TaksimRakiClub

Deffo town. Some alright bars round Concert Square. If you want a poseurs place try the Alma de Cuba on Seal Street (just round the corner from Concert Square). If you change your mind about the fight you can always try the bars on Slater Street on the way with the added bonus that the ales cheap. Other end of town the Lisbon on Victoria Street might be more up your alley.

If that was the series that also featured Nikolai Starostin (founder of Spartak Moscow) then it was the first time I came across the story of Sindelar as well. The Spartak story was fascinating as well - the workers' club and named for Spartacus - and featured the rivalries they had with Dynamo (the secret police) and CSKA (Army) teams.

Yep - different world now. Can't see Fat Frank or his mates ever doing a Zvonny Boban.

Nice read. Just to balance the Nazi thing out have a read of this - Matthias Sindelar. The striker who snubbed Hitler Robin Stummer Published 12 June 2008 A few seconds of grainy newsreel, a handful of fragile press cuttings, a street name, a grave. Such is the meagre legacy of Matthias Sindelar - one of the world's greatest soccer players, the Pelé of the interwar years, a sporting genius who not only took the game into the modern era, but snubbed Hitler en route. Many believe that the Austrian centre-forward's contempt for the Nazis cost him his life. But has Austria snubbed Sindelar? In a small country not overflowing with world-class sports heroes or, for that matter, high-profile anti-fascist martyrs, the absence of Sindelar from Austria's official past and present is strange. No statues, no stadium name, no posters. No football academy bears his name; there has been no big biopic, no exhibition, no plaques, no new investigation into his suspicious death. A recent poll in Austria confirmed Sindelar as the nation's all-time greatest sports star, yet soccer fans in the country for Euro 2008 will struggle to find any sign of him. It's an omission that even some Austrians, long used to institutionalised strangeness, find baffling. "It is an amazing lack - a puzzle, but also a real shame," says the Austrian soccer historian Dr Erich Krenslehner. "For a great star like Sindelar, not to have a memorial of some sort is very unusual, a mystery." So why is a nation so adept at the chocolate-box glorification of Mozart, Strauss and Haydn reluctant to embrace the memory of its finest sportsman? A bronze football tops the marble slab over Sindelar's grave at Vienna's Zentralfriedhof cemetery. His gentle face, cast in bronze - high forehead, hair receding, the metal bright green with verdigris - stares out from the headstone above the dates 1903-1939. He is in vintage kit - floppy collar, lace-up neck. On the green metal face, seven decades of rain have left dark streaks from the hairline down to the neck that look like ghostly post-match sweat. There are no flowers. Austria, Euro 2008 co-hosts, start this year's competition ranked 88th in the world, yet for the best part of a decade - and just about within living memory - Austria was, with England, the most feared side in world soccer, and it could boast the world's leading player. Matthias Sindelar was an almost freakishly talented footballer who waltzed around opponents with ease. Above all, he possessed what the pundits called "wit"; he was, said one, a man who played soccer "as a grandmaster played chess". The sports writers christened Sindelar "der Papierne" - "the paper man" who fluttered around the pitch. To the ethnic Czech, Hungarian and Polish factory workers and the cafe-society dilettantes and bourgeoisie, many of them Jewish, who flocked to see him play for his club, FK Austria Wien, however, he was their "Sindi". And Sindi, quite simply, was playing soccer like no one else in the world. Sindelar was "new" Viennese. His parents were Catholics from Moravia, now in the Czech Republic. He spoke in the slurred Viennese dialect, and grew up in the drab, poor suburb of Favoriten, a bastion of the left. "In his speech, in his manner, he was an ordinary Viennese person," recalls Franz Schwarz, son of the 1920s and 1930s Austrian team president and now, in his nineties, one of the few people alive to have met Sindelar. "But he was something very special in his talent, really exceptional." Starting in spring 1931 with a 5-0 demolition of Scotland, at the time one of Europe's most revered teams, the red-and-whites would be unbeaten for the next 19 internationals, pushing 11 goals past Germany's goalkeeper in just two matches, with none conceded. All of Europe's top teams were toppled. In December 1932 the side, now dubbed the Wunderteam, was ready to take on the world's most potent force: England. A crowd of 60,000 packed Stamford Bridge to see the Austrians play England, while an even bigger throng crammed into Vienna's Heldenplatz for a radio commentary. The Wunderteam nearly pulled it off, running circles around England - but lost, just, 4-3. The British press hailed the newcomers: "English team lucky to win", was the Manchester Guardian's verdict. "There could not be the slightest doubt that as a team [Austria] were the superiors." "It was victory and no more," said the Times. "And it was by no means easily earned." The Führer's plan By the summer of 1934 Austria had won or drawn 28 out of 31 games and Sindelar's fame had spread even to the soccer-phobic United States. Sindi had begun to earn big money, endorsing sharp suits and luxury cars, gambling and womanising much of the cash away. The Wunderteam seemed unstoppable - but this was 1930s Mitteleuropa. The Nazi ideologues liked international soccer. It was mass-propaganda-friendly, and there was the prospect of inevitable victory upon victory: a collective triumph of the national athletic will. Nazi Germany's soccer team found victory far from inevitable: they were, at best, middle-rankers. But the Führer's pudgy sports advisers had a plan. One of the first actions of the new National Socialist government in Austria, set up after the March 1938 Anschluss, was to disband the country's professional football association, one of the oldest in the world. Jewish sports clubs and soccer teams were outlawed and their grounds seized, Jewish players barred, Jewish club officials sacked. Many fled abroad. Others, fatally, stayed put. Austria was to become Ostmark, a province of the Reich. Its soccer team would itself be annexed, players "invited" to join the German side; the team name "Austria" would go. Many players and officials acquiesced to the takeover and some were even enthusiastic, active supporters. Sindelar, it seems, was not. FK Austria Wien shed many of its directors, players and officials, sacked for being, or suspected of being, Jewish. Among them was the veteran club president Dr Michl Schwarz. Those who survived the purges were instructed not to speak to sacked colleagues. Sindelar refused. "The new club president has forbidden us to talk to you," he told the highly respected Schwarz shortly before the deposed president fled abroad, "but I will always speak to you, Herr Doktor." A clash with the New Order was on the cards. On 3 April 1938, just weeks after the Nazis annexed Austria, the Wunderteam took to the field for the last time - against Germany. The Nazi sports authorities billed the match, at Vienna's Prater Stadium, as a "reunification" derby, a 90-minute celebration of Germanic brotherhood. It proved to be one of the most extraordinary soccer matches ever played. Nazi propagandists ordained that the showpiece clash was to end as a low-scoring draw. For his part, Sindelar, it is said, demanded that his team be allowed to wear their traditional strip, not a new "non-national" kit, and that they be known for this, their last match, as "Austria". The Nazis agreed. Shadows and secrets The Wunderteam spent the first half of the match sullenly trying not to score. Up front, Sindelar and his team-mate Karl Sesta acted dumb, allowing the Germans to dictate play. The play-acting continued into the second half. But then, at around 70 minutes, something snapped. Sindi flicked a rebound from the German goalkeeper into the bottom right-hand corner of the net. The crowd erupted. Nazi functionaries looked on in disbelief as, minutes later, Sesta slammed the ball into the German goal from 45 yards. 2-0. At full-time, the Prater Stadium crowd went wild, shouting: "Österreich, Österreich!" while, one account goes, Sindi ran up to the box containing Nazi dignitaries and club officials and waltzed around, alone, grinning. Ten months later he was dead. Sindelar's last year was bizarre. Even as Vienna lurched towards open thuggery and the "legal" seizure of property from Jewish citizens began, Sindelar apparently maintained close - and public - friendships with Jews. Several times he was "requested", reportedly at the very highest level, to join the German (and thoroughly Nazi) national sports training organisation. Again he refused. Was he suicidally principled, or just taking yet another losing punt - this time on the New Order fading fast? It would have been easy for Sindelar to take a job abroad, and he had influential friends in English soccer, but his next move was an unpredictable twist. In summer 1938 Sindi, the "chess grandmaster of soccer", even in his mid-thirties one of the most bankable players in the world, bought a scruffy street-corner cafe in lowly Favoriten and turned his back on soccer. The cafe's previous owner, a Jewish acquaintance of Sindelar's called Leopold Drill, was being turfed out by the Nazis - one of the many "legalised" thefts taking place throughout the city. The star, it is said, stepped in with a cash offer for the business that was far more generous than the pittance offered by local party bureaucrats. The deal done, Sindi slicked back his hair and quietly served beer and coffee to his old mates. The Gestapo kept the cafe under surveillance, noting that its new owner was friendly with all customers, Jews included. About half the clientele had been Jewish, the Gestapo estimated. Sindelar was known to be "not sympathetic" to the party, it was reported. And then, on 23 January 1939, a friend, worried that he had not seen Sindelar for some time, forced his way into his flat on Annagasse in the city centre. He found the star in bed, dead. Lying beside him was his latest lover. Unconscious, she lived a few hours longer. Sindelar was 35. The police investigation concluded that the couple had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. A chimney flue was found to be blocked, and poor maintenance blamed. Few believed the official version. More than 20,000 people turned out for Sindi's funeral. In some ways it was Vienna's first, and last, rally against the Nazis. In other respects, however, it was no more than a fare well to a local hero. That ambiguity, a Viennese trait then and now, is at the heart of the Sindelar story. The British film classic The Third Man, filmed in part amid the bomb sites of the Austrian capital nearly a decade after the player's death, captured the mood and manners of the city: shadows, secrets and whispers. The whispering endures. The few facts surrounding Sindelar are entwined with rumours still circulating in Vienna. Take the police report on his death: lost in the war, says the Austrian national archive. No, there for the reading but hard to find, maintain some historians. Or Sindelar's cafe: bought by the star at a fair price to help out its fleeing Jewish owner, say some. No, "stolen" by an opportunist Sindelar for a fraction of its true value, say others. Or the player's death: clearly murder, many believe. No, it was suicide, a few argue, an act of despair at the fate of Austria - a theory popular among the left-leaning coffee-house literati who idolised him. Or a gangland hit, linked to the star's supposedly huge gambling debts. Or murder at the hands of his lover, who then poisoned herself. Or a Gestapo killing to prevent Sindelar embarrassing the Reich by fleeing abroad. Or, yes, just an accident. About Sindelar himself, Vienna's rumour mills have been working overtime. "He was really Jewish, not Catholic, you know, but kept it secret," went one whisper this past week. "Actually he was a Nazi, but maybe only 1 per cent of him. He could see the way things were going," was another. The building that was once Sindelar's cafe was quietly demolished a couple of years ago. "They did not want it there as a reminder of him," said one fan, declining to elaborate on who "they" might be. "It was old, it had to go, development," shrugged another. The few seconds of newsreel footage of Matthias Sindelar the football player are all that remains beyond doubt - a glimpse of a delicate, intuitive player with a kind face. And a face, for whatever reason, is just about all that survives of the Paper Man.

