) how difficult it is to write interesting stuff about football. I can recommend the John Williams book about our ‘efforts’ last season The Liverpool Way. There was a segment that leapt off the page when I reread it last week, a quote from Danny Murphy in March 2003: “If you’re not performing or succeeding, you have to be realistic……certain things are going to change, and that could mean you. There is only way you’re going after Liverpool and that’s down – we are all fighting for our futures”...
I only mention that because Danny has just said virtually the same thing at virtually the same stage of this season! Groundhog Day. It sums up Liverpool 2004: why ‘do’ when you can talk your way out of it instead? It trickles on down from the manager, that we didn’t win because of this that or the other – and that the poor stupid saps who pay your wages will swallow it every single time because they’re fucking soft in the head.
The summer may well prove those ideas to be as bankrupt in truth as they already are in morality. We play Newcastle on the last day, and I just know it will be handled badly. If the manager’s future has not been settled by then, I suspect I will not be the only fan who refuses to sing the name of Gerard Houllier. It could be our last chance to thank him, but unless I know he’s going I won’t take the risk. I will not have my respect for past achievements used as a vote of confidence in his future. It’s up to the chairman to make sure the club does the right thing. By all of us.
From past experience, we’ll all be using the words ‘snowball’ and ‘hell’ when the season ends. Which it can’t do soon enough for me. See most of you in August...
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