June 2005
By Steve Kelly
1st June: I was wondering if Dietmar’s great grandfather knew Friedrich Nietzsche at all? When he was expounding his theory about the ‘Ubermensch’, did he have anyone specific in mind? I only ask because the news today is that Hamann felt a pain in his foot during extra time, but still (a) kept closing AC down (b) went on a 70-yard run in the final minute (c) took a superb penalty. It turns out he actually broke a bone! And this is the player Rafa left out for Harry Kewell? Elsewhere, the biggest soap opera of the summer begins as we now have to try and manoeuvre our way into next year’s Champions League. The President of Malta’s FA is also on the UEFA Executive Committee and he sounds very cross ………..what?………..oh per-lease! A! s if I would stoop that low.
1st June: Gerard Houllier, now the manager of Lyon, opens a new wing at Broadgreen Hospital. “With what happened in Istanbul, it’s nice to know we have this sort of set-up ready”, he quips. He follows “I want to stress that the credit goes to the players and to Rafael” with “I know that 12 of the 14 were my players but that’s football”. He’s back folks – and plucking my n! erves already. We wish him well, though.
2nd June: Fine analogy in the Express about Chelsea continually being accused of tapping up other club’s players. “If something is okay because it’s widespread, then let’s go shoplifting. The ‘everybody does it’ argument is a wretched admission that football business is conducted in a squalid, seedy manner”. Do you know, the face of Peter Kenyon pops into my mind every time anyone says “squalid” or “seedy”. Pavlov and Freud could hav! e a field day with me, but that’s a story best left to the News Of The World.
2nd June: I knew they couldn’t keep it up. This morning’s headline in the Mail: “Fickle Figo eager to join United…but Liverpool will do”. Phil McNulty talks up the blues in a piece that might as well have typed out the words “Over here! Over here! Hey!” a thousand times, but he did come up with one zinger: “Trying to argue against Liverpool’s victory is like taking on a cannon with a pop gun so forget it”. Do you think that’ll stop them though? ! Oh well, if you insist……BOOM! We’re being linked with Peter Crouch, of all people. What the hell for? Does the Main Stand roof need painting?
3rd June: Has Mourinho got Evertonian relatives? There’s a definite streak of bitterness there. “Knockout competitions are decided by luck. Two years ago AC M-“ whoa whoa – TWO years ago? Not last year, then? That was won fair, square and with no luck at all then? “If the CL final was between the two best teams in Europe, it would have been Barcelona versus Chelsea” – and so join t! he dots to see who the real holders should be. The hack’s next question should have been “but without Terry’s foul you wouldn’t even have got to the semi final would you?” - but instead it was “Jose, do you think I could get both of your balls in my mouth?”……
3rd June: Oh come on. I know footie news is slow at the moment, but Baros signing for Lyon? I know he sometimes plays like a dimwit, but surely he’s not stupid enough to believe there are two Gerard Houllier’s. Bolo Zenden’s father (also his agent) says we’re interested in signing him. “Someone from Liverpool has spoken to Middlesbrough about it”. Are you sure? Because we’ve had trouble with this before………
3rd June: Prentice and Kendall are already whining about the cut the Reds will take if there are 5 English sides entered in the CL. “Liverpool should just be delighted to be allowed entry”. Allowed?!? You may be in your own permahaze, but we just won the fucking thing. Where’s that money coming from? The sponsors and TV. Let’s ask them who they want in their competition. The holders – or the who-the-hell-are-they’s? If you want to nick a few quid by riding on other, bigger teams’ coat tails we won’t squawk – but no one gives a toss about your petty, rundown little club. PS: the Echo just announced it had record sales on May 26th, so keep biting the hand that feeds, arsewipes.
4th June: And as if by magic the penny (or rather £10m) drops. The Post finally reveals that no, Everton won’t be seeded in the qualifier. Sor-reeeeee. “Everton know they don’t have a large enough co-efficient to take a seeded place”………they’re quick on the uptake, aren’t they? Mouthpiece Ian Ross says it is “because we haven’t been in Europe for 5 years”. Yeah, and the rest. You have beaten a team from Iceland in the last 15 years, so England has much to thank you for since our ranking is better than Kwik Save’s. Just shows you how some people will believe anything, like the poor saps who read the ‘Mirror’ today and think there’s a snowball in hell’s chance of Raul leaving Real Madrid for us. He’s bezzie mates with Morientes, apparently – so when is Paul Weller joining Oasis?