John Wayne Bobbitt

Well that's cleared that up then.

No - not under any circumstances. Wore one (umbro v-neck, white trim, gold liverbird and LFC) as a 13 /14 year old at Prenton Park for the League Cup game in 78 or 79 and got legged all over Birkenhead by some real hard Rock Ferry types - I was on me todd. The shirt went in the drawer and never worn one since. That Tranmere game was me first or second away and I started going on the special from 79/80. The trains out of Lime Street were a fucking disgrace - rolling stock left over from WWII I think - 500 lads per train. A bit "Away Days" and all that but there really was no mistaking the Liverpool boys - you could pick them out of an identity parade in any other town or city in the country - so we might as well of all been wearing the full kit. I remember buying me first Sergio Tacchini trackie - the Masnago I think it was - navy, mid-blue with red trim and detail - a thing of rare beauty. £65 from the sports shop in St Johns that was under the old Gansgear - both now long gone. I was still at school and haven't a clue where I got the £65 from but remember being in a cold sweat as I handed the wad over. It cost 80p to get onto the Kop and about 30p into the Boys Pen at the time so god knows what the equivalent of £65 would be now.

The Beatles may have been a positive image for the city to outsiders but football in general and Liverpool FC in particular were very much the opposite at the time.

The point of my post was that the Militant debate always seems to boil down to Degsy's personality which obviously rubbed a lot of people the wrong way - even the early posts in the thread were heading that way. I knew the fella in a professional capacity and he was always straight as a die with me. What does one believe? The evidence of one's own experience or the image presented by a Tory press being briefed by that prick Bernard Ingham, arse licker in chief and Knight of the Realm? I am not for one minute suggesting that Militant were good for the city or that Derek didn't use his position to take advantage of certain opportunities but in that respect he was no better or worse than any other politician. Power corrupts and all that. To suggest that Militant did more damage to the city than Thatcher though is, in my opinion, wide of the mark. The Tories used the Toxteth riots and Militant as excuses to dissuade big business from investing in the City. They held up the local population as being a prime example of all that was wrong with Britain in the 80s. Come to the socialist paradise that is Liverpool and you'll get mugged, knifed, your car nicked, your sister raped etc etc. That is the legacy we still live with today to your average Daily Mail reader - not Militants. The Tories were happy to sit and watch and wait for the city to die. I, for one, will be raising a glass or two the day the evil old bitch passes from this life should I be fortunate enough to see her out. Fucking hell, she's still pissing me off by hanging on and the only way I'd be in favour of a state funeral is if they bury the cunt alive. We were mocked by an entire nation for our reaction to Hillsborough. The flowers laid at Anfield were a mawkish, sentimental response to the death of family and friends and we wallowed in self-pity. Well, just wait until you see how Middle England (wherever that is) responds to Thatcher's demise. The public reaction to Diana's death was a little taster for what's to come and I can't fucking wait. And don't get me started on Hitler. The Luftwaffe blew me Nan and Grandad's door off its hinges during the May blitz and not even Thatcher would've messed with me Nan.

