Category Archives: Blog 109

Stories related to going to the match. Blog 109 is a nod to the location of my seat in the iconic Spion Kop, which is situated in Block 109

TikTok, the Hegelian Dialect and Jurgen F*@#ing Klopp

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By Simon Meakin

In his final match preview of the season, Simon Meakin reflects on an incredible journey. And, as he looks ahead to next season, he has a special request for Klopp.

We’re finally reaching the season’s end.  A little bit later than planned and an end that for a while looked like it would never be reached at all, forever lying tantalisingly ghost-like just out of view, whispering on the wind about could have beens and might have beens, lost in a haze of annulments and PPG.

But we’ve got there.  The most extraordinary season I’ll ever likely to know is finally drawing to a close.  To be honest, winning the title with seven games to spare has meant the last few games have been a little bit of a damp squib compared to the magnificence that has gone before (yes winning the title with seven games to go was beyond my wildest dreams but still not keen on this losing matches lark). And before I launch into my full blown eulogy Jurgen, the one comment I’m going to write in the “Could do Better” box of your end of year report is “Would you mind awfully if you took the FA Cup a bit more seriously next year now the 30 year title drought has been sorted?”  If I’m looking at the Semi-Final line-up of the usual suspects and realise I’m going to have to hope Arsenal win it again for the 400th time that’s not good. 

I think my all-time favourite Liverpool match was the Michael Owen smash and grab against them in Cardiff in 2001.  Even better than Istanbul (don’t ask me why.  It just was).  Although I say was because even that cannot hold a candle to Barca and Trent’s corner.  I cannot conceivably imagine a scenario where that could possibly be beaten.  But I still love the FA Cup.  A bit more of that would be nice.  If the other big boys can all reach the semis so can we.

But some might say that might be being a bit curmudgeonly to the magnificent man from Stuttgart (something I’ve only just found out now).  Other famous sons and daughters of Stuttgart include Timo Werner (will he be the one that got away?), nineteenth Century philosopher Hegel (famous as you won’t need reminding for the Hegelian Dialectic) and Tik-Tok stars LisaandLena (me neither?) as well as Porsche and Mercedes Benz, but none can compare to the Mighty Klopp. 

There is nothing this man can’t do.  Sir Bob Paisley may have been the greatest manager who ever lived (three European Cups in nine years – only one less than Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs combined in their entire histories) but I can’t imagine he broke out the moves on the dancefloor to celebrate our 1976 title triumph in quite the same way Jurgen did (unless he did and Ronnie Moran’s phone just ran out of battery at the crucial time?).  Klopp is Disco! 

It’s a little known fact that when JK Rowling started out, her publisher advised her not to use her full name as “boys didn’t read books written by women” (I say little known, but given I found this out from the back of one of my sons Harry Potter books and about 10 billion copies of those have been sold – to put that into context that’s even more than “We Conquered All of Europe” by the legendary Jeff Goulding – so possibly not quite all that “little known”).  What is definitely less well known is that it actually stands for Jurgen Klopp Rowling in homage to the great man. (this has absolutely definitely been Fact Checked).  And what do you think JFK stood for (I’ll leave you to decide what the F might spell)?

And I’m assuming that planning permission has already been submitted for a 300ft tall bronze statue of Klopp to be erected across the entrance to the Mersey, proudly straddling both banks like a modern day Colossus of Rhodes.  Yes Tranmere Rovers fans you might have one or two quibbles, but just think of the boost to the Birkenhead tourist industry from having the eighth wonder of the world on your doorstep.  Although thinking about it the Mersey is quite wide.  Is 300ft high enough?  Or would we end up with a statue of Jurgen doing the splits (Klopp is disco!).  Might be an issue if cruise ships are constantly clonking against the Klopp crown jewels while trying to dock at the Pier Head.  Better make that 3,000ft high!

We do still have one last game of football to play at Anfield of course.  One last exorcism to carry out to finally banish that dark day six years ago when Brendan Rodgers unlikely, glorious but ultimately doomed title challenge came hurtling off the rails.  And it was an unlikely challenge.  This was a team that not only decided to do away with the concept of defending entirely but had managed to finish below Everton and only one place above West Brom the previous season.  Being Liverpool even our failures are wide-screen.  Panoramic.  Our title hopes that year didn’t just waft away with little more than a small sigh and a “pfft”.  This was title bid as Shakesperian tragedy.  Everyone remembers this game.  And the catastrophic collapse at Selhurst Park.  In the same way they remember Michael Thomas 1989 and they’ll remember last year’s epic charge (is this the same with other clubs?  Man U in the Aguero season waiting to celebrate on the pitch at Sunderland maybe?  Beyond that I’m struggling).

