Losing My Religion?

[Timão]

I had a season ticket from the age of eight up until last year, aged 30. Up until I was 28 I'd never missed a home game and gone the length and breadth of Britain to watch us play. And it cost me a fucking fortune.

 

I never got to go to Istanbul as I was away in Germany the night of the final. So when we got to Athens I broke my neck to get a ticket, only to find myself fighting against Rick and his numbers game. In the end I was on the verge of selling my flight I'd payed £500 for when out of the blue I got a ticket, that cost me way over the asking price.

 

That made me realise that Liverpool FC do not give a fuck about the man on the street. It's not just Liverpool FC, it's every club out there, but with LFC you always felt like the club wanted you. Football itself has changed dramatically for the worst. It's a cash hungry bastard that would get rid of us all for 15,000 corporate boxes in every stadium.

 

I done one more season before giving my ticket to my younger cousin for a year. I decided that I'd loan it incase I wanted it back for this year, after all I'd gone 20 years with going the game and dreaded the fact if I gave it away permanently I may not ever get it back.

 

Have I missed it? No. Why? Because football isn't the game I fell in love with 25 years ago. Looking from the outside I can appreciate why people do it, why they travel the length of the country to part with £300 for a day at Anfield with the wife and two kids. It's because they have the same hunger I did as a kid and young man.

 

But now? I never even bothered to call my cousin and tell him I wanted it back. Now I know some people will call me a cunt because I gave up what some can only dream of, but I'm sick to death of being treated like shite by a club whose morals have gone out the window. Some may call it natural progression to squeeze as much money out of the fans as they can, but when you see players like Degen taking home £35k+ a week more, you have to wonder if we're being taken the piss out of.

 

It may be me becoming an arl get who just wants to moan about it all, but I'm like my dad. He was a blue season ticket holder for years and one day, stopped. I couldn't get over it and asked him why. His reply; "I am not working my bollocks off all week and scrimping and saving all year to watch 22 uninterested millionaires kick a ball around a park for 90 minutes." The man's got a point.

 

Great post, this.

 

I had a season ticket for the best part of 20 years and been going for more than 25.

 

I still love football as a sport and a spectacle but I HATE its current mutated form and not just since this season.

 

LFC looks nothing like the club I fell in love with, either on or off the pitch. I hate the owners, and I hate the way we play.

 

HOWEVER, I do not find it easy to miss games, still. I left after the 2006/07 season and I still miss going to the game, for the social side of it. I know so many people from the match and I miss having a beer with them and a good moan. I was over for the Birmingham match this season and there were all still there and we a had a great time. I miss that and it is totally linked to Liverpool FC as it is that we have in common.

 

I just want my club back, personally at this moment I could not care less in what division or which players. I just want the club to be properly run, to show SOME concern for fans and to play some watcheable football. Everything else does not matter to me at this time.

 

Since I am in Rio I can obviously not go to the match but if I was in the UK I would probably still go to most. Habbit. stupidity and a feeling that I wont be the rat the leaves the sinking ship. All sorts of emotions.

 

Never thought I would ever have these doubts and I hate the current custodians more than anything because they have taken the club so far away from me.

[Randy Marsh]

Nail on head, absolutely fantastic post and sums up alot of my feelings. Sadly I cant rep you but you deserve it.

 

I started going regular around the same time, first season ticket on Kop 95/96, Collymore's first game against Sheff Wed. Think I was 7.

 

Spent fortunes on the club, attended 95% of home games over the past 15 years, league and cup, and always do my best to attend a fair few aways every year too. The aways have been hampered slightly since moving away to Uni, but I still make it back for the homes, spending a massive wedge of my allowance on the train fare home and everything else it entails. My home visits are scheduled around our home games.

 

This isn't a thread for discussing the rights and wrongs, pro or anti Rafa, there is enough of that in every other thread. A combination of all factors has lead me to feeling just, I dunno, just shit I suppose. Shit about everything to do with the club, top to bottom. There is no heart or passion for the fight, nothing. The club is broken right the way through. The owners are the root cause of all the evil in this club, and the broken regime has filtered down now, through to the management, the players, the fanbase.

 

Had some great times following us, Istanbul, Cardiff etc, and as you rightly highlighted some real low points such as the scum element who infiltrated "the 12th man" in Athens. And I'm sure I'll have some great times again, maybe a few days in Hamburg can offer our season atleast some salvation. That's all I'm holding out for.

 

On RAOTL a lad reckons Carragher and Gerrard are sorting a whip round to pay back the ticket fees to all the people who travelled last night. If that's true, then that's a nice gesture and the very least the poor bastards who suffered that deserve. It's sad that the players feel the need to do that in the first place, but still, if true, a good gesture.