Met a group of girls from Ennis (Co. Clare is it?) whilst I was on a stag in Cork some years back - very nice they were too. Some very helpful replies received thus far to a fair enough question from UEM. Sorry mate - Can't be more use as I've never stopped in Limerick only passed through. Which from the gist of advice received so far would appear to be the sensible choice. Cork was alright though if that helps.

I don't think Militant were responsible for the lack of economic opportunity in Liverpool at the time and the resultant shift of population. We all know where the blame lies on that one. My sister ended up working as a chamber maid in a top West End hotel - a proper fucking tory wet dream - a good working class girl knowing her place and all that. They - the hotel not the tories - told her to have elocution lessons to "cure" her accent. She told them to fuck off and came home. I've met Degsy a fair few times through work - when him and his lad were running an IT company in the Ropewalks. Not surprisingly they had the gig for the Everton website (Sunderland and WHU as well I think). Been sold for brewsters now. You can only take as you find and though he was always a bit full of himself he was never less than the perfect gent on the occaisions I met him - even when I used to take the piss out of him for the early days and him acting the champagne socialist and all that. He would happily sort you a derby ticket at the Stadium of Wood - never once took a penny for it either and took us to Chester races a couple of times as well. He liked his clobber and the bubbly but as far as I'm aware that isn't a crime. Militant obviously had their flaws - same as everyone else on the planet - but at least they had the cojones to stand up to Thatcher and her fucking evil little trolls. They stand alone with the Miners on that score while the rest of the country bent over and assumed the position. Easy choice for me - Degsy Hatton on the one hand. Thatcher and her lapdogs on the other.

It is indeed a bit of a looker as far as cities go - the Danube in particular is very picturesque and from memory there are a few bars and restaurants on the riverside. As with most eastern eurpoean cities the women are generally of a B+ standard and dress as though trying to compensate for 40 years of communist repression. Pity we weren't away in September - they'll all be covered up like Nanook of the North next week. I think somewhere on the RAWK Europe Away Forum there's a list of establishments that operate the scam with the femmes fatales and I shall be running off a copy. If you're travelling / drinking in a group of 4 or less keep whatever wits you have about you. As I said above there are seven of us and that includes the world's only known Irish tea-totaller so fingers crossed........

Booked all 3 trips in August so I'm in regardless. Seven of us going so should be decent craic and it gets me out the house and on the ale for a few days. Picked up the match tickets from the TO this morning and the usual blurb they give out has some very interesting advice in it for once. Superfluous as it happens because I've been to Budapest before as we stopped for 2 nights on the way to Kosice in 98. The basic script is this: Whilst sampling the local brew should you happen upon an attractive young woman and strike up a conversation do not under any circumstances accompany her to a bar of her choosing. She does not think you are the scouse Brad Pitt nor, alas, is she interested in taking on the contents of your kecks in hand to hand combat. No - this cunning little minx is employed by the said bar - on a commission basis - and is attempting to coerce an exhorbitant bar bill out of you. She also has a cache of equally attractive friends in the vicinity should she be required to pull in a few cuties for your sidekicks. You and the boys order and consume a couple of shandies - naturally providing the young ladies with the alcoholic beverages of their choice. All is progressing well until a greasily smooth Maitre d type appears out of nowhere - rather like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn -and hands you a £900 bar bill. Mistake made in 1998. Definately older, hopefully wiser, second time around. There were 3 of us in 1998 and No we didn't pay the bar bill but fuck me it was a close run thing. Seven bouncers ushered the other customers out of the bar and all the doors were locked and windows closed. In for a penny in for a pound so more drinks were ordered (not provided) and then insults were exchanged and threats of bodily harm made both ways. Stalemate. Difficult to say who was the more pissed of: us with them or them with us. The head man kindly offers to escort us to the nearest cash point to provide the reddies to settle up. We tell him to go fuck and himself. An hour and a half passes and we are going nowhere and still trading insults. Eventually the Maitre d type gets fed up with the whole thing and attempts to negotiate. We give him the remnants of the kitty - about £30 - and get the fuck out. Anybody going take care. It can be a dangerous city.