But we need to win this one.  Even with the title won it was disappointing to lose our 100% home record against Burnley.  Particularly as no top-flight side had gone through the season without dropping a point at home since Queen Victoria was on the throne.  And even worse it meant that my 100% record at predicting the correct result came to an end.  And following that with an even more disappointing result at Arsenal (Did Harry Maguire and David De Gea manage to sneak on the pitch wearing Van Dijk and Allison masks?  A bit like that cheeky Manc chappy who once gatrecrashed the Man U team photo at Bayern Munich to earn a Gary Neville death stare?).

But with the title presentation to follow I think we’ll be fired up for this one.  It’s a huge shame it will be behind closed doors as I can only imagine what the atmosphere would have been like with Anfield packed to the rafters.  I’m going for  a 3-0 win for my final prediction.  Started off by Mo repeating his absolute exocet of a goal in this fixture last season (just an excuse to mention my favourite goal of the season), Mane to get the second, and a late penalty for Firmino to take to make it a full house for our front three and for him to finally get a goal at Anfield this season (there is a small part of me that thinks that it would even more impressive to have absolutely obliterated the league without our nominal No 9 actually needing to score one single home league goal the entire season.  That feels like taking the proverbial.  But that would be nothing to the delight of seeing him finally break the duck).

And on to Jordan finally, finally lifting that Trophy.  Champions of the World, Champions of Europe, Champions of England.  The heavens will rejoice and choirs of Angels will break out into song.  Judi Dench get up on your bench, take up your trumpet and blow it!  It’s finally come home!

Liverpool vs Burnley: Dolly Parton, Sonia and the Ginger Janis Joplin

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By Simon Meakin

It’s that time again. The weekend is here and the Reds face the Clarets at Anfield. That can mean just one thing – it’s time for Simon Meakin to take us through another one of his unique match previews. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else.

Why does the sun keep on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore?  Don’t they know it’s the end of the Premier League?  It ended when we won it a couple of weeks back.  Apologies for mangling the lyrics to “The End of the World”, originally a 1963 hit for one Skeeter Davis (who was a big influence on Dolly Parton according to Wikipedia, and had a propensity for appearing on American country music programmes with Dougall from the Magic Roundabout on her head according to YouTube) and covered by red-haired Scouse popstrel Sonia, but that’s how it feels at the moment.  It’s almost a surprise to find that there are still football matches going on.  OK there are some minor issues to be settled such as relegation, European places etc but it appears that we are also under some contractual obligation to still turn up, kick a ball around and walk away with three more big shiny points (unless its anywhere away from home within 50 miles of Anfield.  We don’t seem to have been all that great at that – we clearly need a longer walk to make it worth our while).

Unluckily for Burnley it turns out that Turf Moor is a grand total of 51.4 miles away from Anfield (according to the AA Route Planner anyway.  If any crows want to start arguing the toss please go ahead) Which means that we came away with a 3-0 win way back in August which included a thirty yard Trent cross cum/shot that sailed over the keeper (and unfortunately appears to have been marked down as an own goal after taking a deflection).  And also set a new club record 13th win in a row (on our way to 17 in total, which hasn’t even turned out to be our best run of the season).  And that’s what we’re going for now.  More records.  Most points, most wins, most home wins, biggest winning margin, largest parsnip, bonniest baby (I’m putting Firmino down for that one – I’m sure he had dazzling white teeth and immaculate hair when he danced right out the womb – although possibly points deducted if he was sporting his current curly, Vera Duckworth rocking Prince style pink rinse).  I want to break them all!

Hopefully Klopp can motivate them to keep going until the finishing line.  It reminds me of watching Seb Coe breaking world records as a kid.  You can find footage on YouTube of his legendary 1981 world record run in Florence.  I think I had school sports days on better quality tracks than the one he was running on (if you look closely I’m sure you can spot the PE teacher in his Adidas three stripe track suit and the kid made to run in his pants after he forgot his games kit) yet he was so far clear of the field he managed to win an 800m race by 900m (probably). Only two runners have ever beaten that time almost forty years later.  That’s want our season to be like.  The equivalent of Seb Coe in Florence.  No slacking off now boys!

