Editorial
By Steve Kelly From Issue 61, Summer 2003
It could be a sign of ageing I suppose, but August
is no longer my favourite month. In fact, I’m
beginning to think May is the time I like best.
Not a good sign, is it? As each new season begins,
my enthusiasm dwindles – and I’m not
sure it’s entirely my fault. Anyway, let’s
get the formalities out of the way. Welcome to
a new edition of the fanzine. Thanks to everyone
who sent in stuff, and as always there were more
articles than I could use – they’ll
be held back for 62, which I’m trying to
bring out earlier but I never do and you don’t
believe me or care anyway so why do I bother?
“Why do I bother” seems to be the
question of the year thus far. I can think of
few seasons where the anticipation has been at
such a low level. That may not be a bad thing,
of course. Some of our better seasons came after
summers full of anxiety (1994) or despair (1985,
1989) – and after the season we’ve
just gone through some success and some good football
will no doubt be greeted by the kind of euphoria
better suited to the football we saw in 78/79
and 87/88. Long-term, that attitude might be dangerous.
No doubt there will be many Reds who will be ever
so grateful for fourth place and a bit of passing,
but given the strides we made in the first two
years of the Millennium that would be a bit of
a smokescreen to be honest.
Get used to it, because Liverpool FC has been
almost completely swallowed up by hype. The purchase
of Kewell has wetted a few appetites, and if it’s
our cue to stop spending flipping great wadges
of cash for flops and finally start punching our
weight in the transfer market, I’m all for
it. Pre-season hasn’t really given us a
chance to get a good look at him, though early
reports about Le Tallec seem promising. Judging
by the Ajax game alone, I’ve got a horrible
feeling we’re in for more of the same. There
was stuff before the tournament about Jari and
what a ‘mystery’ it was that he didn’t
shine at Anfield. There’s no mystery, and
anyone who’s regularly watched Liverpool
for the last few years wasn’t ‘mystified’
in the slightest. We could be making the same
error with Harry as we made with Litmanen, and
Diouf to an extent: this isn’t about the
personnel, it’s about the style, the ethos,
the philosophy of Liverpool 2003. Which, as we
all know, is in the hands of one man.
Call me a sarky old bore, but you can’t
give Bobby Crush a Steinway and expect him to
play like Rubinstein………ah, here
we go. “Three paragraphs without a dig,
that’s almost like a famine for you, you
whinging get”. Guilty as charged. I’m
not budging an inch, and the football we saw after
the last editorial was nowhere near enough to
make me change my mind. The bullshit levels are
still high and the paranoia is becoming laughable.
Two years ago, you’d never have predicted
that any Liverpool fan would be siding with Ian
St John against Gerard Houllier. That’s
how bad it’s become. Of course he’s
getting another crack at it, we knew he would,
so once again we’re going into a new season
more in hope than anticipation.
It’s eerily reminiscent of previous regimes.
In fact, there’s a 3-page article on the
subject later in the fanzine, so enjoy. It was
written before Kewell, so there’s no mention
of the “worthy Number Seven” drivel
– ten years to the day that we were all
getting excited about Nigel Clough. Not one player
can be bought without there being an odious comparison
to some legend, usually Zidane! We have been transformed
into 80’s Man U – how else can you
explain beating a team 6 times in two years and
yet the manager says “we’re two years
behind them”? Even the Chief Executive is
coming out with crap like “we’ll buy
quality” or “you’ll be on the
edge of your seat”. SHUT UP!!!
There’s a great line in The Good The Bad
& The Ugly, when Eli Wallach kills his would-be
assassin and says “Don’t talk –
shoot”. Don’t you wish the hierarchy
at LFC watched westerns? Remember the contempt
we had for Evans in 1998, when he said “some
clubs would say coming third, getting in a semi
final and qualifying for the UEFA Cup is good
enough – but not Liverpool”? At least
he had the good grace to add the final three words.
Gerard didn’t even do that, and he came
fifth!
People can talk about expectations, CL qualification,
league places, cup runs etc, but I’ll admit
that none of this interests me greatly. What I’m
looking for is FUN. This is a deadly serious question:
just when did entertainment stop being a part
of our expectations? Did I miss a meeting or something?
Steve, we had a vote. Grinding, defensive monotony
won. When did watching Liverpool become the football
equivalent of self-flagellation? This is what
annoys me the most. I’ve seen titles, I’ve
seen European Cups. It wouldn’t upset me
to be told I wasn’t going to see them again,
but I do want to see a Reds side that plays the
game the way it ought to be played – and
that hardly ever happens nowadays. And I don’t
want to hear a load of shite statistics that say
we had more goal attempts than Arsenal. Ask ANY
neutral who they’d rather watch, and those
numbers become lies.
I’m slowly but surely reaching the same
age as my dad when he began preferring cricket
to football. I can’t think of a fate worse
than that, but if heredity isn’t doing everything
it can to force
me to watch the sporting equivalent of an Andy
Warhol film, Gerard Houllier’s ‘philosophy’
will
finish me off. Of course I could just get a Sky
dish, bury the bigotry and appreciate good football
whoever was playing it – but where’s
the fun in that? Football without passion becomes
an exhibition, a mere demonstration of skills.
In short, utterly worthless.
As always, many of you won’t like the content
of this issue. I’m making no apologies.
We don’t have to keep the club sweet for
any reason, and that frees us to say exactly what
we think. You want gloss, you want “Ra!
Ra! Ra!” - then buy something else. As small
as we are, people need to see the other side of
the argument and that’s what we’re
going to carry on providing. Of course you can
end up looking daft. If Gerard kept his vow to
win the Premiership and the Champions League,
I’d probably just say “well, he’s
still got a fat arse”.
But I’m not expecting a whole lot this
year, not in terms of achievement anyway. Even
so, 2003/04 must be the year that entertainment
returned to L4, or at least the realisation that
‘fun’ isn’t a dirty word. Now
“crevice” – that’s a dirty
word………
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