Are we now a totally soulless club?

[Hyena]

1st. Clubs don't have souls. People do.

2nd. I'm not sure which club you support but afaik this club was founded when a greedy businessman bought the land his own club was playing on, doubled the rent, held them to ransom and eventually forced them out and founded his own club (hoping to build an athletics track on the land). On its way to dominance it broke transfer record after transfer record. Incidentally one of the darker periods in this club's history was caused by being owned by a bunch of penniless shits.

If you want to think that there was a mythical time that success in football was not linked to money, go right ahead. In the meantime, you may wish to consider supporting women's football. Since there is no money I am sure there is plenty of soul....

 

[gene hughes]

Paxo is also the one who keeps Rodgers innate conservatism in check. Whereas Rodgers favors a very regimented and disciplined style of play with players staying in position and taking few risks, Paxo is the one who moderates these negative instincts and gets Rodgers to take more risks and give the players more freedom to stray out of position, not check back, get the wrong side of players, leave the clearing header up to the other guy, let players generally run past with ease and contemplate some of life's deeper meanings rather than focus on silly old football for 90 minutes.

If Rodgers is the serious one, then Paxo is the one who the players feel most comfortable failing around, as can be clearly seen from his beaming countenance whenever we're losing.

 

[gkmacca]

1st. Clubs don't have souls. People do.

2nd. I'm not sure which club you support but afaik this club was founded when a greedy businessman bought the land his own club was playing on, doubled the rent, held them to ransom and eventually forced them out and founded his own club (hoping to build an athletics track on the land). On its way to dominance it broke transfer record after transfer record. Incidentally one of the darker periods in this club's history was caused by being owned by a bunch of penniless shits.

If you want to think that there was a mythical time that success in football was not linked to money, go right ahead. In the meantime, you may wish to consider supporting women's football. Since there is no money I am sure there is plenty of soul....

Wow, how illuminating. So the presence of money means the absence of virtue. I must set off to Walden Pond immediately.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

The club have hiked ticket prices up considerably and have brought this tiered pricing system in. The Main Stand and Paddock are classed as second highest price wise yet the services provided are shambolic. I doubt they've been improved since the stand was built.

 

[mark1975]

Some great posts in here, it has to be said.

Is the simple issue here though that we're just not doing that well? If we were flying high would we be so dismissive and be acting so downtrodden?

I don't mean there's a touch of fair-weather fandom, but we've seen many false dawns and have dwindled into being a club on the outside looking in, but we're not that far away as always, yet far away enough for us to view the distance from success as greater than it is, or certainly somewhere we're trying to get to with boots that are weighted down. The big issue is that our fate, because of being on the fringes, seems in some part out of our hands, we're less capable of keeping hold of players and find ourselves increasingly susceptible to losing them, but that's always been part and parcel, but it's what hurts most and the part of the game we all hate, then it becomes easy to label players money driven mercenaries.

I agree with earlier posts, the whole thing has a certain predictability as far as most of the clubs go and how the season pans out, but there's been money in the game for years now, at one point United we're spending more than anyone, then Chelsea, then City, it's always been like that, not necessarily to the same astronomical proportions, but the game has always had domineering heavy weights, the figures have just changed. We can hardly feel hard done by in that regard, but then I agree that makes us just another big spending club that's been guilty of pissing away enough money that morally could have been better spent in the current climate.

Football is football, English clubs are going through the part of the cycle where they've let someone else take the crown for a while, while the domestic league itself has gone stale and far too easy to chart. That happens. give it a couple of years and the cycle will come back around again, maybe we'll be a part of it, maybe we won't, but the simple crux of the matter is, we just haven't been managed well enough as a club for a longtime, through a combination of poor board room antics, inconsistent managerial appointments and questionable spending. That could have happened any time. It shouldn't take away from your enjoyment of the game though, it's still XI v XI, we're just not that great at it right now.