And having discovered that Curtis Jones’s goal v Villa equalled another club record of 17 different league scorers in a season I now want us to go for the all-time record for that as well.  I’ve no idea what it is but I’m going to be very disappointed if Klopp doesn’t name a front three of Joe Gomez, Neco Williams and Allison for this match.  Hell he should even stick himself on the bench and bring himself on to take any last minute penalties if he can.

That would of course be taking Burnley far too lightly.  Sean Dyche (a man with a voice so gravelly he could earn a few extra quid as Lancashire’s Premier Ginger Janis Joplin Impersonator) has done a remarkable job with Burnley, still in with a shout of a spot in Europe next season.  It’s a club with a proud European heritage.  European Cup quarter finalists no less in 1961.  And this from a somewhere with a smaller population than Southport (which may have a beach bigger than Bulgaria but not exactly renowned for those big European nights against Barca under the floodlights at Haig Avenue).

Burnley are not a side I’ve seen too many times at Anfield although I was there last year to watch what was at times a surprisingly nervy 4-2 win before a last minute Mane goal settled the nerves during the run in to our ultimately doomed title challenge.  I did also once pay a visit to Turf Moor to watch them play Wolves in a second division match. Starring a Mr P “Gazza” Gascoigne, the fake breast wearing, inappropriate invisible flute playing Clown Prince of English football.  And in my opinion the greatest English player I’ve ever seen (yes I know it might be sacrilege to nominate someone who never played for us).  But not based on this match.  Hauled off at half-time with Burnley 3-0 down, to watch his teammates almost salvage a draw without him, he never started another match at that level for Burnley or anyone else ever again.  The only other sides he ever played for were the unlikely pair of Chinese titans Gansu Tianmi and Boston Utd.  It’s fair to say he’d be a shoe-in for the “They Played For Both Teams” section of the programme should Gansu Tianmi’s much anticipated pre-season tour of Lincolnshire ever come to fruition (it would be like Wham in China in reverse but much massive.  And minus Pepsi and Shirley).

Now if that hasn’t got your excitement building to fever pitch I know something that will.  Following on from the midweek win at Brighton which put us on 92 points (to put that in context that is Man United’s record points total.  Ever.  Which they achieved in a 42 game season.  We’ve done it in 34) we’ll return for our penultimate match at Anfield and win 3-0.  Two more goals for Salah as he chases the golden boot plus a last minute penalty for Joe Gomez (go on Jurgen you know you want to) for win number 31.  Sean Dyche to nip off early as he’s second on the bill at the Phoenix Club. Bolton (tonight Matthew I’ll be appearing as Ginger Janis).

We’re on that closing straight now.  The lactic acid might be burning in our muscles but the finish line and those records are in sight now.

And just as a reminder in case anyone has forgotten.  We’ve won the League!  We’re Bigger stars than Dallas!  We’ve got more silver than Buckingham Palace!  Red Machine In Full Effect!

Shirley Maclaine, Faye Dunaway and the Champions of England

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By Simon Meakin

Simon returns with his quirky look at this weekend’s encounter with Aston Villa. And, as you’d expect he’s feeling pretty self-satisfied right now, a bit like Shirley Maclaine or is that Faye Dunaway?

Champions!  We’ve done it!  Champions!  At last!  Champions!  After thirty years of hurt.  Champions!  They can never take that away now.  Even if we fall apart like Mourinho’s Chelsea title winning side (careful about slagging off any Portuguese female doctors we happen to have lurking around on the payroll somewhere Juergen) we’ve won it now.  The curse is lifted, the monkey is off our backs.  We’ve reached the sunlit uplands and can now bask in our glory.

One of my favourite ever photos was of Shirley Maclaine, sitting, feet up, on her balcony the morning after she had won an Oscar, orange juice on the table, papers proclaiming her triumph scattered all around her.  Although when Terry O’Neill (no not Terry Neill, the man who put the Boring in Boring Arsenal as their manager in the seventies and eighties – unless that was Don Howe), who took the photo died last year they republished the photo in many journals and it turned out it was Faye Dunaway not Shirley Maclaine, she was sitting by a swimming pool and it was a pot of coffee.  But apart from the actual actress, the coffee, the swimming pool, better sanitation, irrigation roads etc when has my memory ever failed me? So clearly I’ve forgotten how bad my memory is.  For all I know everything I’ve written in these blogposts has been wronged.  Maybe I’ll check back and find out I’m actually an Everton fan and turns out I should be busy drowning my sorrows??