 

Champions League, race for 4th, I'm not arsed. I am getting to the stage now where occasions like last night just don't suprise me any more. There is no anger, no real getting upset, I just feel numb. And the fact I no longer get upset is probably the most upsetting thing of all.

[Lucky Pierre]

I don't even like watching us, I prefer the coach journey and the laugh you have on them

 

Deffo, mate. Or the train journey there. I've lost count of how many times I've said 'good day out, but the match was shite'!

I sat thinking about this last night. Is it worth the stupid amount of money I must have spent? The answer's yes though. Although the football's horrible, I've made a few mates on the coaches there, and it's always a laugh. Even when we got smashed by Fulham, we had a disco on the way home and the aisle in the bus was sticky with the amount of ale spilt. Last season it was brilliant getting wins away aswell, Fulham, West Ham and West Brom to name a few.

I've been to every home game bar none this season and last season, and only missed 3 the season before. But I reckon come next season, unless I find a well paid job, I will more than likely jib the home games and concentrate on the aways.

[Whelan]

On RAOTL a lad reckons Carragher and Gerrard are sorting a whip round to pay back the ticket fees to all the people who travelled last night. If that's true, then that's a nice gesture and the very least the poor bastards who suffered that deserve. It's sad that the players feel the need to do that in the first place, but still, if true, a good gesture.

.

 

Can't agree sorry, great post overall but if they did do that in bold it would piss me off even more!

 

I watched two players put the kind of performance in last night that I thought ended with Diouf and Cherou! I want it on the pitch, why was last night any different than say Portsmouth?

 

I thought Carragher was just poor.

 

If that is a true it sounds like a load of scouse solidarity bollocks.

[Section_31]

It's a strange time for football. Money has improved the game no doubt, but it's passed a tipping point and has ruined the spirit of it. The premiership is dominated by a few extremely wealthy clubs while others list on the verge of bankruptcy. Plus there's a generation of players who didn't grow up playing footy on the streets for fun, but got dragged down the academy by their ear with the promise of wealth in store.

 

Add to this the problems facing Liverpool, which in many ways are an extreme microcosm of what football itself is heading for, and it's all rather depressing.

 

You don't realise how souless footy is these days until you go along to a lower league match and hear the crowd shout and sing, players go in for a tackle and get covered in mud, and see managers shouting and screaming with red-faced passion on the sidelines.

[Lucky Pierre]

Can't agree sorry, great post overall but if they did do that in bold it would piss me off even more!

No, because at least it shows they care. Gerrard last night looked like he cared just as much as I care what goes into a pork pie. I've said in the past that if the players put in a really dire performance then fans should be refunded. Last night was one of the worst and maybe the players are really realising it now.

[Jarvinja Ilnow]

The person I most feel sorry for is my girlfriend, who has to put up with me after our matches these days

[WaltonRed]

Can I have your season ticket then?

[WaltonRed]

I've been through worse with the club, the club has been through much worse than this as well.

 

We'll be back boys, have faith in the club, the badge, the history.

 

We'll come good again, I know it.

 

When I was on a coach back from Southampton after being knocked out the league cup by them under Houllier I never dreamt we'd win the European cup a few years later.

 

Its a funny old game as they say.

 

KEEP THE FAITH

[Hooch]

Great Post that mate, I think it's a general feeling thats been building up in a lot of us. I think the fact we are shit this season and have lost 9 games does play a part in this psyche though.

 

If we start giving up on football, as money orientated and souless as it is, Liverpool Football Club will fade away. The likes of Everton, Villa, Totenham, big teams with hungry managers, hungry players and hungry fans are smelling blood with us. It would break my heart to see us fall behind these and become a bonafide mid-table team (or even worse?), but it seems like a very possible and very real danger now.

 

Our club more than any other probably in the world relies on it's fans for support, guidance even, and the will and hunger to win that spreads to the players on the pitch. We've got to stick together through these tough times. That said I don't begrudge the people who are fed up/ have given up ST's. It's very understandable and your right to. I just worry about where this club could be heading.

[cestrianred]

I've learnt as I get older to give it 24 hours and then see how you feel.

 

And following my own advice today?

I'm as fed up as last Night!!

I've reached my tipping point with Rafa who I've defended vigorously over & over before, but something's wrong wheh you're beaten by Portsmouth, Wigan, Reading and don't get a shot on goal of note away at Wolves.

 

I've discussed (by chance) today the attractions of fishing & golf (on a municipal!) with people and seriously thought it may be a better use of my available budget from the Summer.

Added to which I hate how foull my mood is with the current situation, it gets taken out on the Mrs and the dogs by default!

 

I remember the Souness era, Ged's last year and everything back to 71, but I feel very detached and more focussed on priorities ahead.

I wish to God something would happen to change me...and fast!

 

And lastly, Walton Red PM me your details-there could be 2 season tickets available next season at this rate.

