China Crisis and Wishful Thinking - by Jeff Goulding

[tlw content]

Any week that starts with a frustrating draw in London, ends with an international weekend and has a nation's unhealthy obsession with some Scottish bloke's yellow tie sandwiched in the middle is bad enough. But, when you throw in calls, by some, for Klopp to be moved on, after less than a year in charge and just three games into a new season, you know you've reached a new low.
 
Nothing sums up the 'zombification' of football culture more than Sky's attempts to turn transfer activity into bad pantomime. Desperate to fill hours of air-space, the Murdoch empire subjects us to bored and utterly pissed off journalists standing outside rain soaked training grounds clutching umbrellas and telling us to "expect the unexpected," even when they know nothing is is actually happening; God forbid supporters of that particular club should turn over, or talk to their families instead.
 
Then we get the studio anchor pretending to receive calls from agents and practically climaxing when Roy O'Rovers signs for Skegness bleeding City on a free contract. It's all fairly moronic stuff, epitomised by the sight of grown men and women clapping like seals, on cue, in the background while broadcast journalists report that some kid, who's half decent at footy, just added a few more millions to his bank balance, as if they're announcing a Royal birth on the BBC.
 
What's worse is the swings in mood it causes. No longer interested in whether their club is signing a player they actually need, supporters become gripped with the fear that they are being outspent by their rivals. Despite my moaning, even I have to admit that, at times, I become depressed about Liverpool's 'net spend'. What is happening to me? I'm worried I've been bitten, and I might be starting to turn. If I do, remember, aim for the head.
 
Don't get me wrong, I might be losing my love for the game, but it will always be hard to give up on Liverpool Football Club. Even after all the crap they've put me through in recent years, like selling the club to a couple of snake oil salesmen from the States, sacking Rafa, then Dalglish and finally appointing Roy Hodgson, my ardour is far from dulled.
 
I still adore this club, even though they recently dangled a league title before my eyes, only to snatch it away just as my hands were about to grasp it. I didn't even ask for a divorce when they put Christian Purslow in charge of building a relationship with the supporters. Trouble is I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm in love with anymore.
 
Is it the new Main Stand? Surely bricks and mortar don't win titles, do they? What about the Liver Bird upon the chest? That's just a brand now, isn't it? After all the club attempted to copyright it once, didn't they?. What about the players, or the manager? Well maybe, if only they stayed around long enough for me to build up a relationship with them. As demonstrated so vividly on telly this week, football has abandoned the notion of the one club player, and now worships at an altar made entirely of stepping stones. Football is a soulless and vacuous place these days.
 
Maybe it's the supporters, the flags and the banners. Could it be the songs we sing. Is that now all that's left of Liverpool Football Club? It might be, and let's face it that's not bad. Problem is how long will all that be part of the club? I live in hope that a charismatic guy from Germany, called Jurgen Norbett Klopp, can recapture some of the magic cooked up by Shankly and The Kop in the 60's, but even he may be powerless in the face of rampant commercialisation. Boss Tha'.
 
Of course we've also had talk of takeovers thrown into the cauldron this week. Pots of cash have been waved before the eyes of mesmerised supporters, desperate for glory and, above all, an increase in our net spend. Those yelling "FFS sake sign someone" into their keyboards on Wednesday, were given renewed hope as stories of a Chinese buy out refused to go away.
 
Reds are not alone. This is part of a wider football malaise. Even our neighbours, from across the park, are so sick of dining on crumbs, that they have welcomed with open arm an Iranian Billionaire, and live in hope that a Russian Oligarch will follow him. It hasn't got off to a great start and the new saviour's excuse for a deadline day debacle reached comical proportions on Thursday. Not so much the 'people's club' as the patsy club.
 
But who are we to point the finger? Are our supporters any different?
 
I don't know what to make of it all anymore to be honest. I admit to being a little bi-polar or, as some might put it, hypocritical about the whole thing. On the one hand I couldn't see me refusing to drink the town dry if we bought the league, after becoming the richest club on the planet, but the hangover might feel a bit more fierce. I'd probably be a bit excited if Jim White screamed, bug eyed, into camera one, that Liverpool had just completed the signing of Leo Messi; but surely that would make us no better than Chelsea, City and all the rest, wouldn't it?
 
The club I have felt intrinsically linked to for so long, part of my culture, unique and special, would now be no more than a money laundering operation for a distant bureaucracy, with a questionable human rights record. Of course, when the alternative on offer is to be controlled by venture capitalists or oligarchs, it's a sort of 'Hobson's choice' for me. So I guess, when it comes to my club, it's not so much a case of 'China Crisis,' but existential crisis.
 
Today I find myself longing for a day when the community that gave birth to the phenomena that is Liverpool F.C, and had has sustained it over more than a century, through the lean times and the days of glory, has a significant stake in the object of their affection. If only they could be seen as more than a means of keeping the enterprise afloat long enough to traffic it on to the next buyer, who just does the same thing again. Round and round it goes, where will it stop? If only I knew.
 
