cracker

Not even sure this is the right title but I'll tell you my problem/issue. Some of you may know I work as a teacher at a school in North Wales. Tbh it is full of Mancs - both on the staff and among the kids - and I hate that part!! Over the years the pupils have been taken on tours of OT and had group tickets for CL games ...etc. In mid November I was thinking this over and thought not unreasonably -the kids should have the chance to do something like that at my club too as there are also lots of LFC fans at the school and a few other teachers who like me are LFC fans too. So I wrote LFC a warm letter (1 side of A4 on school headed note paper)telling them of my allegiances, my frustrations at what MUFC had done for kids at my school and my hope that our club could do something. I asked them to suggest something which they as a club could do to help us and offred to pay ...etc. I was not sure who to address it to but guessed at Brain Hall, Commercial Manager, LFC, Anfield, Lpool. So far? - no reply over 6 weeks since they would have got the letter. A PR own goal imo. Did I do anything wrong? What can i do now to try to make some progress? Is there anyone I could write to, ring up or email? Now obviously this will not stop me supporting the club (which I have done for 50 years already!!) and it has not cost the club any reputation in the school as no pupils know of my letter but everything I hear of this side of how the club operates seems to be very slap dash shall we say. Not happy.

As I said on the 'big thread' - the one with 3000+ posts which i seem to have closed as since I posted in it for the first time nobody else has but.... Imo what Evra said to the ref in the same game if confirmed - You are only booking me cos I am black - is far more racist with absolutely no confusion over what it meant than anything Luis said or was alledged to have said and it was in the ref report we are led to believe and yet has not been acted on. Whats that about? Are the FA so scared of the PC brigade in this country that they will do a black person for being racist?

Have just read the article again - shocking isn't it - would it be possible to paint him in a worse light? - how is it that the disgusting comments by Scharner are even given the light of day again without pointing out how ludicrous and unfair they were - imo for that he should have been charged as it was an outrageous attack on a fellow pro but again this is the FA. Then all this diving stuff - gets on my nerves - yes imo he can exaggarate contact some times but no more than anyone else and tbh often he doesn't go down and if he does there is always contact, I have never seen him go down when the defender has not touched him - which is more than you can say for Larsson (Sunderland) and Moses (Wigan) who have both been guilty of obvious cheating ion the last couple of weeks - will they be charged? Or booed at? or vilified on Sky? - no course not their names aren't Luis Suarez.

The copy I have does not seem to have anything about him being the top scorer and man of the tournament for his country as they as underdogs won the Copa America this summer or the unprecedented 4 goals he scored for them in the autumn. Nor for that matter anything about his motm performances for LFC in nearly every game he plays for them with many opposing managers rating him one of the best 2 players in the PL (him and Silva) Surely they would have put that in wouldn't they? - oh sorry this is Sky and that is not part of the remit.

