my liverpool fc

from KOPBLOG

There’s been plenty of Liverpool related news over the past week worthy of comment and I‘ll get to that shortly, but let me indulge myself and start off this blog by saying, Golf is a stupid fucking game! This might seem to be an unusual way to start off a football blog but it’s a phrase I’ve had cause to repeat numerous times over the past week and just in case I forget it, I decided to write it down. But before you guys think that I’ve completely lost it, let me explain.

With the football season about to end, I was trying to come up with something to keep me occupied during the close season and thought it might be a good idea to dust off my golf clubs which have been lying in the garden shed for the past 5 years, big mistake! They had been lying in my shed so long, that I had obviously forgotten why I put them there in the first place, but it wasn’t long before I found out. Not only did I manage to get around my local par 71 golf course in a mightily impressive 119 strokes, losing four golf balls in the process, but I also managed to pull a muscle in both my back and my left shoulder.

I’ve been laid up with so many aches and pains over the past few days that my mates have started to call me Gerry Kewell! However, unlike Harry, I don’t have the prospect of playing in a Champions League final to suddenly get me back on my feet again and have had to rely on more traditional methods of treatment. The cruellest part of my injuries is not so much the pain, but the fact that my medication prevents me from consuming alcohol, so I’ve had to get through almost an entire week sober. This has obviously had a severe negative impact on the share price of those wonderful people that brew Stella Artois but I want to assure them that I’ll be back in action next Wednesday at 4:13 pm GMT, which will be exactly 8 hours after taking my last two tablets.

Anyway, apologises for my personal little rant but as you can imagine my mood has not been good over the past week and its certainly hasn’t been improved by what has seemed to be an anti-Liverpool week in the media and beyond, so lets have a quick recap.

Firstly, after last weekends games I heard Neil Warthog the moaning bastard manager of Sheff Utd having a thinly veiled pop at Rafa in his after match interview. Tomorrow the mancs play Wet Spam in what could be a crucial game in terms of things at the foot of the Premiership and Warthog claimed that unlike certain managers, Alex Fungusface has a healthy respect for teams at the bottom of the table and wouldn’t play a weakened side against the Hammers.

Clearly he was referring to Rafa with this statement but maybe if he kept his mouth shut and put as much effort into managing his own team as he does into moaning about everything and everyone else, then maybe his club wouldn’t be in a position where they have to rely on other clubs doing them a favour. I’m desperately hoping Paul Jewel’s Wigan side can get a result against them tomorrow and put Warthog and his side back in the lower league where they belong.

After this came an attack by the former Real Madrid coach and World Cup winner Jorge Valdano on both Rafa and Jose Moaninho. He claimed that they are ushering in a bleak future for football and likening the Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea to “a shit hanging from a stick”. I have neither the time nor the inclination to reproduce all of his mindless rant here, but I’m sure you’ve all read it by now and for those that haven’t, I’ll stick in a link to it later.

To save me the trouble of responding to this clowns bullshit, I had an e-mail from Kopblog regular Jim McCabe on this subject which contained a response that I think covers things quite nicely. “Gerry, just a couple of points which expose Valdano’s rant as the senseless shite that it is. Valdano has worked as “sporting director” at Real Madrid. During his time at the Bernabeau, he was presumably in agreement with the Board’s attempts to entice not just Rafa, but the Not So Special One, too. His jibe smacks of, erm, sour grapes. Also, Valdano was part of an Argentina squad whose gamesmanship, cynicism, time-wasting & open thuggery besmirched international football.” Nice one Jim, and spot on as ever.

Next up came Sir Alex Fungusface who claimed that he was “absolutely certain” that AC Milan will beat us and win the Champions League in Athens on May 23rd (click here) . The manc boss said he received a magnificent bottle of wine from the AC Milan boss after his side were thrashed at the San Siro and claims he is saving it to celebrate Milan’s “certain” victory. Of course, we all know Fergie is a pisshead who will say anything for a bottle of wine but to say any result is “certain” in the world of football, is stupid beyond belief.

I suspect the real reasons that brought about his comments are envy and ego related. Earlier in the season he admitted he was envious of Liverpool’s record in Europe. In 20 years in charge he has managed to take the mancs to just one Champions League final, whereas this will be Rafa’s second final in just three attempts and of course we have already won it 5 times compared to a paltry 2 from the mancs. Besides this is the fact that if Rafa comes up with a tactical plan to defeat the team that so easily defeated the mancs in the semi’s, it will show up Fergie for the limited manager that he really is, and the thoughts of us making it 6 times in such circumstances must really stick in his craw.

Then came UEFA who confirmed that they will not increase Liverpool’s ticket allocation from the miserable 17,000 we have been assigned (click here). The stupidity and greed of these UEFA clowns never ceases to amaze me. Firstly, with so many big magnificent stadiums around Europe, why is the biggest showpiece final in the game being held in a stadium with a capacity of just 63,000? And why is it that both teams get allocated just 17,000 tickets each while UEFA and its “friends” get control of the remaining 29,000?

Its seems that every newspaper I pick up, every TV station I watch or radio station I listen to, seems to have competitions giving away tickets to the Champions League final, why aren’t these tickets in the hands of supporters? There seems to be no end to the tickets available on the black market and desperate fans are being forced to pay crazy money for them, so why isn’t this investigated by UEFA? I’ll tell you why, its because all of those black market tickets would lead straight to UEFA’s door. They are nothing but a bunch of greedy bastards, who do virtually nothing for the game except line their own pockets and they make me sick.

Finally, the biggest and saddest news for Reds fans this week was that Robbie Fowler will not be offered a new contract and will be leaving the club at the end of the season (click here) . Although I said that I suspected this would be the case in my last blog, it still came as a bit of a hammer blow to hear it confirmed.

He will be in a Liverpool shirt for the final time at Anfield in today’s game against Charlton. It’s sure to be an emotional occasion and its fantastic that he can say goodbye to the fans properly this time. I’ve read some fine tributes to God throughout the week and I wish I could come up with something that could come close to paying him the respect he so richly deserves, but the truth is I can‘t. To say that he is a Legend, a fantastic footballer, the most naturally gifted striker I have ever seen and that it has been an honour to watch him grace a Liverpool shirt, just doesn’t seem to do him enough justice.

I’ll try to come up with a more decent tribute to Robbie at the end of the season, but it won’t be easy because there’s just something about what Robbie Fowler means to Reds fans that’s difficult to define in words. For the moment I’m just hoping and praying that he can get on the score sheet today. C’MON ROBBIE, ONE MORE TIME FOR THE KOP