Oli Kay today

[Randy Marsh]

Liverpool and Everton Merseyside derby as spiteful as any game in England | Premier League - Times Online

 

The Times

January 19, 2009

Liverpool and Everton Merseyside derby as spiteful as any game in England

 

Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent

It is a global game these days. Some time today a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi will give his envoy the signal to resume talks with AC Milan about a deal to sign Brazil’s finest player on behalf of Manchester City. At the same time Chelsea’s Russian owner claims that he will commence legal action against a newspaper that claimed that he wished to sell the club to the Saudi royal family. And, when the sun rises in Texas and Colorado, Liverpool’s American owners will ponder how to solve a problem like their Spanish manager.

 

For better or, in some cases, for worse, the Premier League is now truly a league of nations, but there is just the odd occasion that calls to mind The League of Gentlemen. The Merseyside derby is a case in point. It is what Tubbs and Edward Tattsyrup, the fiercely insular shopkeepers in the BBC television series, would call “a local match for local people”. If you are an outsider, forget it. As Edward might say, there is nothing for you at Anfield this evening — or indeed on Sunday, when Liverpool and Everton meet again in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

 

As football has gone global, Merseyside football has gone parochial, bitterly, bitterly so. Where once, in the 1980s, Everton and Liverpool supporters revelled in a unique friendly rivalry, these days they cannot stand each other. The atmosphere, once likened to a nauseating love-in, is now as poisonous and as spiteful as any in England. It is not as corrosive as those in Glasgow or in Istanbul or in certain South American cities — yesterday’s match in Montevideo between Nacional and Peñarol ended with 53 arrests and one supporter in intensive care after a shooting — but the friendly derby has given way to the kind of rancorous hostility to which this fixture once proved a welcome antidote.

 

There is a certain revisionism about the “friendly derby”. Some say that it was merely an unfortunate accident that arose from the two clubs dominating English football, enjoying regular trips to Wembley, at a time in the mid-1980s when the Thatcher Government was doing its best to rip the soul out of the city. Revisionists on both sides of Stanley Park look back on the era of Scouse solidarity, the red-and-blue ski-hats and the chants of “Merseyside, Merseyside”, with a mixture of embarrassment and unease. They call it a myth.

 

What changed? Society changed. Football terrace culture changed. There was also the Heysel Stadium disaster — with Everton supporters feeling that their history was changed irrevocably by the riot involving Liverpool fans before the 1985 European Cup final against Juventus, which resulted in 39 deaths and the exclusion of English clubs from European football — but the two clubs were brought closer than ever by the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, in which 96 Liverpool supporters died. While Heysel remains a highly complex issue, it alone does not explain the way that the rivalry has sunk so far into the gutter that even the ultimate taboo, Hillsborough, has been broken while Steven Gerrard and Phil Neville, two of the nicest footballers you could wish to meet, are subjected to vile, hurtful chants about their young offspring.

 

The poisoning of the Merseyside rivalry is one of the most depressing developments of the modern era, but it is a microcosm of what is happening elsewhere. Supporters can sit in safety and comfort in all-seater, smoke-free stadiums without fear of being charged by hooligans, but in another sense the atmosphere is more rancorous than in the 1980s. Where once there were generic threats of violence, which might just occasionally be carried out, these days the idiots compose and belt out horrific and deeply personal chants at individuals. Sticks and stones? Try talking to Gerrard, Neville, Sol Campbell, Arsène Wenger and Mido.

 

Merseyside Police will be out in force this evening, having made clear their intention to clamp down on and eject anyone they find guilty of what they call “criminal chanting”. If the threats from the police have their intended effect, it could be the best thing that has happened to Merseyside football since the 1980s. If they do not — and if the type of poisonous atmosphere, compounded by squabbles with the police, that some fear, is witnessed tonight — you might be advised to avert your gaze and indeed your ears. It is, after all, a local match for local people.

 

And another thing

 

United in skill and desire

 

On a rare Saturday afternoon off, “watching” the Barclays Premier League action unfold on Sky Sports remains a strange experience, yet it did not need the manic wails and whoops in a studio in Isleworth to tell you that Manchester United would score a late winning goal away to Bolton Wanderers. It was the third time in their past seven league matches that they have scored the only goal of the game in the final seven minutes.

 

History will remember Sir Alex Ferguson as a manager who created teams whose class and flair were exceeded only by an unrivalled will to win. The personnel changes, but the spirit and unquenchable desire live on. And that is just one reason why it has become hard to look beyond them as champions for the third successive season. Over to you, Liverpool.

[Randy Marsh]

Cant say that in all the derbys ive been to ive ever heard a chant about Phil Neville's child, mind. Many about the Neville family being inbred, but they've usually been aimed at Gary when we play the mancs.

[aws]

He must mean Carsley's kid.

[Randy Marsh]

The Carsely's kid chants are sick. But they where only ever chanted by a very, very small minority. Never on anything resembling a wide scale. You here 75% of Woodison chanting about Gerrards kid every match, whether we're playing or not.

[Antynwa]

This Carsley's kid chant.

 

I've been at every derby bar this season at Goodison, I've never heard it, honestly.

[Carradona]

This Carsley's kid chant.