As talk of new investment, or even an outright takeover, gathers pace, I find myself less than enthralled. Maybe this is the new reality. Perhaps I'm living in the past. Actually I probably am, but the game feels like it's losing its sparkle for me. Surely it doesn't have to be this way, or is that just wishful thinking? It probably is.
 

Jeff Goulding

@ShanklysBoys1

[jimmycase]

Excellent article. Couldnt agree more.

[an tha]

fact is football sold it's soul and to get to the top of what it has become now you have to sell your soul as a club...

 

we can sit here and sneer at chelsea and man city for being noveau rich 'having no history' etc....but they are collecting titles and does anyone really care how they do it? Sadly in reality only the likes of us who are winning fuck all do, so we belittle their titles and sneer - they are the ones laughing really because they are winning...they are growing whilst we hold on to our history and get less relevant every passing year..

 

It is horrible to have to say it but we will almost certainly have to sell our souls to start winning again - or we stay being 'better' than that and continue to look on and sneer whilst a whole generation who know no different to what the game is today laugh at us/consider us an irrelevance.

 

I'll bet you most fans under 30 don't care about City and Chelsea being plastic big clubs or nouveau rich or whatever else us arl arses in our 40's say about them....they just count the trophies and enjoy their clubs success.

 

Football isn't what it was - it is a vulgar version of it's former self but it is what it is, I hate it but I love us and I want us to win again which means if we have to do what we sneer at then fuck it so be it - if we don't somebody else will and whilst we stand sneering at them they will just point to their trophies...

 

Liverpool football club exists to win trophies and sadly today the way to win them is to play the horrible, vulgar business football has become.

 

We often have a pop at Everton fans for their attitude towards us and the way they hold on to and push all this peoples club, born etc. shite - we act in the same way really about city and chelsea and even man utd - it manifests itself slightly differently but it is the same thing basically.

[johnsusername]

I stopped watching other footy teams a few years ago.

 

Is it just me who hates the phrase "Boss Tha"?

[kemskem]

Personally hope we're at least competing again before success is quaranteed by a wealthy owner, because if we're not... The shame of it, really. Well, it really would be a shame if the future successes of this great club felt hollow because we'd done a Chelsea or City and, like them, basically came from nowhere.

[Section_31]

We already sold our souls, we just don't win anything.

 

The last person involved with the club who gave a shit about it was simple Simon Moores, and he was led astray by Parry's forked tongue.

[jimmycase]

Moores is the very reason the club is where it is now. He wouldnt recognise the change in football. He was a canute trying to hold back the tide. He was the dinosaur who didnt see the Chixalub asteroid coming in. He was the 1950's shopkeeper trying to send the supermarkets into oblivion.

 

Think about this. We were the first English club to wear shirt sponsorship. We were so much in favour of this groundbreaking move we happily turned down numerous requests by BBC and ITV to change to an unsponsored shirts so they could show edited highlights of our games on their flagship footbal programmes. Why? because we got 50 grand a season from hitachi to have their name emblazened on our shirts.

 

And then that was the fucking lot. We took the lead off the field then did fuck all about it.

 

Like lots of others, I hate the way football is, I hate it that mega rich people who can do what they want have done what they want with 'our' game. They've taken it from us because they can. Rich wants, rich gets.

 

I maintain the FA should have crushed abramovich when he started the act at chelsea. He was the first of the modern era mega rich who moved into football and didnt just buy success, he bought up other players he didnt need to prevent his competitors getting them and strengthening their teams.

 

Im fucked if I know what the answer for us is now. Do we need to accept only a mega owner is going to get us back to title winning again because in doing so, Im pretty certain our club wont be our club any more (I know some already think that but I dont think we're there yet).

 

Or do we hope Klopp can at least sprinkle some fairy dust and a fair wind to get us there? The old addage my mum used to say rattles around my head about this. Be very careful what you wish for, she used to say.

[setreal]

Is it just me who hates the phrase "Boss Tha"?

 

Yes, it makes me cringe because in the original clip Klopp is completely unaware how to pronounce it or even what these two words are in that context.

[Moo]

Even with a fair wind and fairy dust I think Klopp can only take us so far. Even if he gets us a title we wouldn't dominate, I don't think anyone will while there's 3 mega-rich clubs in this league. So can he even get us one title, say every four years? And if he can, after 8 years and two titles what happens then if he decides it's time to move on?

No, I've long since accepted that to get to the top and stay there challenging will require serious amounts of money.

[ZonkoVille77]

That's a great article. Sums up a lot of my feelings. I hate football more and more as the years go by. It's a sham sport now at pro level.

[Pureblood]

Leicester

[lifetime fan]

We already sold our souls, we just don't win anything.

 

The last person involved with the club who gave a shit about it was simple Simon Moores, and he was led astray by Parry's forked tongue.

 

 

?

[Moo]

Leicester

But can they sustain it?