 

[gkmacca]

The money men were - obviously - around during Shanks's time, but the great symbolic thing he did was marginalise them in the eyes of the fans ('At a football club there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques'), and thus (at a time when the likes of Don Revie were tugging their forelocks at chairmen like Manny Cussins, who combined to invest in merchandise with which to fleece the fans) a special atmosphere and attitude was born. Luckily he was so successful he could maintain it, as did his successors, and you can't just say it was COMPLETELY chimerical 'because capitalism still existed' or some similar snipe. Something else, something admirable, existed as well. The managers really did behave with incredible grace as well as skill (cf. Ginsoak). The Kop really was extraordinarily generous and respectful as well as knowledgeable and witty. When needed, the club usually did act in a way that suggested an unusual degree of good human judgement in such a coldly corporate environment. These weren't myths. There was a rare show of class, defiance and compassion there, in spite of everything else, that made people proud. You don't have to keep that if you win, but maybe you can't keep it , these days, when you don't win often enough. You need power to go against the grain. Henry can now snub a Liverpool manager, in public, at a cup final. That's how far the scales have tipped the other way, and that's how much, as a consequence, the class has slipped away from the club.

 

[mark1975]

The money men were - obviously - around during Shanks's time, but the great symbolic thing he did was marginalise them in the eyes of the fans ('At a football club there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques'), and thus (at a time when the likes of Don Revie were tugging their forelocks at chairmen like Manny Cussins, who combined to invest in merchandise with which to fleece the fans) a special atmosphere and attitude was born. Luckily he was so successful he could maintain it, as did his successors, and you can't just say it was COMPLETELY chimerical 'because capitalism still existed' or some similar snipe. Something else, something admirable, existed as well. The managers really did behave with incredible grace as well as skill (cf. Ginsoak). The Kop really was extraordinarily generous and respectful as well as knowledgeable and witty. When needed, the club usually did act in a way that suggested an unusual degree of good human judgement in such a coldly corporate environment. These weren't myths. There was a rare show of class, defiance and compassion there, in spite of everything else, that made people proud. You don't have to keep that if you win, but maybe you can't keep it , these days, when you don't win often enough. You need power to go against the grain. Henry can now snub a Liverpool manager at a cup final. That's how far the scales have tipped the other way, and that's how much, as a consequence, the class has slipped away from the club.

Agreed, but that's part of entertainment in general, everyone feels it's their God given right to share the limelight and be part of the whole PR machine - when they see fit. That fucks me off no end, not just in football but in music and more or less every other industry. That's a sign of the times rather than just merely our club losing it's ethics. That said, there is still soul in this club and with the fans, you just have to scratch away at the surface. Such is life.

 

[gkmacca]

everyone feels it's their God given right to share the limelight and be part of the whole PR machine

Believe me, such people were around before, but most were kept in check. It's not personalities that have changed, it's power. FSG have the perfect response to anyone who complains: 'We saved you'. It's true, so whatever comes with it is part of what it takes. That's the end of it.

 

[mark1975]

Believe me, such people were around before, but most were kept in check. It's not personalities that have changed, it's power. FSG have the perfect respnse to anyone who complains: 'We saved you'. That's the end of it.

Yeah this is it, money talks and bullshit walks. The media magnifies everything too, but we're dragged into an industry that has to use it. It struck me as much when Fergie got a ticking off lately by FIFA for not fulfilling his media duties as part of the whole CL circus. I mean, really? Is that what it's come to? I think Fergie is a graceless buffoon, but being 'obliged' to speak to the same guys who will hang you out to dry the next day, and sing your praises the week after. That's as far as it's gone, no wonder long term managers are a dying breed, there's so much distraction and people to please in the game these days, it's nigh on impossible to get the balance right most of the time unless you can manipulate the press as well as you can win over the fans, while not leaving yourself open to the public scrutiny of money men.

 

[gkmacca]

Yes, even the slavish way managers don't say the Premier League' but rather 'the Barclays Premier League' points that up. Maybe it's contractual, but there's no way they need to do that every single time, even when they're sitting on a sofa on Sky. Bankers first, then the plebs!

 

[Gary25]

What I can't stand is some of our own fans crying for some rich Arab or a Russian mobster to buy us and turn LFC into yet another Man City or Chelsea. If there ever comes a day when I quit being a Liverpool fan, it's going to be because of this happening.

Why exactly would you be against it?

Football's now a dirty business where money rules so i say if you can't beat them join them.

 

[Molbystwin]

The romantic version of LFC is dead and buried for me. There's nothing interesting, remarkable or different about the club now.

We're simply another Premier League Franchise trying to succeed. Commercialisation has changed the game so much now that it's not about what it used to be about. The struggles if a group of men playing in red that you could somehow identify with has been replaced with the preening and moaning of a bunch of halfwit millionaires who I can't stand.

The owners, the manager, the players - there's nothing about them that reminds of the Liverpool way.