[DPW]

A thread like this comes up on here every couple of months or so and they always interest me. Here is my take on it (apologies if it goes on a bit!)

 

In the 90's I never missed a second on TV or Radio (young lad, student and all that). In the 00's I went to the vast majority of home games and as many aways as I could (now a working man!). I booked days off to coincide with days of sale and spent most of my disposable income on going to the match (and spare time on the phone line). I spent thousands going to Istanbul and Athens (got lucky with tickets through the club both times) and even on the flip some went to some pretty dire mid week FA cup replays all over the land

 

I wouldnt have classed myself a 'super fan' but I was definitely dedicated to the cause.

 

My love for the game strangely started to wane following Istanbul. That whole experience was easily one of the biggest thrills of my life and one of the most memorable (and expensive). But for some reason that night was the last where I felt dedicated to the cause and it took a long time for me to pin point why.

 

The problem I now have is trying to find the reasons to pin point why I was so dedicated to the cause in the first place!

 

Im fed up with football in general which includes stupidly expensively ticket prices (and petrol prices for that), inept half arsed performances by extremely over paid average players, shite atmosphere, Sky, Richard Keys, Sky Sports News (a player being injured is not bigger news than a club going under), run of the mill cliche ridden press conferences and interviews, the game being totally saturated and pushed down your throat at every opportunity, etc etc etc

 

With regards to Liverpool, it is now 'they' instead of 'we'. The way fans got treated prior, during and following the Athens experience was the final straw for me. It was disgusting. Whatsmore I cant be arsed with the Americans, Rafa, the Ticket Office and so on.

 

It annoys me intently (and this is not a dig at anyone on here) when some fans moan about the club. If you dont like it, dont go, simple! Ive not been for a couple of years and have no intention of doing so in the near or distant future.

 

Im more than happy just watching Liverpool on TV (I never ever thought I would say that) and to be honest I dont watch half as much football in general as I used to.

 

Ive been on the season ticket waiting list for about 15 years, (well at least I think I am, no way was I paying 30 quid to go on a separate list just to please the club) and to be honest I dont think I'll take it should I ever get offered one. I was a PTS member but didnt renew it for one reason or another, I thought at the time I would be really bothered, but looking back Im glad I saved my money.

 

Anyhow, their are many more wrongs I'd like to put right in modern day football, but its time for me to go and do the one thing I still enjoy about it, playing!

[Faustus]

I've been through worse with the club, the club has been through much worse than this as well.

 

We'll be back boys, have faith in the club, the badge, the history.

 

We'll come good again, I know it.

 

When I was on a coach back from Southampton after being knocked out the league cup by them under Houllier I never dreamt we'd win the European cup a few years later.

 

Its a funny old game as they say.

 

KEEP THE FAITH

 

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick with regards to what I'm trying to say, Mick. It's not about 'KEEPING THE FAITH' or going on about when we'll be back, because we more than likely will. Look at Leeds fans for instance, in their state, they've always maintained the belief that they'll be back and it looks like they will in a few years. Same with us. I've got no doubt we'll be back one day and even win the League again in the future.

 

It's got nothing to do with us playing shite at the moment. I even felt this way last season for the most part of it when we challenging for the League. It was only really the last 3 months that roused me from my maliase because basically I saw everything I want in a Liverpool team- passion, pride, commitment, heart and the bollocks for a fight. Every single player did his utmost for the shirt during that spell. It was fucking great to see.

 

What I'm trying to say is the way football's going, more than anything else. I still enjoy it as a spectacle and love the club (and I never will stop loving it), but I've just been really disillusioned with a whole lot of things.

 

And as for the season ticket- we'll talk if I can sort something out with Canada!

[razor]

I've been through worse with the club, the club has been through much worse than this as well.

 

Agreed.

 

I like your original post, and honestly, it could have been written by me in the early 90s.

 

It's all cyclical.

 

It's in you. And there ain't nothing you can do about it.

 

(that was supposed to be a comfort not a threat, though judging by Monday night....)

[Faustus]

Agreed.

 

I like your original post, and honestly, it could have been written by me in the early 90s.

 

It's all cyclical.

 

It's in you. And there ain't nothing you can do about it.

(that was supposed to be a comfort not a threat, though judging by Monday night....)

 

That's deffo true. I could never turn my back on the team. I just couldn't. It's the worst of all drugs. Just that I don't think I'll ever feel the way I used to about football as a whole or properly be able to warm to any of our own players again.

[kidney]

Apologies if this should be anywhere else in another thread, but I don't really think it's appropriate to the after match thread. This is something I've been meaning to write for a while and I suppose last night's abject display has gave me the shot in the arm I needed.