5th June: Lovely bunch Chelsea, aren’t they? The nouveau riche, having been spanked over Ashley Cole and warned repeatedly, lure Frank Arnesen from Spurs. The Express prints two sentences on the back page and buries the meat of the story ten pages in. I’m amazed they didn’t put it in the crossword. “Ten down, greedy immoral slimeball (5, 6): _ _ t _ r _ e _ y _ n”……… hmmmmm. There’s also a piece in the Mirror about Gerrard’s £50m move. I make that what, 11 days since lifting the European Cup? Gotta be a world record of some kind.
6th June: The Mail, not being in Chelsea’s pocket, reveals that they’d already swiped Spurs’ physio before the Arnesen business blew up. The Express, in sharp contrast, simply writes “Tottenham want hush money” (the dirty blackmailing bastards!) and “Arne taken by The Predator”. Sample conversation: Do you want your wages tripled? Yes, please. Welcome aboard – wow! He really is The Special One. There’s also a piece where Cole claims “I’ve been betrayed” – by Arsenal…………did somebody just shout “freedom of the press” then? That must be a motherfucker of a yacht………
7th June: Yet more transfer ‘shocks’ at the Pit, where Forsell’s “knee worry” looks like spoiling Everton’s bid. The Post’s spellchecker is bloody awful. You write “turned down and laughed at”, and the computer automatically corrects it to “knee worry”. It’s happened too often to be a coincidence. And if you think I’m being childish and immature, you ain’t seen nothing yet. With Martin Jol now flying solo at Tottenham, the papers are searching for quotes from his family – like his brother, Cock. Yes, that is correct – Cock. Cock Jol. “Can Martin fill the void left by Arnesen?! ‘Of course he can’ said Cock”. Let’s hope he doesn’t fill his void with Cock. Only in Holland.
7th June: The Echo’s gratitude for their May 26th windfall knows no bounds. Twice tonight they’re whinging about Liverpool getting CL money next year. We know you’re short of funds, but if you’re that desperate why not start selling the Big Issue and have done with the pretence?
8th June: There’s some tennis tournament on, and Prentice drags Navratilova into the whole CL debate. No honestly, he really did. Having been fully briefed by Honest Dave she comes to the conclusion that no, Liverpool shouldn’t be allowed in. “If they can’t beat Everton, how can they be allowed in the final?” – eh? This from someone who gets into Wimbledon every year despite a ranking lower than her nipples. She’s on the back page with a red shirt emblazoned with ‘Navaratilova 9’ – well, you can hand that back for a start! Looking forward to Dave’s Summer Pops interviews: “Go Liverton! If it wasn’t for Hazel and Cliff Tapas” said Diana Ross etc etc.
9th June: Kirkland’s off to West Brom on a season’s loan. Gee, I do hope it’s a pay-as-you-play contract – we may be able to buy a new lock for the Shankly Gates. The paper says he is contracted to Liverpool until 2009! Who the hell signed that? This club is the worst run business in Britain. The police, with so little to do in the North East (ahem), decide to prosecute Lee Bowyer for threatening behaviour during a match. I do hope this change of policy isn’t going to be nationwide and retroactive. Gary Stanley ! and Terry Mac will be worried (and the other 20).
10th June: You thought we had it bad at the Ataturk? There’s going to be an Istanbul Grand Prix in August, and it’s even further away than the football stadium. How do they keep getting these things? The words “serious” and “bribe” spring to mind. Despite the Echo’s optimism – “Liverpool wouldn’t appeal against a 3rd round qualifying place” – we get dumped into round 1. The appalling grovelling that takes place after the announcement makes me sick. This club never can and ! never will punch its weight until we have a new regime in charge.
11th June: UEFA tacitly admit they ballsed it up by rather belatedly changing their own rules: from now on, the winners go straight in and will have to replace the 4th-placed league team if they finished outside the top 4. That’s what they wanted the FA to do, and the charlatans who run English football pulled a fast one. It’s a runaround that isn’t going to be easily forgiven or forgotten. Rafa’s whole pre-season arrangements go into the shredder. It w! ould be nice to think that the blues will shut the hell up, since it’s now clear the FA acted in their interests all along – but chance would be a fine thing. And let’s not forget the people who are really suffering here – the England team. “The real kicking here is the one that Gerrard’s body will have to face – England may pay the ultimate price”, writes Martin The Manc Lipton in the Mirror. Have they got £4m a year to pay his wages? No? Then shut the fuck up then.