But the reason I love that Shirley Dunaway/Fay Maclaine photo is the way it captures that absolute peak moment when someone is on top of the world, they have achieved everything they set out to do, that small moment in time when they can just sit back and luxuriate in their triumph.  That is where we are now.  There is no more to be done (OK a few more teams to beat, a few more records to break).  Champions of Europe, Champions of the World and now Champions of England.  We are at the zenith, the moment will be fleeting and there will never be another one quite like it.  That’s not to say we won’t be sitting here next year celebrating another title, far from it.  But no other title will ever feel quite as sweet as this one.  And I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever see another Liverpool team as perfect as this one to my dying day.  So drink it in and enjoy it while it lasts.

The one downside of course is that there were no fans to witness it, although given that they would have all been Chelsea and Man City fans it’s more accurate to say that there will be no fans at Anfield to welcome home the Champions against Aston Villa.  Forty years to the day (give or take two months) after I was at Anfield on 3 May 1980 aged nine years old to see us beat Villa 4-1 and claim our 12th title.  The first and so far only time I’ve seen us do it.  I can remember the morning of the match vividly, putting on my favourite track suit that my Mum had laid out for me only for my Dad to almost have a fit when he saw me ready to head off to watch Villa resplendent in Claret and Blue (quite why I had a claret and blue tracksuit in the first place I’m not too sure – was my Mum a secret fan of hairy goal machine Peter Withe?  A man who I was confident could have easily got a job as Captain Caveman’s stunt double when he retired as long as his leaping up and down in a mad rage and boinking people on the head with a bat skills were up to scratch). 

My main other memories involve accidently dropping my programme through the fence at the front of the Anfield Road terrace, so I must have had a good view of our title winning performance.  And standing in front of a closed down, derelict and padlocked Exchange Station waiting for a bus to the ground while a punk march went past.  And to a 9 year old in 1980 there was nothing more exciting than punks! (yes I know that punk was by then officially “dead” but there were people sporting mohicans for gods sake (except possibly winning the title on the same day).  It wasn’t until years later that I heard of the famous march to save legendary nightclub Eric’s from closure so I fondly imagined that I was standing there in my (by now) non claret and blue clothing watching the likes of Pete Burns, Holly Johnson and Pete Wylie march right past me.    Except that it turns out the famous Eric’s march was in, well March.  Not May.  So either I was on my way somewhere entirely different on that day, or it was another march entirely.  Was that what punks did when they weren’t gobbing on each other and pogoing?  Go for a stroll down Tithebarn Street?  Or maybe my worst fears are true, my memory has completely lost the plot and I was actually off to cheer on (Hang on a minute? Cheer?  Sorry it’s Everton here.  I mean boo!) Gordon Lee and Big Bob Latchford to scrape a glorious 18th place.

Other highlights against Villa include seeing us cruise past them 3-0 at Old Trafford in the 1996 FA Cup Semi-Final (David James excitedly bounding back to the team coach afterwards to Google “where can I buy white spice boy suits” only to remember they hadn’t invented online shopping yet.  Then trying to Google “what on earth does Google mean?”…I could run with this for a while…).  And seeing a very young Jamie Carragher score a thumping header against them for his first ever goal for the club (and more than likely the last one I ever saw – I’ve got a horrible feeling I saw him score more goals for Man U than for us).

So on to Sunday’s match.  I should have a bit of a soft spot for the current Villa team as they are managed by former Hereford legend Dean Smith (and record signing to this day – a cool eighty grand from Halifax in 1994 – yes I realise that the fact our record signing dates from a time when John Barnes and Ian Rush were still playing for us says a lot about the Mighty Bulls).  But his Yin is kind of balanced out by the Yang of John Terry.