Have not discussed the issue on here but have read a bit of this thread - not all - altho I have been defending the LFC pt of view with other non LFC fans on another forum - ever felt like you were banging your head against a brick wall!! - anyway to put a few thoughts down. In the 2 previous cases where Evra has been involved with racist issues adsmittedly not brought by himself the final FA verdict which was not appealed on by MUFC so they accepted it said his evidence was 'exaggerated and unreliable' Fair or not? - well lets move to the infamous game in question. In the first half when about to be booked - and here I have to be fair - after an outrageous dive by Downing it is alledged that PE made the even more outrageous statement that the ref was only booking him cos he was black. This was not anti LFC, this was anti Andre Mariner - in my eyes insulting and offensive language was used directly to the referee and so imo the correct decision woud have been to send him off. Would have avoided the issues later on!! - but seriously could you imagine the furore from the PC brigade if a black player was sent off for a racial comment? The truth is that Mariner bottled out of doing the right thing - mind you it was unprecedented as i am sure nobody has ever said that to him before and I bet he was unsure how to react. Anyway we move on - the game becomes more intense, we press for a goal at the Kop end and MUFC are hanging on. PE and LS clash - there is some infamous footage taken from the Kop which seems to show PE diving altho in fairness from the TV I think LS did catch him - but even so the exaggerated rolling round by PE was not good to see. The Kop were incensed and the verbals on the pitch increased, it was par for the course for such a game tbh. Between PE and LS it was amongst the worst and it seems LS said a sentence to him including the Spanish word negrita, PE was also said some equally bad stuff to LS, nobody else took much notice either officials or other players, tbh it was normal. The match finishes (btw as an aside do you know what i woud like to see - how much handshaking ..etc there was at the final whistle - Suarez and any MU players, Evra and any LFC players ...etc) ... anyway PE then goes on French TV and says he was racially abused over 10 times by PE during the game. What???? It is then that a complaint to the FA is made LS is bemused as he knows that anything he said was not racial at all and when asked (eventually - 4 or 5 weeks later) tells them exactly what he said. Perhaps he should have been more 'professional' (or is the word deceitful?) but the reason he wasn't was cos he was sure the case would be thrown out. Anyway we all know what has happened since. but really lets look at a few things PE it seems is a person with race issues as otherwise why did he say what he did to the ref, that is not 'normal' and in fact I strpongly believe that it firstly should have been given a red and secondly that it was far more 'racist' than anything LS said. The FA should even now be looking at this issue. The truth is PE has been identifed as 'exaggerated and unreliable' before and the fact that the accusation is that LS said things 10 times seems to bear that out as nobody else on the pitch heard it at all. Trying to be fair I think it was a bit out of order and we should be trying to stop this kind of thing but we never will totally and it has been blown up totally out of proportion - to me PE is as much if not more guilty than LS and for the verdict to be 'PE innocent, LS - guilty, 8 game ban' is a joke. Frankly it should have been sorted out between the clubs without any FA hearing - but the truth is Ferguson and Evra did not want that as they saw it as a chance to smear LFCs best player - and the outcome has justifed them hasn't it tbh. What a farce!! Its a long post already but to me the idea that a 3 man FA panel (2 with MUFC connections btw) sit to discuss whether a Uruguayan speaking in his native tongue was being racist is a joke when as far as I know none of them are Spanish speaking. The whole of South America is laughing at England and its idea of justice right now. LFC and Luis are not laughing tho. We obviously have to fight on - as far as it goes - as the clearing of Luis name is crucial but the vilification of him is just beyond all justice. To hear the abuse of our club cos of the statement and T shirts is annoying too - what do they want us to do - sit back and let the country repeatedly call our star player a racist and not respond.| To sum up I am proud of LFC, all its players and especially Kenny Dalglish in all this - keep going we are all behind you!! - well most of us anyway - I was fuming to see Brian Reades article the other day as he is a man who I have hardly ever disagreed with before - surely he must understand it all as he always seems to have done in the past?

Top clubs these days do not go for non PL players tbh as if they were any good they'd already be at a top club - I recall players like Jason Scotland who looked great outside the PL and then when he got into the PL could not score to save his life so I would be surprised if this Rhodes guy was pursued by us - he may well go to a mid table or lower PL team I predict. Tell you another couple of names to throw into the hat tho who we could prob get for a reasonable fee - like under 10m I would think - but who won't come to anything for the reasons I have already said :smile: Craig Mackail Smith and Ricky Lambert CMS looks lively and a natural scorer to me who takes up the right positions and is not afraid to miss and as if he could maybe do it at a higher level - he played for Scotland V Spain in Spain and looked dangerous. RL is a scouser and big LFC fan (got a LFC tattoo I believe) and is top scorer of the team at the top of the Championship and would jump at the chance to come to us. But really i think we will be looking at striker options from abroad or elsewhere in the PL not in Britain outside the PL tbh - and maybe thats right - ask me again when i see who we get and I have watched him play a few games!!

