Need a "Character"

[Rimshot]

ElG you're very sensitive for someone who is so ready to offer criticism. Are all Liverpool fans to be reviled ? I only know two well and they are both regular blokes - one a native-born Scouser, the other 'adopted' the club as a lad. Are Everton fans the same, or when you cross the road to Goodison are you somehow transformed ? What about Tranmere Rovers ?

I hold no brief for either Liverpool or Dalgleish, neither do I have an unreasoning dislike of them. Also my post wasn't actually having a pop at you and as for ME being 'curmudgeonly' I suppose it depends who I'm compared with...

This is about your dislike for Kenny and the Kop, and that comes hard on the heels of you writing off the UK and Gillingham fans .

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

I think Balotelli will do a good job for Liverpool in the goalscoring department,but we know he carries the same risks as Suarez.I`m sure Liverpool fans wont mind as Balotelli replaces 20 goals that they have lost since Suarez left.I expect it wont take long though for Balotelli to be in the news for the wrong reasons.

[Garawa]

I really dislike Liverpool. I'm sorry, but we have lived for years with the awful Hillsboro events and the whole country has bought into the idea that the whole club has been massively wronged. To a degree it is correct and those that died should be remembered but I hate the fact that it conveniently glosses over the fact that it was their own fans that were in part to blame for what occurred on that terrible afternoon - maybe not totally responsible but at least a key part along with police, stadium and FA failings. History will change some of the facts soon and place the blame firmly at one door but no one will accept that had they not pushed to get in what happened next wouldn't have occurred nor would all the appeals in trying to clear their consciouses. Sadly it the family of those who died looking to clear names for people that had no part in the event other that end up a name on a plaque.

Elg is right what he has said in previous posts, those that started the awful event in Sheffield are quite possibly the same fans that caused those deaths at Heysel and that is much more clear cut as the blame was laid firmly at their door and we were banned from Europe for years as a result. We then are expected to respect a silence in memory of those who died at Hillsboro while the same fans mock Man Utd for those that died in the Munich air crash. I then read last season that a team bus with a "Justice for the 92" banner in its window had its windows smashed in and was trashed by Liverpool fans whilst the media poured adoration after adoration on them showing just how wonderful and passionate their fans are! The club then stand by a player who cheats and bites his way to success and when finally getting a chance to redeem themselves by offloading him they replace him with another!

I'm sorry. I reckon if you are a bit more quiet and subdued perhaps you choose Everton in the City! I have no idea, I have never been to the area but I hate the fact we are constantly shown in the media what darlings they all are when in truth it is quite the opposite. We never hear anything like as much about those who died in the Bradford fire for example.

Elg, I didn't read Rimshot's comments as a dig by the way merely referring to what you had written yourself.

[Rimshot]

Sorry but Liverpool fans are like any others ..a cross section of the society they live in. One of my sons was at Uni in Liverpool and his experiences there were a mix of good and bad, just as the time he spent at College In Cambridge were.

I've lived and watched football in Medway, Watford, London, Derby, West Suffolk, South Midlands…sure there are regional characteristics but those of you who won't revise your judgements about Hillsborough are letting prejudice get in the way of established fact. I've seen awful violence perpetrated by Spurs' fans on Man Utd supporters, England fans beating up a solitary Swiss, GFC supporters attacking Shrewsbury followers outside Wembley, Derby and Forest 'skins' beating the crap out of each other. Football attracts mindless people because it gives them an excuse for violence but I sat in the Liverpool end of Wembley supporting Arsenal and had a great day out. That doesn't mean I think all their fans are angels but that's my only experience of their supporters at first hand.

Have you forgotten that we were one of the first clubs to get our ground shut for crowd violence ? That we were embroiled in the first ever allegations about match -fixing ? ( I saw the game involved ; we lost 3-1 at home and if all our players we're giving 100% that day my name's Archibald). That we have had a fatal stabbing of a rival fan right outside our ground ? Does that make you and me hooligans ? Guilt by association is a very poor way to judge anyone.

I don't support Liverpool, I don't like Suarez or Balotelli for that matter but I think Brendan Rogers is a very good manager and Steve Gerrard one of the most whole-hearted Englishmen on the planet. I'm even prepared to concede that there are pleasant Millwall and Swindon fans !

[Garawa]

Now you're just being silly, ha ha! Of course you are right, but I suppose a lot of that stemmed back to days in which hooliganism embroiled football as whole rather than individual clubs. I have no issue with Liverpool supporters, I know several even though many wouldn't know how to get to the City let alone watch games there. It just seems to me a lot of the most recent "bad stuff" appears to involve that club. I hated football as a child and read a book on the Busby Babes as part of a primary school project and got hooked into it from that. To chant abuse ridiculing that event when they want the world to cry with them for theirs is unforgivable in my book and I can't help thinking what the outcome would be the other way round.