We'd all bask in the glory of a first title in 26+ years but when the dust settles we'd soon start asking "Are we going to do it again this year? Next year?" In order to satisfy and maintain it's support LFC needs to be challenging every year.

[Moo]

?

I think it goes with the preceeding "simple".

[Pureblood]

But can they sustain it?

 

 

Do they need to?  

[JoeBuck]

Moores is the very reason the club is where it is now. He wouldnt recognise the change in football. He was a canute trying to hold back the tide. He was the dinosaur who didnt see the Chixalub asteroid coming in. He was the 1950's shopkeeper trying to send the supermarkets into oblivion.

 

Think about this. We were the first English club to wear shirt sponsorship. We were so much in favour of this groundbreaking move we happily turned down numerous requests by BBC and ITV to change to an unsponsored shirts so they could show edited highlights of our games on their flagship footbal programmes. Why? because we got 50 grand a season from hitachi to have their name emblazened on our shirts.

 

And then that was the fucking lot. We took the lead off the field then did fuck all about it.

 

Like lots of others, I hate the way football is, I hate it that mega rich people who can do what they want have done what they want with 'our' game. They've taken it from us because they can. Rich wants, rich gets.

 

I maintain the FA should have crushed abramovich when he started the act at chelsea. He was the first of the modern era mega rich who moved into football and didnt just buy success, he bought up other players he didnt need to prevent his competitors getting them and strengthening their teams.

 

Im fucked if I know what the answer for us is now. Do we need to accept only a mega owner is going to get us back to title winning again because in doing so, Im pretty certain our club wont be our club any more (I know some already think that but I dont think we're there yet).

 

Or do we hope Klopp can at least sprinkle some fairy dust and a fair wind to get us there? The old addage my mum used to say rattles around my head about this. Be very careful what you wish for, she used to say.

[JoeBuck]

Great article. There's always been clubs richer than others - Sunderland in the 50s, Everton in the 60s because of the Moores family, Southampton in the early 80s which allowed them to make exotic signings, Blackburn in the 90s, Chelsea in the 00s etc.

 

From an old grump like me, I love modern football. Watch most away Lfc games on TV and other big matches, nostalgic football programmes on Sky etc, that smell of the turf at an October night game, the League Cup, George, the old songs at away games, being able to afford to watch your Club in Europe, great foreign managers and players who understand and love our Club, the Bovril still served in the Kemmy etc.

 

If you don't like it anymore, fine, give up your ticket to someone who does, and enjoy your Saturday afternoons on the golf course.

[VladimirIlyich]

 

Moores is the very reason the club is where it is now. He wouldnt recognise the change in football. He was a canute trying to hold back the tide. He was the dinosaur who didnt see the Chixalub asteroid coming in. He was the 1950's shopkeeper trying to send the supermarkets into oblivion.

 

Think about this. We were the first English club to wear shirt sponsorship. We were so much in favour of this groundbreaking move we happily turned down numerous requests by BBC and ITV to change to an unsponsored shirts so they could show edited highlights of our games on their flagship footbal programmes. Why? because we got 50 grand a season from hitachi to have their name emblazened on our shirts.

 

And then that was the fucking lot. We took the lead off the field then did fuck all about it.

 

Like lots of others, I hate the way football is, I hate it that mega rich people who can do what they want have done what they want with 'our' game. They've taken it from us because they can. Rich wants, rich gets.

 

I maintain the FA should have crushed abramovich when he started the act at chelsea. He was the first of the modern era mega rich who moved into football and didnt just buy success, he bought up other players he didnt need to prevent his competitors getting them and strengthening their teams.

 

Im fucked if I know what the answer for us is now. Do we need to accept only a mega owner is going to get us back to title winning again because in doing so, Im pretty certain our club wont be our club any more (I know some already think that but I dont think we're there yet).

 

Or do we hope Klopp can at least sprinkle some fairy dust and a fair wind to get us there? The old addage my mum used to say rattles around my head about this. Be very careful what you wish for, she used to say.

Jack Walker?

[SlugTrail]

Jack Walker?

Johnnie Walker.

[SammyAftershave]

[Horus]

I've always thought that mocking SSN for their deadline day inane bullshit is like picking the most cliched of all the low hanging fruit. The main issue for fans and our love of the game is our transition from a behemoth of a club with the ability to do the impossible, into an also ran best-of-the-rest 2nd tier club, with the ability to do the impossible. In short, it's the hope that kills ya.

 

We're the sick lion being mocked by the jackals of chelsea, and patronised by the hyenas of Fanchester, and all we've got left is the fact that were Liverpool once.

 

There is no way to compete over a season with clubs that can spend a quarter of a billion pounds every summer, regardless of all the cries that we just need to be smarter, have more passion, or any  other of the multitude of meaningless statements, solely designed to string us along as we spend our hard earned cash.

 

Unless we have owners that can give us a leg up, or a freak recruitment year/crop of youngsters, then a title for us is probably not going to happen again.