To those advocating having FT back - absolutely no chance - this is something I feel stroingly about. For many reasons - but the main two are 1) the way he treated us when he left. and 2) he is rubbish and has been for about 2 years. LFC needs better than FT. To those saying get him back here Do you recall like me on that fateful Friday defending him cos you thought our heroes never lie to us the fans cos we are important to them only to find that indeed yes the SSN news journos were right that he'd lied to us and asked to join Chelsea? The truth is that this man thinks of nothing but himself and if he came back to us (which would never happen) and then found he could get more elsewhere or thought he may have more chance of winning somerthing elsewhere then he'd be off again - loyalty? - no chance. The truth is that this man did not merit being treated as a hero by Anfield fans - none of our previous heroes have treated us like this. Do you also recall his displays in the last 18 months of his LFC career? - hardly any decent ones - except ironically enough V Chelsea. Yet rather than keep quiet and work on his game to try to help us out, what we got looked like lack of effort and being bothered to me. Not chasing balls, missing easy chances, not finding positions and just general rubbishness whilst accepting no responsibility for his own ineptitude being part of the problem. Good people round our club (managers, fans, coaches ...etc) turned a blind eye, made excuses for him as we had seen what he could be when he first came but that became a distant memory. Do we want this back in a red shirt? - hell no!! The truth actually now seems to be that he is not capable of better judging by what he has done in a CFC shirt since he joined them. There he seems about 5th choice striker based on his displays and imo only gets games cos of the fee they paid!! We as a club under Kenny are full of positive players who love our club and and would run their heart out for it, people without an ego in sight and that is vital - that is the future and it excites me. I love the way our club and players are now. Risk that? - no way!! Yes we do need a new striker and maybe Andy may end up being ditched (altho now is far too soon - and at least with him I have no probs with his attitude) but no way on this earth should that striker be FT. Been there, done that, don't want to go back.

OMG. I admit I did not see the Arsenal or City games at the start of last season as i was away on holiday but from what I heard Masch played well with 100% effort in the AFC game even after there had been lots of speculation over his future. In fact i cannot remember a single game Masch played for LFC where he did not appear to put 100% effort in, whereas Torres........!!! - don't even get me started but for about 18 months prior to his leaving his effort was often simply not there, put simply in many matches he did not seem to care which to me is unforgiveable. Also remember the previous owners were still there and Hodgson was the manager when Masch left - yes the behind the scenes stuff at the City game appears to be put of order but you do not know all that is going on in the background and he did have the chance to join Barca who in most peoples opinions were (and still are) the best club in the world. When Torres left he left for Chelsea when Kenny was in charge and our form was on the up, we had new owners and with no real warning he dropped a total bombshell in demanding a transfer with 3 days of the window left. And you think what Masch did was worse than that?- whatever!! - my opinion is I can think of nobody in the history of LFC who has treated us worse than FT did last January.

Masch joined Barca. Xabi joined Madrid. Torres joined Chelsea. See any differences those trying to defend FT? As I have explained earlier in the thread I have total disrespect for FT and as has been said would not have him back on a free for the way he treated the club I love and its fans. I cannot believe that any LFC fans defend him - I know they are in the minority but to me there should be none at all. And if anyone can honestly say (and yes Code i mean you - but there were others too) that his performances for the latter part of his time as LFC were acceptable then words fail me - for 18 months he was gash - fact no matter what stats you come up with - and the way he played - lack of desire, missing easy chances,...etc - was one of the major reasons why LFC were underachieving in that period. We tried to overlook it, we defended him from the knockers in the media but the brutal truth looking back is that those knockers were right and i cannot say how glad I am that he no longer plays for us. Yes I agree we do need strengthening up front and for me if we can we should try to sign a striker in January but there must be loads of younger and better strikers than him around - and whose attitude is right too. Go find one for us Damien!!