I agree, even the atmosphere is mainly fucking shite nowadays as well....that was always the key for me.... the craic...

Something should be done to put the pep back into the club and bring it back to life, and i'm not just talking about money.

 

[mark1975]

I agree things have changed, but this is right up Rosco's street, let's not pretend fuckwits and mercenaries are anything new, bred from an influx of money, because they're not. There's has been idiots in the game throughout history. The main difference now is a shift in power in the game, and we're suffering because of it. Like I said, that could have happened anytime, we were never going to dominate for decade upon decade, we need and all want to get back in the thick of it, but if we were riding up there, I doubt many people would be moaning about identifying with the club. We still applaud teams that beat us fairly, we still have some of the most knowledgeable sets of supporters - let's not pretend we used to be a complete in-the-know bunch of would be sports writers, we've always had our fair share of idiots, like any club, we just have some more knowledgeable folk than most.

The atmosphere at the ground has also dwindled since it went all seated, you see that at every club, at every entertainment event. It's the same when you go to a concert, if it's standing then people come together and get into alot more, if it's all seated there's a certain element of detached viewing that takes away from the magic and togetherness with the team.

I think some people are over analysing things. One thing I will agree on is that too many people within the game (or related) have more exposure than they really should - owners, refs, backroom staff, wags, even fans.

 

[mark1975]

Someone should go out and beat the Sky Sports generation "we should have been champions yesterday and X 18 year old player is shit because he isn't the next Ronaldo after a handful of games". Shoot the lot of the cunts.

 

[gkmacca]

The atmosphere had already started to deteriorate in the early 90s. We'd been spoilt. Hardly anything got the fans excited anymore. I don't know if that's the case at OT - I don't pay enough attention to them except when we play there, which isn't a typical match. Seating made the atmosphere even worse, obviously, but it had been a slow death. LFCTV hasn't helped - the nostalgia business. The past gets shoved down everyone's throats every damn day. Match days are full of cockneys in the Main Stand, looking at their watches waiting for the glory days to come back.

 

[Molbystwin]

I think we should aspire to be different again, and we WERE different, Shankly gave the club it's over-riding philosophy it was all about togetherness and enjoyment. I'm a firm believer that we must return the buzz to the ground and that we should do that via introducing safe standing areas, even given our tragic history. Obviously the fact that 2 clubs with huge bucks have pushed us out of the picture and i'm not saying a re-invigorated Kop end would change the scene entirely but I am absolutely convinced it would help, it would certainly make it a bit more enjoyable and real, just a bit less Sky.

 

[Sunny]

We should just kill Sky. It's the devils work.

 

[Gary25]

The atmosphere had already started to deteriorate in the early 90s. We'd been spoilt. Hardly anything got the fans excited anymore. I don't know if that's the case at OT - I don't pay enough attention to them except when we play there, which isn't a typical match. Seating made the atmosphere even worse, obviously, but it had been a slow death. LFCTV hasn't helped - the nostalgia business. The past gets shoved down everyone's throats every damn day. Match days are full of cockneys in the Main Stand, looking at their watches waiting for the glory days to come back.

If in doubt, blame the out of towners/wools.

 

[Mersey86]

For me the romanticism of the club is seeing the old videos of the Kop swaying back and forward, the Panorama edition with the Beatles, the legendary YNWA, the surges forward after a goal, above all Shankly and the boot room. I liked the fact, growing up, that I was part of a tradition handed down father to son, that you got a taste of what Liverpool was about - the Kop was a little rough, very passionate, often very funny, but also a community - there'd be warnings to watch the language as a young lad was nearby, help in getting me protected from getting slammed against the barriers. But also a wealth of knowledge about the game.
Most of that has been eroded with time. Obviously all-seater stadiums didn't help a lot on atmosphere, but things had been changing long before that. We came to the end of the bootroom dynasty and needed to employ managers from former players and eventually from outside the club altogether. As for the atmosphere of the place, that was lost by success, as a new generation of fan grew up having seen nothing but success. People got spoiled and then complained at players. Then a new generation grew up having not tasted success. Its time for a new start - I see very little left of what I loved about the club - maybe its just life priorities that have changed. Maybe the old romanticism has little place in the huge business that the Premier League has become. Whatever it is, the best of LFC for me is 30 years past.