 

I've been going the match regularly since 1996 when I was 8 and I don't think I've ever felt as detached as I do now. I suppose it's a combination of things- the wretched anti-football we play week in week out, the Americans at the top sucking the club dry, the fact that very few players seem to care about the club, the constant political battles between the management and the board, the petty squabbles between supporters over things like whether Rafa's the right man for the job and locality and, generally, the way football as a whole is going. The fact that, providing we stay in the UEFA Cup, we won't have a Saturday game from now until the end of the season speaks volumes to me..........

 

Went to Anfield in 1966 and have been going ever since, but whats happening to us now, beggars belief!

ffs those players raked in over half a million quid wages between them last night and thats what they served up.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

If i performed like that in my job I would be sacked on the spot.

Rafa looked totally clueless (even bewildered) after the game...

 

 

 

Please do the decent thing............

[Randy Marsh]

From top to bottom, this club is infested with uncertainty. There are 3 massive factors which are going to map out our future

 

The Ownership

 

The Stadium

 

The Debt

 

Until these 3 are sorted, things will not improve. On or off the pitch. Fact.

 

It sickens me that for the best part of a decade, the issue of ownership and a new stadium is one that is still unresolved. Absolutely sickens me. The fans have nothing to cling to, the uncertainty is a cancer which has brought us to our knees and people quite understandably are now having enough. That's why alot of us feel numb instead of angry or upset, we've seen it all before. How the fuck has it came to this?

[Paul]

I could put up with it all if we just played with a bit of passion. It's the supine, abject, sterile shite that gets served up every week that's so utterly demoralising. My own passion isn't dead though. I was fucking steaming last night watching them. I'm sick of seeing these multi-millionaires mis-control the ball or gives it away or fail to show for a pass or close an opponent down. Fuckers don't deserve what they've got.

 

In a weird way, this season has been good for my match-going as I've been to way more games due to the better availability of tickets - no-one wants them any more and who can blame them? I just take the view that when I can get them, I've got to go. Doesn't mean I've enjoyed it, mind you.

[coachpotato]

Every post on this thread should be sent to the Club and RBS.

That way they might start to realise that unless they get the club out of the mess it's in on and off the field, there'll be no club for them to leech money and support from.

Some great and sad feelings in this, from people who deserve much better for their loyalty and faith.

[Ginny]

This thread is like therapy!

[CityofLiverpool]

Great post mate, great post. I feel you. I will be spending the 2010-2011 season in Liverpool doing my masters, and I'm not sure if I'd skip studies to attend Europea League matches.

[Paul]

From top to bottom, this club is infested with uncertainty. There are 3 massive factors which are going to map out our future

 

The Ownership

 

The Stadium

 

The Debt

 

Until these 3 are sorted, things will not improve. On or off the pitch. Fact.

 

It sickens me that for the best part of a decade, the issue of ownership and a new stadium is one that is still unresolved. Absolutely sickens me. The fans have nothing to cling to, the uncertainty is a cancer which has brought us to our knees and people quite understandably are now having enough. That's why alot of us feel numb instead of angry or upset, we've seen it all before. How the fuck has it came to this?

I agree that those are all massive problems, but there's no way that this is the best we can expect; no way in the world. Dave made the point in his match reaction that Everton and Wigan, on budgets that are dwarfed by ours, play much better football, not to mention spirit. Well if there are managers around who can get inferior players producing better stuff than us, it seems obvious that they could do better with our lot.

 

As I've said elsewhere, for me Rafa's two biggest flaws lie in the two most important qualities a manager must have: the ability to sign the right players and subsequently the ability to get inside their heads to make them believe in themselves, thereby getting the best out of them. Rafa can't do either for us any more (if he ever could).

[Captain]

Im more than happy just watching Liverpool on TV (I never ever thought I would say that) and to be honest I dont watch half as much football in general as I used to.

 

I only used to watch our games on tv as I live in Norway. Not anymore. I quit my tv subscription for the PL in the summer. I don't buy shirts or any other merchandise.

 

To top it off I go to fewer and fewer games here in Oslo. The football is shit (always has been) and ticket prices have become extortionate.

 

In short, football is dying.

[Lucky Pierre]

for me Rafa's two biggest flaws lie in the two most important qualities a manager must have: the ability to sign the right players

I can't let that go without saying that if he'd been allowed to buy Simao, Silva Alves and Villa when he wanted things could have been a lot different. OK, forget Alves because that was silly money they paid (or it looked like it at the time) but the other three should have been well within the budgets.

[Stu Monty]

I've fallen out of love with Premier League football in a massive way. For so, so many reasons. I can't help but shake the same feelings I get when looking at politics in that everything you are being fed is just false and fabricated. Player X dives, Manager Y told him to, Manager X's team played shit but blames the ref, Match of the day gives it's weak, transparent and thoughtless take on it.

 

I like about a dozen people in football. That can't be right.