Can't believe the amount of niceness to Torres and hostility to Gerrard on this thread. Torres? Playing crap for the last 3 months at LFC? - no the last season and a half more like and the worst part was the seeming lack of effort and the lack of any acknowledgement that his crapness was a major factor in us being as poor and low in the league as were. He sort of said 'If you lot don't improve I'll take my talent elsewhere!!' when his attitude and form was a lot of the problem. rafa relied on him (too much imo) as we had no viable alternative and so he had to be played no matter how bad he was playing. Then we go onto the circumstances of when he actually left and who he left us for - 2 days before the end of the window for one of our biggest rivals, a team whose whole ethos is totally different to ours - well FT if thats the kind of club you want to play at then just go - we don't want you. I remember defending him as the story broke when Sky were saying that he wanted to go as i foolishly had believed what he had said to us about LFC being his British club and not playing for any other one. So don't expect any respect when you play at Anfield in the blue of Chelsea - in fact expect fierce hostility cos that is what you deserve having stuck 2 fingers up at the most loyal fans in football who had idolised you in a way that they have done for few others. I do agree tho you moving is not mainly to do with money, it is to do with him having an inflated idea of how important you are to teams and thinking of 'number one' not the club. How often do you hear the king talking about the importance of the club above any indiviidual - such a way of thinking is alien to FT. I am glad he is gone and would never want him back in a million years - there must be countless strikers around for us to sign who are younger, better and have a better attitude - even if he was playing well I would not want him but the fact he is playing so bad is just well ...funny tbh!! How anyone can say Gerrard behaved in any way like FT baffles me - like has been said he has had poor games and did consider leaving - that is a fact but in the end he stayed loyal and has always done his best on the field for the only club he truly loves imo.

Xerxes - good post apart from the first para - who then in your opinion were the top team in Europe at that time? - cos my recollection is that we had just won the European Cup - doesn't that count for anything?

I too am old enough to remember Keegan the player - I remember going to a friendly the reserves played at Tranmere the Saturday before the season started in 1971 and Keegan was the stand out player by a mile. The next Saturday he played for the first team on the first day of the season V Notts Forest which didn't surprise me and my Dad but most other fans probably wondered who was this lad Shanks was picking - and the rest is history!! After 5 years of playing great overall (and yes Hermes he was consistent - and was the main man in the team too) in the summer of 1976 he said that he wanted to leave LFC and go abroad to play. This was unheard of at the time and that created a stir amongst our fans. They had never had this before - an idol wanting to leave at the peak of his career and in his last 12 months his name was rarely chanted and there seemed a coolness between him and the fans. Anyway on May 25th 1977 in Rome it all came good when we won the European Cup for the first time and Keegan had a great game but maybe cos of leaving in the way he did he lost some of the earlier adultation which he had had. Some younger fans may not know those facts - sorry for boring the older ones among you who if you supported the club in the 70s would probably know it all.

Its a tough one isn't it - who do we hate more FT or Owen? - and I am not going to fall out with you about it. I hear what you say and it is true but thats no thanks to FT - thats thanks to those at our club negotiating a good deal. I remember that Friday just before the window closed when there were rumours that CFC had put in a bid (yet again) for FT and going on forums sticking up for him and saying stuff like 'there is no way he will ever leave, have you not listened what he has said countless times?....etc'. Then early evening it came out that he had asked for a transfer and said he wanted to go to Chelsea. I didn't want to believe it and thought it was just journos with an anti LFC agenda but the more you learnt the more it became clear it clearly wasn't and he had in fact said it. I really don't think I have ever felt more betrayed and tbh it made me look stupid on the forums as it made my posts look stupid. Also the timing of it giving us next to no time to get a replacement - if he felt that way why not ask at the start of the window? The fact that under Kenny we were getting our act together and he just (as Aldo says) spat in our faces as fans made me totally disgusted when you know how much our fans had idolised him and how he had talked back about his LFC love - which was shown to be lies. Shocking - and to me unforgiveable. And yes Owen is as bad in a way too I agree - lets say they were as bad as each other!!