 

[Molbystwin]

Of course your life priorities change and naturally that will affect your relationship with the club. I was too young and too skint to catch the kop in its heyday but i got its last 4 years.

As an OOT'er, and without being overly schmaltzy here, I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it. Of course at first you felt like a trespasser but once you'd got over that and people around your usual spec knew your face then it was just a fucking blast.

Some of my very best football memories werent really football memories rather crowd memories. Near where me and my mates used to stand was this right funny bastard and his pals, a real scouse wit he was, genuinely funny fella, proper stereotypical scouser replete with perm tache... the full works.

I remember once just getting so carried away during a match that i just basically lost my shit and let out what only can be described as a primal scream/howl during a lull in the play and in the Kop itself. When i came to my senses and looked up I saw loads round me just staring as if to question what the fuck was that for... but because i was basically too far gone i did it completely without any sense of self conciousness, I dont know what it was but maybe just the sound or the look of me going mental next thing of course all those faces looking at me started one of their own equally as barmy... the sense of joy as it spread through the entire Kop... afterwards the smile of acknowledgement from the local tached joker...

I hope my sons will be able to experience something like that. That place was fucking fun.

 

[localny]

Great posts - can we all agree the soul of the club is it's fans, and maybe maybe maybe the lack of success on recent times means ironically, we're pretty soulful.

 

[Mersey86]

Yes - the soul of a club is its fans. And the character and humour of Liverpool fans used to set them apart. Call me Grandad, but I'm not sure about the character of the modern fan. Fickle, like the product they follow.

 

[Squiggles]

Well I'm not sure about that.

Fans in the 70's were never going to be fickle. Why would their enthisium diminish and their loyalty be tested when the club used to win everything?

 

[Gary25]

What we'd give for night's like this again at Anfield:


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SItko13shM&feature=endscreen&NR=1

 

[Squiggles]

Definitely.

I think the fans can sit around and bemoan all sorts of factors, but the bottom line is if they could be bothered to generate that sort of atmosphere every match day, which isn't impossible, or at least shouldn't be, then this discussion wouldn't be taking the place. The fans define the club, everything else is just excuses.

 

[localny]

We'd easily recreate that atmosphere. The soul is still *that good*.

 

[mark1975]

We'd easily recreate that atmosphere. The soul is still *that good*.

Quite, having a match that good to play in would be a start. The atmosphere has always been bigger for those type of games. That said, the atmosphere has dwindled, partly because we've gone all seated and partly because the fans just don't do it any more. That's got nothing to do with the soul of the club, and if people think it is, then the re-energising of the club starts with the fans, in that respect.

 

[RolandG]

We’re not English we are Scouse!

By John Ritchie on April 1, 2013
For most people in Liverpool, seeing England draw 1-1 results in either a half-hearted grunt or a wry smile. Being Scottish, I had the latter.

I appreciate a lot of Liverpool fans do not actually come from Liverpool, I’m in that camp. I fell in Love with the reds from a young age; I remember Hillsborough like it was yesterday, I remember that team of 88/89 as the first team to truly capture my imagination.
Even after the demise of Liverpool after Kenny left, there was something that kept me drawn to the club. The size of the club is something that does draw people in, but let me be clear; I’m not a glory hunter – if I was I’d have been off years ago.

More than the size, success or the glorious red strips devised by Shankly to intimidate the opposition that draws me to support Liverpool – it’s the fans, the people, scousers who make Liverpool the unique beast that it is.

It’s the same with Barcelona, although I’ve never actively supported barca, they are a club who are owned by the people and, and they’re no ordinary people Catalonians, they’re a people shunned due to their proud Catalonian routes and adamant stance that they’re not Spanish. They have their own language, culture and history that they see as unique. Any team with a bit of a chip of their shoulder and also a proud chip that sets them apart is something I’m instantly drawn too.

Scousers have never really seen themselves as English; scousers are scouse first and English second and long may that continue.
I’m lucky enough to have had the privilege to live in the city for a while through work and whilst I was there I never missed a match. I went home and away and saw some amazing scenes I’m likely never to see again. Even after I left I was still there week in and week out and was often drawn to the city as a place where people were proud of being a part of something bigger than themselves.

For Liverpool fans, the Kop in particular the sense of being different is clear. The concept of the Liverpool Way wasn’t a model that stemmed from some written constitution; the Liverpool Way is world famous because it’s a club that is the embodiment of a culture.
People doing things for each other, having anthems in a football ground, singing their hearts out, pride in the shirt of the fans who don’t really care about what’s going on outside and building something new and unique for themselves which represents them. Shanks was the embodiment of that, and was mad enough to instill that on his team which shook British football.