 

I've been at every derby bar this season at Goodison, I've never heard it, honestly.

 

Selective hearing.

[Randy Marsh]

This Carsley's kid chant.

 

I've been at every derby bar this season at Goodison, I've never heard it, honestly.

 

Same as me mate. I've heard of it through reading forums but never heard it myself first hand.

[Antynwa]

Selective hearing.

 

I spit down, I'm not even trying to avoid it, I've heard many chants, the Lescott song included, I've heard everything you can throw at me, but I've never heard the Carsley chant.

 

If it was being sung, I would hold my hands up, I've never heard it. It's quite clear though it has been sung, but I've never heard it.

[Scott_M]

This Carsley's kid chant.

 

I've been at every derby bar this season at Goodison, I've never heard it, honestly.

 

 

Same here.

 

I've been to every Derby since 2000 & I've never heard it

[aws]

I've not heard it either but some idiots must have sung it.

[Barrington Womble]

i've never heard it either - what is there to sing about his kids anyway? and who gave a fuck about carsely enough to sing a song about him or his kids?

[dirty_sanchez]

I thought that Gary Neville genuinely did shag his mum up the shitter?

[Stephen Adams.]

Carsley's kid is disabled in some way.

I can't remember exactly what the kid has.

[robslappa]

I can honestly say I've never hear the song about Carsley's kid.

[dirty_sanchez]

Carsley's son has Downs Syndrome I think. It's a disgraceful thing to sing about.

[robslappa]

I thought that Gary Neville genuinely did shag his mum up the shitter?

 

He does. Look at Phil.

[Stephen Adams.]

The stuff sang about Lescott and Yakubu at last year's derby, how bad did that get?

Did it go any further than The Elephant Man and Purple Aki's Twin?

From what I remember, they seemed to make a big deal out of what was being sung about those 2.

[Randy Marsh]

The stuff sang about Lescott and Yakubu at last year's derby, how bad did that get?

Did it go any further than The Elephant Man and Purple Aki's Twin?

From what I remember, they seemed to make a big deal out of what was being sung about those 2.

 

That was it. Hardly X rated stuff in all honesty. No worse than the shouts of "Freak" Crouchy used to get week in week out.

[dirty_sanchez]

Mocking someone's disabled kid is a whole other strata compared to saying someone looks like a Klingon or Purple Aki.

[Stephen Adams.]

No one's comparing it.

[Barrington Womble]

Mocking someone's disabled kid is a whole other strata compared to saying someone looks like a Klingon or Purple Aki.

 

yeah, but has anyone actually heard it sung?

[snez1]

You know what really fucks me off? This "friendly derby" bullshit had been peddled for years after those cunts started singng about Heysel, interuprting a minutes silence for Hillsborough, giving it the Michael Shields and Steven Gerrard sick chants.

 

THEN, when we sing an ironic song "1-0 to murderers" it all gets dragged up into full focus. And journalists then begin to write about how the "Friendly Derby" is no more, but they perpetuate this myth that "both sides are as bad as each other" while not having the bollocks to list the facts:

 

The Lescott chant is basically calling him ugly, is that really on the same level as singing about a potentially innocent scouser "getting bummed" week in week out?

 

Is one knob head spitting on Phil Neville the same as 30,000 blue noses singing "Murderers" every fucking week?

 

Is a barely heard 1 off (fucking sick) chant by a handful of twats about Lee Carsley's kid the same as 30,000 blues singing about Stevie's kid every fucking week?

 

Is it fuck. The shit stuff from our side comes from a vast vast minority and happens on very few occassions, while those cunts sing horrible shit about us week in week out and in their masses and have done for years.

 

I wish one journalist had the bollocks to point out exactly why it's not a friendly derby anymore and who is to blame.

[WaltonRed]

You know what really fucks me off? This "friendly derby" bullshit had been peddled for years after those cunts started singng about Heysel, interuprting a minutes silence for Hillsborough, giving it the Michael Shields and Steven Gerrard sick chants.

 

THEN, when we sing an ironic song "1-0 to murderers" it all gets dragged up into full focus. And journalists then begin to write about how the "Friendly Derby" is no more, but they perpetuate this myth that "both sides are as bad as each other" while not having the bollocks to list the facts:

 

The Lescott chant is basically calling him ugly, is that really on the same level as singing about a potentially innocent scouser "getting bummed" week in week out?

 

Is one knob head spitting on Phil Neville the same as 30,000 blue noses singing "Murderers" every fucking week?

 

Is a barely heard 1 off (fucking sick) chant by a handful of twats about Lee Carsley's kid the same as 30,000 blues singing about Stevie's kid every fucking week?

 

Is it fuck. The shit stuff from our side comes from a vast vast minority and happens on very few occassions, while those cunts sing horrible shit about us week in week out and in their masses and have done for years.

 

I wish one journalist had the bollocks to point out exactly why it's not a friendly derby anymore and who is to blame.

 

Spot on.

[Eldrich]

Any time a blue has said something to me about this chant about Carsleys kid I ask them what does it go like? None of them know coz they've never heard it.

[Guest Ulysses Everett McGill]

Never heard the Carsley chant either