We came very close to losing at Villa Park back in the November dark before a dramatic late comeback thanks to a rare Andy Robertson goal and a Mane winner.  Villa are in dire form, our hangovers should well and truly have cleared (something about City game?) and while we possibly won’t hit the heights of the magnificent performance against Palace we’ll match the scoreline with back to back 4-0 wins at Anfield.  Wijnaldum, Firmino to finally break his goalscoring duck at Anfield (I love the fact that we can win the title with seven games to go, be 23 points clear without the closest we’ve got to a Number Nine actually needing to score any goals at home whatsoever), The Ox and Keita.  Jurgen Klopp to be spotted lounging by the dugout/swimming pool/balcony still wearing his Oscar night frock, chilling with his pot of coffee and paper strewn all around him.  And the headlines just say one thing.  Champions!

Sherlock Holmes, Countdown and Chasing the Title

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By Simon Meakin

With the Reds ready to face Crystal Palace and achance to edge ever nearer to a first league title in 30 years, Simon Meaking returns with his usual match preview.

Well. When I decided to embark on a one-off series of match reviews for each
Premier League match at Anfield last August I wasn’t quite expecting a season like
this. Yes I know I could qualify to join Sybil Fawlty on Mastermind, specialist subject
the Bleedin’ Obvious with that statement – point me out one amongst us who
predicted we could potentially move to within one win of our first title in 30 years v
Crystal Palace at Anfield in late June in front of no fans, and I’ll show you someone
who has clearly got Vladimir Putin to hack in to their old Twitter posts and doctor
them.
Back in August I was frankly feeling a bit apprehensive about the new season. Could
we really summon up the emotional energy to compete against what felt like the
remorseless Man City machine having fallen so agonisingly short last time.? It felt
like being up against a Terminator (For some reason I see them as being more like
the other one from Terminator 2 rather than Arnie). Never in a million years did I
expect us to be 20 odd points clear in a procession for the title.
And that’s before the truly surreal (and making no bones about it for many people
tragic) turn of events over the last few months. I had to look back to try and
remember what I’d written about the Bournemouth game. It turned out to be a bit
tighter than the comfortable 3-0 win I’d predicted, but we did clinch a record
breaking 22 nd straight home league win. The place in the Champions League quarter
finals I was confident we’d book didn’t quite happen alas and the Monday night trip
to our neighbours took slightly longer to arrive than expected (only one day of the
week out in the end to be fair, but a match that could be described as “slightly more
daylighty” than your average night time kick off – and yes should I ever end up on
Countdown confronted with a board saying “yhigaldyt” I am definitely having that as
my nine letter word).


I was at Anfield for the Bournemouth game and went to the Cabbage for a few post-
match beers to celebrate our win. Everything seemed (sort of) normal(ish).
Stepping through the door on the way out of the pub was like stepping into another
dimension (I’m sure if you go back and look at the CCTV footage of the Cabbage car
park you’ll see that sort of swimmy, wobbly effect beloved of sci-fi films signifying
this sort of thing). At that precise point my wife phoned me, spooked by empty
shelves in London shops, and sent me on a Magical Mystery Tour of every chemist
and supermarket between Anfield and Lime Street (not sure the Beatles had the
London Road branch of Boots in mind when they wrote the song to be honest),
stocking up on as much hand sanitiser and Aspirin as I could lay my hands on (all I
can say by way of apology for this wanton display of panic buying was that at least I
left all the bog roll). Got on the train back to London and that was it. Haven’t set
foot in a pub since, haven’t left London since, (in fact barely been more than 2 miles
from my house bar the odd bike ride).
And no football. Until now. Watching the derby was a very odd (and frankly a bit
dull at times) experience particularly after turning off the fake crowd noise for the
last ten minutes. It sounded like it was being broadcast from the local baths. With
the players taking particular care not to break the “no running” bit of the “no bombing, no diving, no heavy petting” rulebook. I wouldn’t have been surprised to
find some kids having a surreptitious wee in the corner of the pool/pitch had any
actually been allowed in. It was a Merseyside derby as watched by Sherlock Holmes
in an opium induced stupor rather than the raucous, Jamie Carragher somehow
managing to not get sent off type I’m used to.