When you hear shanks talk about the collective, the team vs the individual, you’d think he was some socialist nutter. But that’s the Liverpool way, that’s why things like the Hillsborough campaign was successful because those amazing campaigners like John Glover and Sheila Coleman had a steel about them, a mental strength that comes from having been kicked from pillar to post and still they stand, they fight, they work together.

There are many parallels with that attitude and the pass and move approach Liverpool has, you hear Brendan Rodgers talking about his team pressing as a unit, the work-rate and character, intensity. They’re all words that would fit most scousers characters down to the ground. Creativity is another thing that scousers are famous for in more ways than one.
As the club announces tiered pricing in a stadium which by no means is fit for purpose and new season ticket structures meaning now that some tickets are priced at over £50 for games, there’s a bit of a risk that the club is beginning to isolate true, home grown fans and thus shun the culture that has made the club so famous.

Ian Ayre said last year, performances had been up and down therefore as well as the economic climate they wouldn’t increase prices. One could argue despite improvement Liverpool’s performances are still up and down, the economic climate is still tough, thus the two factors cited for not increasing prices are still there so why rise now?

Tony Evans of The Times said last week he felt that in doing this, the club was creating churn, trying to maximize the revenue from every seat by attracting a new demographic. This does make eminent sense drawn from Logic a lot of businesses follow. Whether this was Tony’s instinct as a seasoned journalist, rather than from inside info on the ‘why’ of the move to change direction in prices, nobody knows. If this is the truth, this could mean a sale is on the agenda for FSG, businesses like to fatten up before they look for buyers, but then again it could just be the realisation of a new commercial model.

This issue should be a real concern for Liverpool FC. The club raves about the atmosphere and the fans, although just now they’re doing little to show the local fans that every time the team play, they play for them as Shanks once said standing on top of steps of city hall after lifting the clubs first European cup ‘I’ve drummed it into my players time and time again, that when they play in a Liverpool shirt, they play for you’.

Ian Ayre and FSG must now tread carefully and show the fans they’re willing to invest in the people of Liverpool, after all the club rants and raves about the fans all over the world. Anfield does not have the effect of turning every day fans into some of the best supporters in the world, the fans are made that way. It’s in their DNA, these are no ordinary fans these are scousers, and it’s these fans that make Liverpool the great force they are.

Johann Cryuff once said he’s never experienced anything like the fans at Anfield, let’s not forget this was the man who was one of the best in the world in his generation, played for word famous clubs and who ditched Ajax for Feyenord (the equivalent of Steven Gerrard switching from Liverpool to join Man United) at half time forcing his team mates to be held in their dressing room for 8 hours after the game. This man knew passionate fans but none could be compared to those at Anfield.

Indeed, the new away fans are earning a reputation as one of the best in the country just now and it’s no wonder. These are young, passionate scousers who embody everything about the core support of the club, the Liverpool support doing things in a very Liverpudlian way. Fans from other areas of the country should be welcomed at Liverpool, and I know first-hand that the majority are, but us ‘outsiders’ of the Liverpool family know only too well why we love it at Anfied, or indeed Liverpool itself; it’s the scousers we love, it’s certainly not the weather!

For Liverpool to move forward, they must realize that isolating local support isn’t a smart move. Great European nights will be a little less great, fans bringing their own Kop banners will cease and we’ll see scenes like at Chelsea and Man City where the flags are laid out pre game for the fans to wave, we’ll end up the plastic fans that Rafa famously said of the Stamford bridge support. The unique selling point of LFC will be gone…

FSG would do well to go to their respective luxury beds at night remembering the saying ‘we’re not English, we are scouse’. It should haunt them; look what happened to Hicks and Gillett when they nearly destroyed the club. Scousers won’t stand for that and they won’t let it happen.
As for me I’ll always love Liverpool, but we’ll be a sorry club if it loses its heartbeat. Shanks once said of the Kop “The fans here are the greatest in the land. They know the game and they know what they want to see. The people on the Kop make you feel great – yet humble.”
Maybe John W Henry should have a little seat on the Kop as Shanks did once he retired, and he might finally find out why Liverpool is the club it is. He might then truly understand the Liverpool way!