Slightly OT but I watched highlights of the U18s v Blackburn on TV last night. I'm not sure what they feed them on in West Yorkshire but Andre Wisdom is one beast of a physical specimen (without trying to come across all homo-erotic). He looks like a cross between Frank Bruno and Ben Johnson - the type of athlete that could make it to a decent level in whatever sport he chose. For anybody who hasn't seen highlights of the game he played right wing and whilst not looking a natural in that position did well enough and gave their left back a couple of roastings through pace alone. He has a decent right peg on him and wasn't afraid to use his left either. I know he's been used in a variety of positions over the last 18 months -all to the good in my opinion and the step up to regular reserve team level can't be far off - hopefully in defence.

You've got a few years on me then. You may remember my first game - it was against Birmingham City on a cold wet December afternoon in 72. We came back from 3-1 down at half time to win 4-3 - not a bad way to start. I stood on a wooden box me arl fella had knocked up that morning - right at the back of the Annie Road over towards the Kemlyn - he'd even attached a bit of rope to it for easy portage. That was always me dad's spec until health issues stopped him going but I graduated to the Kop, finances allowing, in 1976. I'd go in the Boy's Pen if I was short that week but always tried to avoid it, if possible, because the Pen was fucking terryfying and I never had the bottle to climb the fence into the Kop. I must admit the memories of the game are getting a little bit hazy now - I'd even have to look the scorers up but I do remember carting this box down Herschell Street about 10 yards behind me dad while half the little twats in Anfield followed me shouting all sorts of abuse. Me girl's people are from Herschell Street so it was probably her brother - he's always been a cunt. I do agree with the earlier poster who said that if you're too young to have witnessed the standing Kop then you've missed out on the something special - and unfortunately it will never to be seen again. I have particularly fond memories of the Kop on a weekly basis singing "Boys Pen, Boys Pen give us a song". "Kopites are gobshite" came the automatic reply in the highest pitched trill you'll ever hear.

I'm not arguing with you either way - just stating where I thought the original Man U connection arose.

Yeah - I think it was 42 League games or something. Never seen the crowd up for a League game like that before or since. Agreed on Terry Mac's header against Spurs. Also scored a belter in the Cup around 1980 - at the infamous Battle of White Hart Lane. I wasn't at the Cup game but one of the lads I go the game was and says it was like Rorke's Drift.

They had a trophy home-coming in one of the main squares in Manchester - St Anne or Queen Anne or something (?) - may have been the 90 FA Cup or 91 Cup Winners. Anyway - as is there way they had some blert up on the mic leading a bit of community singing and that was one of the songs they did. Thats the first time I remember it in a football context. The blert may have been Terry Christian or Timmy Mallet. Or may not have been.

A few others not yet mentioned: Liverpool 3 - 1 Man Utd - Feb 1978. Graeme Souness volley -goal of the season - and the Annie Road Darts Team in spectacular form. Liverpool 4 - 0 (?) QPR -1987/88 - Digger announces himself as a Liverpool legend in only his 5th (?) game with a brace at the Kop end. We knew we had the League sewn up in October Liverpool 2 - 0 Man U 1991/92 (Rush & Walters) - The title's off to Leeds but always look on the bright side of life. Liverpool 2 - 1 Arsenal 2004/05. A special from Xabi and Neil Mellor's late late show.

Fucking hell - how old are you if you don't mind me asking? I was 9 months at the tima and me arl fella refused to take me despite me throwing the mother of all tantrums.

Er read the thread. I was.

Sir Roger - a fellow oldie obviously. Terry Mac hatrick against HSV and what a hatrick! Another game that never gets mentioned is the 2-0 Forest league game in December 78 - 3 months after they knocked us out of Europe. Another brace from Terry Mac. I remember the Forest players - all suited and booted - walking down to the Kop at about 2.00 to inspect the pitch or incite a riot. I think the gates had already been locked - and the crowd went fucking ballistic. There was a massive surge forward and they started carting the little 'uns out - passing them over the heads - to the St Johns at the front. Happy days.

The night of nights - St Etienne 17th March 1977 Liverpool 3 - 1 St Etienne (Aggregate 3-2) Chelsea in 2005 was special but I've never heard noise in my life like the Kop made when Fairclough scored with 4 minutes to go. 56,000 in Anfield officially but I know of at least one gate on the Kop that went down before kick off and there were rumours that a bus had been backed onto the old Kop wall on Walton Breck Rd and people were climbing out the emergency exit upstairs and dropping off the wall into the Kop bogs.

Thank you Des Lynam

Not a lot you can say about that..........