You cannot link those lot together. Worst is FT for the way he left and who he left for then Owen for the way he left and ulitmately joining the Mancs. Those two i will never ever have time for again. The others you could understand - going abroad (for a pay day), GS at the end of his career after giving us his best years. I do not have a lot of time for GS but that is more cos of the reign with us than the way he left but in general those 3 still retain some LFC love, the first two not. The only thing I dislike about Keegan is the fact that now the club he most identifies with seems to be Newcastle not us which is wrong imo as we were the club who 'made him'. Quite often I do not agree with his punditry but I'll get over it as it is only an opinion (which he is entitlted to have) and not in itself a reason to hate him. Re Suarez yes i love him tho after FT I am a bit wary of going too OTT - but I honestly do not believe that he would ever do anything like that to us - altho yes i admit I wll be surprised if he spends the rest of his career with us - that depends tho on how much we get our act together tbh as if we win the PL and the CL he will stay I think and with KK in charge we have a chance!!

'We barely look any better' - you are joking right cos if not - sorry i was about to insult you which is out of order - lets just say I do not agree. LFC last few seasons? 2011/12 - playing attractive football, near top on merit, good chance of high finish but have lost 'silly points' 2010/11 - disastrous first half of season under poor manager looking like finishing in bottom half where our form deserved to be. rescued by KK and in the end finished 6th. 2009/10 - poor season, last under Rafa when our football and form was generally rubbish but not all Rafas fault as owners less than helpful. Finished 7th which was about where we deserved to be. 2008/09 - finished 2nd under Rafa and nearly won the title playing good football - altho tbh if you ask me i think our football now is more attractive than it was then and I love that - thanks KK. So now to me under KK we are back to playing well and whilst 2nd might be too big an ask we are certainly on the way back and performing on and off the field as Liverpool teams should be. We are now defintely better off than both 2009/10 and 2010/11 so please look at the facts and don't say we are barely any better as that is rubbish and you know it.

Phil Dowd is not exactly error free - Kieron Richardson in the first game of this season which cost us points almost certainly? he did it last season too so I'd be surprised if it was him. i still think Webb despite the Babel stuff

I hesitate to get involved really but what you have said there does not reflect my position. Duckinfield? - this man as Liverpool fans were dying on the pitch told lies about them kicking a gate down to the BBC and those lies were believed by many for some time. Given those facts I am not prepared to defend him tbh. I will grant that he did not set out to kill people that day so maybe the word murderer is not the best word for him but due to his gross incompetance 96 people died and so surely he must bear more responsibility than he has hitherto. If I had made a mistake with those consequences then I believe that I would do my best to apologise and do what i could to put things right with the relatives, this man never has and has more concentrated on saving his own skin - but then thats the difference between us decent people and him I guess. The truth is he was responsible for deploying people to make sure proper queues were formed outside the ground, for making sure that when that did not happen and the gate had to be opened for people to be directed into the correct areas, when he saw there was a dangerous crush there to tell his men to let people onto the pitch to save them, for making sure when the emergency started to happen that suitable first aid and emergency services got there asap and were suitably used ...etc. He did none of these things, any one of which would have averted the disaster or at least made it not so bad. He did not work another day after that and retired on a good pension to the south coast as i understand it. Yes the football authorities had got things wrong and the public regarded football fans very badly in the 80s, but with proper competant policing Hillsborough was policeable (if thats a word) - we did not get that and so I believe the police above all and Duckinfield as their commander that day should bear the brunt of the blame for what happened.

Spot on. I debate on another forum where i picked my team as Pepe Kelly Skrtel Carra Enrique Kuyt Stevie Lucas Adam Downing Suarez so I guess I must stand by that - Skrtel is OK at CB, it was playing at RB - which he should never do again - which made him look so bad altho i do agree there is always an element of liability with him partic in relation to pulling in the box and giving pens away or commiting obvious fouls in dangerous positions. If Stevie cannot do 90 then Bellamy in - tbh maybe Craig should be in anyway with the way he played on Wed - if not for SG them maybe for Adam who imo has not quite shown his Blackpool form yet. My only clear disagreement with KKs starting elevens is his tendency to pick Hendo - he has done Ok and I think in time will make a player but for now I would not pick him - and I hope KK does not this afternoon - but if he does we get behind them all as for sure Hendo is a good lad with a good attitude who can play