[Elgrande]

I think you are missing the point Rimshot. There is some strange reasoning that makes the press always give the benefit of the doubt to all things Liverpool. Their fans have killed more opposition fans than any other English Club, but the press will hound any other club but those "good humoured Koppites" the same ones that used to throw bags of urine and filed down coins at the opposition fans. Their domination of the late 70's and the 80's was funded by the football pools and they had more money than any other club, but unlike Man Utd they never got a lot of flack for it. Leeds Utd used to get slaughtered for having hard men in their team, but Tommy Smith, Jimmy Case, Souness, Mcmahon, Hughes et al were no Angels, but the press used to gloss that over. Even now after 20 years of no title they still get more attention than other clubs that have an equal record and as for Rogers when he wins the title he will be as good manager a manger as he thinks he is.
You are right I despise them because I know what they were really like with their Stanley knives their organised "steaming" of shops all over Europe that never got reported in the UK, but was well documented all over Europe, their continuing wailing about always being the victims, but an almost denial of the events at Heysel. Even the BBC seem to think that interviewing fans in Istanbul that admitted they had no tickets, but would get in anyway just showed their passion for their team, not their complete disregard for safety and their own history.

[Robpthegills]

I dont want to get invovlved in this, but would like to be pedantic about one point.

The Fulham fan was not stabbed to death outside Priestfield.

He was under the influence of E drugs, he left the away enclosure and entered the area home fans were in leaving the stadium. He assaulted a gillingham fan who then hit him, and hit him hard. He took a knock to the side of his head
which caused him to fall down as he did so his head struck the kerb of the pavement cutting open his head. Due to the effect of the E tablets which thin your blood his blood would not congeal causing significant loss of blood.

That is how he died.


Sorry, I just feel strong about this point, as I often get londoners throwing it at me.

Other than that its a good debate. I do not like Liverpool, but I do not believe that simply by being a liverpool fan makes you a bad fan.

[CadburyMan]

Like Rob I do not intend to get embroiled in this debate but I wonder who is going to be the first person to stand on the steps of Liverpool's City Hall and share their opinions

[Garawa]

No one would hear Cadbury! These views are factually correct in many instances but never spoken about! Like Heysel, it just isn't mentioned anywhere but Hillsborough is all the time. Is it because those that died were not Liverpool fans in that case?

Being a Liverpool fan certainly doesn't make you a "bad fan" but clearly the club have enjoyed a far greater amount of back patting when many of their supporters act in a way I just don't see ever on my way to the ground (an d I would imagine at 95% of every other ground as well).

[Elgrande]

Just to back up my point this is the BBC's report on the Champions League Draw. I copied and pasted for ease of access.

Five-time winners Liverpool will face defending champions Real Madrid on their return to the Champions League.
Liverpool, back after a five-year absence, have also been drawn alongside Basel and Ludogorets of Bulgaria.
Manchester City will play Bayern Munich for the third time in four seasons, as well as CSKA Moscow and Roma
Arsenal face Borussia Dortmund for the second season running, while Chelsea look to have a kind draw against Schalke, Sporting Lisbon and Maribor.
The Gunners, who qualified for the group stages for the 17th season in a row by beating Besiktas 1-0 on aggregate in the play-off, have also been drawn with Galatasaray and Anderlecht in Group D.
As well as Bayern, Premier League champions City also played CSKA Moscow in last season's competition, winning home and away to help them advance to the last 16, where they were beaten 4-1 on aggregate by Barcelona.
Liverpool won their third European club title by beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the 1981 final in Paris thanks to an Alan Kennedy goal and manager Brendan Rodgers is delighted to be playing the record 10-time winners of the competition again.
"To be back in it again, no matter who we were going to play, it was always going to be exciting. But to have Real Madrid in your group, the champions last season, is going to be special," Rodgers told Liverpool's website.
"I'm already thinking of Anfield on that night. But there are two other good teams in it along with us. It's a tough group but we'll really look forward to the challenge of getting out of the group."
Reds chief executive Ian Ayre added: "Is it going to be tough? Of course, but we wouldn't be in it if it wasn't difficult, fun and challenging and we have prepared ourselves well and have good preparations.
"It's an exciting group, it's our competition, we're five-times winners and big nights against teams like Real Madrid is what it's all about."
Real Madrid's former Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo won the Uefa Best Player in Europe Award at the draw in Monaco, beating Bayern Munich pair Manuel Neuer and Arjen Robben, who were also short-listed.
Ronaldo said of the Liverpool clash: "It'll be nice, I've never played there for Real Madrid. Liverpool is a very, very difficult stadium. But we are Real Madrid so we're going to try to win."