12th June: While we’re on the subject of bewildered U! nited fans, full marks to the Johnny Rebs forming their own football club. Les Dawson would be proud of the comic legacy that still thrives in his home town. FC United of Manchester are however struggling to find a manager. Bryan Kidd’s turned it down, so they’re sounding out Sammy McIlroy. Let us know when you get down to Mike Bassett. Fred and Wilma are at it again, yeowling obscenities and threats at a couple of schoolboys sitting in the back of a car outside (don’t laugh) a chip shop in Alderley Edge. Ms Coleen regales them with a speech from a Merchant Ivory film: “I’m going to fucking kill you! Who do you fucking think you are? I’ll gouge your fucking eyeballs out!” – she didn’t learn that from Miss Jean Brodie, did she? “Gels, gels – it’s gige one’s facking eyeballs out”.
13th June: The OED has come up with a brand new verb. “To blatter: to emit a stream of puffed up bullying nonsense, to strut with no good reason, to talk endless shite”. As if 6 extra games in July weren’t enough of a handicap, this awful World Championship in Tokyo looks like ! going ahead after all. We’re still negotiating over whether we can pull out of the Vladivostok tug o’war u-12’s tournament next Spring, though. Now we’re being linked with Luis Figo, because obviously the idea of Raul coming here was idiotic…………
14th June: Unless there’s a swap in the offing. A headline like “Gerrard urges Liverpool to make him an offer” is hugely disconcerting. Surely we can be spared all this for just one summer? It’s only a matter of time before the other bloodsuckers pile in, especially as Real are! only supposed to want to pay £30m. They must think we’re idiots. Why on earth do Real think we would sell our England superstar for less than he’s w-………mmm. Point taken. Didn’t think that one through, did I? The United rebellion hasn’t exactly gone according to plan, since it’s revealed that only about 100 season ticket holders have not renewed. Po-wer to the peo-puuul! Go get ‘em, Foxy……………
14th June: Very disconcerting news about Steve Finnan, who may face charges after this driving incident he had in January. It wa! sn’t exactly brilliant for the fella who died of course, or his family, so all we can do is hope Steve doesn’t turn out to be one of these bighead/do what I please footballers because he never really seemed the type. Maybe we’ll never find out and it’ll just be quietly dropped, just like the news of Rafa’s “very strange” letter from Alex Ferguson, which contained a detailed tactical evaluation of our entire European campaign. Just when we were wondering why he’d not joined in with the bitchathon of the other two brats in the playpen, is this his slimy way of slapping Benitez down and letting him know who the daddy is? Don’t look know Alex, but someone’s coming for you with a sock full of snooker balls!
15th June: The honeymoon is over. 21 days of press pleasantries for LFC – that beats their previous best by 20. “How ungrateful can you get?” screams Des Kelly, as Reds continue to bellyache (with some justification) about playing 6 qualifying games. “It makes you wonder why anyone bothered” – erm, so you could all stab us in the back first chance you get? The Blues in the local press continue to keep our spirits up with their lunacy. Capeling suggest that Stubbs should join Liverpool on the grounds that he’s not as bad as Pellegrino. Well, if Ian Ure turns us down we know where to find him - jogging in Stanley Park! And Prentice is putting in overtime at the Ministry of Truth: “Inter midfielder Emre is pricing himself out of a move to the Premiership”. Everton, the Premiership – so easy to! get the two mixed up, isn’t it?
15th June: Robin Van Persie has been arrested on suspicion of rape in Holland. At last, something bad happening with Arsenal that Wenger genuinely didn’t see.
16th June: The Everton Summer. Phase 1: get linked with all kinds of players. Phase 2: same players leave for other pastures (Forsell to Brum and now Parker to Newcastle). Phase 3: players you’ve actually got linked to moves away, like this morning’s Post story about City and Ma! rcus Bent. You know what Phase 4 is: once a blue etc etc. I know this is 12 months out of date, but last season did anyone see any “Everton Get Bent” headlines? No, me neither. Shame.
17th June: Hurray to the Birmingham fans who are ganging up on Lee Bowyer (oh, the irony) and don’t want him anyway near St Andrews. One of them said “signing him would be a slap in the face to a portion of our community”. I think he’s capable of worse, frankly. Steve Bruce, fine upstanding chap that he is, throws a wobbler. “Talk all you want about his reputation, none of that concerns me”. Evidently. Apparently, Bowyer has concerns regarding the Asian community. He’s worried that Birmingham’s actually got one. Diouf has finally signed for Bolton (Steve Bruce will be really fur! ious now) with the headline “Diouf parting shot at Houllier”. Exact quote: “Sam is the best manager I ever worked with, I was going nowhere at Liverpool”. About as effective as any ‘shot’ he ever had at Anfield, parting or otherwise. Baros is urged to look at the huge ‘exit’ sign now right in front of him, but as per usual he won’t lift his head up. One year left on his contract, is it? Another quality bit of Liverpool business. Kewell isn’t going anywhere though, not unless it’s back to court with Lineker after the first jury fails to reach a verdict. So Baros, a workaholic who gets kicked from pillar to post, is being sent on his way while the waste of a Champions League Final shirt gets to stay. We should watch that TV show ‘The Apprentice’ and hire who gets kicked off first. Could they honestly do a worse job?