Which brings us to Crystal Palace. Managed by one Roy Hodgson. A man who’s time
at Liverpool was to put it mildy “not regarded as a total success”. I know some
Liverpool fans who try to claim that that era never actually happened at all and it
was all a bad dream (the mysterious Cabbage Hall “Bermuda Triangle” car park
wibbly wobbly crack in time working its strange powers again maybe?). My only trip
to Anfield during his reign was to witness us lose to Blackpool (Blackpool!) while
suffering with a stinking hangover so it’s safe to say it’s never going to be troubling
my list of top ten Anfield moments.
Another fun fact about Crystal Palace is that it is the only football team to begin with
five consonants (something to bear in mind, if fired up from owning the Countdown
panel’s collective ass with my “Daylighty” zinger I then forget about picking any
vowels in the next round). On a more footballing note Palace have been a bit of a
thorn in our side over the last few years. The last ten minutes at Selhurst Park in the
infamous collapse that put the final nail in our title challenge under Brendan Rodgers
still brings me out in a cold sweat. I was so incensed at our spineless performance
after they beat us in Gerrard’s final match at Anfield that I flounced out of the
stadium in a big diva hissy fit worthy of Elton John at the end of the match rather
than stay for the Gerrard farewell (although it did mean it was the quickest I’ve ever
been served my post-match pint in the pub). They inflicted Klopp’s first defeat at
Anfield on us (I had to apologise after I sent an expletive filled text about Palace to
the wrong person after that one). And they inflicted Klopp’s last (league) defeat at
Anfield as well (albeit more than three years ago). Even last year they gave us a right
old scare before we scraped over the line in a rollicking 4-3 win.
But win we did last year. And I predict we’ll do so again. It’ll be hard fought and
nail-biting for the packed crowd of, er, none. We’ll need to come from behind (this
is Liverpool, we don’t do things the easy way. Even with a 25 point lead we managed
to end up in a situation where the whole season could have been null and voided).
But we’ll eventually shake off the rust and do it. 2-1! Mane equaliser and Bobby to
get the winner in front of the (not very full) Kop to put us on the brink of ending
thirty years of hurt. To put us on that final march to Manchester. After which, when faced with a board saying “hpiancosm” in my final Countdown round I’ll know what nine letter word that spells. CHAMPIONS!
unless Super Frankie Lampost* goes and steals our thunder by beating them first
of course.
** My wife’s humorous nickname*** for Lampard
*** The Lampost bit. She has never called him Super to the best of my knowledge.

The Lost Shankly Boy: A New Title Coming Later This Year

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I am delighted to announce my fourth book has been picked up by those wonderful people at Pitch Publishing. It is a collaboration with George Scott, one of Bill Shankly’s first signings. The book will be published in Autumn. Watch this space for updates.

Here’s a taster of what the book promises to deliver:

An enthralling tale of triumph in adversity and hope over despair. The story of a poor boy from a fishing village in Aberdeen, who dreamed of playing football and ended up rubbing shoulders with one of British football’s greatest, Bill Shankly.
Shankly would assemble a team to rival ‘Busby’s Babes,’ his very own ‘Shankly Boys.’ With Tommy Smith and Chris Lawler already at the club, he would add a raft of young players to the squad, including Gordon Wallace, Bobby Graham and a 15-year-old George Scott – the lost ‘Shankly Boy’.

Here Scott provides a fascinating and unique insight into modern Liverpool’s formative years and Shankly’s Anfield. His is an untold story of a dream crushed and of a career rebuilt in Scottish football and taken to new levels in the South African Premier League. The lost Shankly Boy: George Scott’s Anfield Journey, is a must read for every kid who dreams of football glory. It is a never-say-die tale of passion, commitment and hard work that will be identifiable to anyone who has ever tasted the pain of rejection – only to rise again and grow stronger.

Cup of Coffee

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Check out Andy’s musings on the Wolves game

Andy's Anfield Articles

Cup of Coffee

Liverpool v Wolves

29TH of December, 2019

I was coffeed-out.

There is only so much you can drink. I had half an hour to kill before going to Davie’s for the match.

The closest place for a hot drink was Sainsbury’s. It was still open and I got a hot chocolate and plonked myself down, the only person in the café. Flipped the Mirror crossword open and tried to do it. No chance. It was just one of those days where I had now failed to get going in all three of them. Or was it that my mind was being distracted by Liverpool – that was my excuse anyway!

The sweet drink went down a treat – I can recommend it.

I contemplated navigating into a proper car-parking slot – you know, between two cars; what do they call it, parallel parking. Well, I’m sorry…

View original post 1,614 more words

Strangers in a strange land

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By Jeff Goulding

The 2019 General Election result has installed an openly racist, misogynist and homophobic man as Prime Minister. In doing so, it rejected a man of peace and a lifelong anti-racist campaigner for social justice.