I don't post on TLW much these days - tho i do read it fairly often - tbh I find a lot of it full of views which I consider extreme if that is the right word with too many people abusing fellow reds with little justifcation ...etc - we have even seen it on this thread haven't we. When i saw the thread title as someone for whom Hillsborough is an absolute passion and being a fan of Reade and his style of writing I felt the need to read it. I cannot believe that even this article which to me should be a 'given' has come down to people having a go at each other and what Reade says. Unbelievable. I have quoted the actual text of maybe the most salient 3 paragraphs of the article above. Whats wrong with them? To me Reade as a skilled writer sums up the frustration most Liverpool fans feel over this whole affair in 3 short paragraphs and to me it is 100% true. I'd want to say well done Brian - 3 fantastic paragraphs - and the rest of the article was good too For Hermes and the others who do not like the article at no point does he say that Thatcher and her government put the cages up, he says that in the 80s when MT was in power the whole time football fans were treated appallingly including 'being caged'. That is an undeniable fact. If she had had her way after Heysel there would have been identity cards for all fans like her Tory supporting away fan banning Luton Town chairman had. Clearly she was more than happy for all fans to have cages to keep them off the pitch as everything she did and said concerning football revealed her view of football fans as people to be treated with contempt frankly. How can you disagree with these views Hermes? - they are patently obvious. The thing is tho that many regard Thatcher as some kind of hero - the best PM ever ...etc - those like myself who hold a different view find it hard to convince people otherwise. To have the documents released would help us out on that one a lot - I'd prefer it to be before she dies but tbh that is not vital - all i want is for the famileis to be given some progress towards justice by the release of these documents and if in the process the very rose tinted view of Thatcher which many in the country hold is changed then that is great - and the sooner it happens the better.

I've heard that too but have been looking for evidence on the net and have yet to find it - anyone help?

With due respect I think we know more what our supporters want than you do

I post on other forums and in a discussion about Ferguson and his bullying ways i pointed out the Bobby Charlton as a director of MUFC (or whatever he is) should try to have some influence to get him to behave more appropriately for which I got torn to shreds - how dare you criticise Bobby, he is a legend, nothing to do with him ....etc. But I still stand by that - I do not have too much of a problem with BC but I have a major problem with Ferguson and to me any right thinking person should have. It's a pity BC is not strong enough to come out and condemn the way the manager of his club has refused to talk to the national broadcaster and MOTD the most iconic football programme in the world for 8 years and the way by bullying he seeks to unfairly influence others in the game such as refs, journos, other teams players and managers ...etc for his own ends.

Ditto

Jova is an interesting one to me. He has largely not been very good - fact. But others who that was the case for have been given chances (Ngog, Poulsen, even Cole tbh) so why not Jova? Is he that much worse? He is an experienced international who joined us having just played and scored in the WC so when he cannot even get on the bench these days it is a bit puzzling especially when the team is not playing that great and we need to look at options. Pacheco a 19 year old who has hardly turned out for the first team is prefered to him on the bench in the EL ties as is Ngog who has looked pretty ineffective when called on lately (altho he did look a bit better on Thurs) - not saying they are wrong choices- that is a different debate - just saying that is factual Having said that I think Jova himself should look at it and think - it looks unlikely I'll get a look in here, I better move on - and so I expect him to go in the summer. If he doesn't come to this conclusion it to me would only mean that he was more interested in picking up his pay cheque rather than playing football - cos I would think he must on a decent salary - for doing very little. Be interesting to see how it develops.

Zola is my all time fav but then Le Tiss, Vialli, Okocha, Kinkladze. Re Bergkamp I think what Code is saying is that he had a nasty side - sent off more than once for stuff like stamping on opponents (once V us I think), elbowing opponents ..etc and so for that reason cannot be put on the same pedestal as Zola - obviously he was a very skillful player but if we're talkng Arsenal personally I rate Henry higher