19th June: “FIFA to act on Harry moves”. Thanks, mate. Thanks a bunch. Couldn’t just sit there, revel in your (and your agent’s) good fortune, whistle a few lines of “sticks and stones” and keep your bloody mouth shut. McManaman deal? It’ll never happen again. Ziege fiasco? It’ll never happen again. Anyone beginning to see a pattern emerge?
20th June: With Real apparently scared off! by a £32m price tag (there’s another club who won’t be, but leave it for now) Rafa decides that the way to a man’s heart is through his arse and starts licking furiously. “We are building a great team around him, we want him to be the skipper who wins the most titles in Liverpool’s history”………well, he’ll have to want, won’t he? Let’s just settle for a challenge first and see where that takes us. Meanwhile, the NWDA puts the block on £23m earmarked for the new stadium. The council keeps bleating about £180m of private sector investment which will be generated by the stadium – so what happens to all that if LFC pull the plug on the whole idea? The only way to get the money is clearly a share with Everton, and with the Parrydome under serious threat……
22nd June: Istanbul was 4 weeks ago. All special editions having sold by the bucketload, the Post reverts to what it does best: baiting Reds and handing the begging bowl out for the blues. Objective One money may be withdrawn now, leaving a whipround in the Arkles as Parry’s last means of raising the funds. The Post sees only one solution (I’ll give you three guesses) saying “if Everton were involved the public sector might dig deeper to make the scheme happen”. They’d pretty much have to, wouldn’t they? Unless the lint in the Luvvie’s smoking jacket counts as collateral these days.
23rd June: Chelsea aren’t even trying any more. “Mr Abramovich and Mr Arnesen know each other, they were holidaying in the same location and simply had lunch. It was purely a social occasion”. What’s next? “Ashley Cole, guv? He fell off the back of a lorry”. Liverpool’s fixtures are already in chaos. The third league game is cancelled for the playoffs and the fourth for the Super Cup. The season is ending earlier because of the World Cup. Sky have a dream of screening football games 24/7 – they may all involve us at this rate.
24th June: Prentice isn’t taking the Scott Parker snub lying down. “We may have cruelly reproduced quotes where he’d claimed that he wanted to join a club playing in Europe” he scoffs. As opposed to a club that’s played four European games in 20 years, you mean? We went to Newcastle in March and they got 51,000 for a meaningless league game. The next day, Everton got 32,000 for a match that could have clinched their CL place. That Scott Parker, what a dickhead eh? We draw TNS in round one of the qualifiers, obviously before Dave’s deadline otherwise the word ‘Wales’ would have triggered a Treorchy flashback.
25th June: Blue sympathiser Alan Nixon blasts Craig Bellamy in the ‘People’ for asking Everton who else they’re signing before he agrees to join. So that’s Greedy Imre, Crocked Forsell, Deluded Parker and now Cheeky Bellamy already this summer. Who’s next? Unambitious Zidane? Past-It Raul? You-were-always-rubbish-anyway Ronaldo? Who do they think they are kidding with this nonsen! se?
28th June: Letters in the ‘Post’: “I’m glad Everton aren’t paying over the odds for Parker – those who do come want to play for the club and not improve their bank balance” reads one. “Moyes is showing business acumen by letting Newcastle pay over the odds” reads another. Ah-ha. Back page reads: “Arteta deal in the balance” because “the player accused the club of undervaluing him” – so that’s next week’s postbag sorted then. “Glad! Do you hear me!? GLAD!!!!” etc etc.
29th June: Zenden looks to be a done deal. Nicknames usually make my teeth ache, but I’m afraid Bolo will have to suffice because I’m not remembering how to spell Boudewijn. Note to hospital registrars: don’t ask the mother for the baby’s name during birth……
29th June: The Glazers finally reach Old Trafford – swiftly followed by the glaziers as Rentamob kicks off big-style. TV shots of smackheads carrying “Yanks Out” barriers, erecting huge barricades to keep them in the place. Top class comedy.
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