The British media and those who refer to themselves as moderates have spent four years undermining Jeremy Corbyn and his manifesto of hope, and in doing so they have paved the way for Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister is a man who lies, while hides from scrutiny and who courts the approval of the far right.

I weep for our public services, for the NHS, schools and fire services. I am terrified of what the future holds for the homeless, the hungry and ethnic minorities in our country. I am also worried about the future of our children.

Scotland has overwhelmingly rejected the Tories. As a Liverpudlian, I have never understood more their yearning for self-determination. My City has also rejected Johnson and his Trump tribute act. Our city on both banks of the Mersey remains deep red.

We are unrepentantly Labour, socialist and proud. Liverpool knows what far right Toryism can do, we understand how free market ideology can hollow out cities and communities, leaving them prey to speculators and spivs.

As I walked my daughter to school and then raced to work, on the morning after the election, I saw stoicism and a gritty determination to carry on all around me. These are my people. I love them, I’m proud of them and I can think of nobody else’s company I’d rather be in, in this darkest of hours.

I saw two women hurrying along the road, herding their kids in front of them, they’re clearly running late but they’re locked in conversation and one of them is discussing the result with her child. I could only snatch a fragment of conversation, as I hurtled past on my own rush to join the daily grind.

“Nothing to do with us,” she is saying. “We didn’t want Brexit…” and then what sounded like “we’re not Boris Johnson…”

Then I’m gone. On my way and lost in thought

She was right, I thought. We’re not Boris Johnson or Thatcher or their ideologies. We’re us. That’s how it’s felt most of my life. It’s almost a source of comfort, in a world gone mad. We can always rely in each other, when the rest of the country is voting to destroy themselves. At least that’s not us we think. We’ve done the right thing.

It’s because we have long memories, I think. We recall how the Tory media manipulated and lied and we don’t listen to their crap anymore. Or maybe there’s just something in the water of this port city and cultural melting pot. Or is it in the make up of our immigrant blood. We’re from everywhere, us.

Our minds are not tied to a tiny, island mentality. We’re not English, we’re Scouse is a contradiction, I think. It sounds isolationist but in essence it is a rejection of that, I think. At least it is for me. To be Scouse is to gaze out across the ocean, to the world and all it has to offer. Not to look inward and be insular. Today that’s what Englad looks like to me. I think it always has.

Sadly many northern working class communities don’t seem to feel the same way. It appears that people whose towns and cities were once decimated by Thatcherism, have decided that Brexit and a retreat inland is a much greater priority than the NHS, medicine, education, housing and the food in their bellies.

Places like Blythe and Bolsover, Workington, Wrexham and Crewe have fallen to the Tories and Labour majorities in the North East and the Midlands crumbled amidst a pro leave wave. People like Ian Lavery barely hung in to their seats.

I may be be able to understand the deep socio-economic forces at play, that have led us to this point. But, I’m struggling to live with the consequences.

In other parts of the country there are pockets of hope. In Manchester, Labour remains strong. But Leigh, the seat of Labour MP Andy Burnham fell.

In London, the working class flew Labour’s flag with pride and in other parts of the South too. However, across England the picture is one I cannot comprehend.

As I woke on Friday 13th, I felt like a stranger in a land I simply cannot fathom. I’m not sure I ever will. I know many fellow Scousers will understand what I mean.

It feels like we are living in a cultural and political oasis, in the middle of a horrible, miserable and increasingly terrifying desert. I have felt this way for decades. However, the last four years gave me hope. Today, that hope has almost broken me.

Almost.

‘Scouse, not English’ has long been a rallying cry on Merseyside’s terraces, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, often in protest. For many of us struggling to comprehend and contemplate another five years of austerity, that clarion call sounds louder than ever.

Offer me a ballot paper with a box for Liverpool independence now, and I will cross that box without hesitation. Right now I would. As crazy as I know it is – I’d sooner cut my City off from England, forge bonds with Scotland, Ireland, Wales and mainland Europe, than spend another second in this little England.

That’s how I feel now.

I’m ranting. I know I am. Right now ranting seems the only rational thing to do. I want to scream but at the same time I feel like retreating into my shell. I want revolution, then I’m overwhelmed by resignation. It’s fine-lines everywhere.

Somehow, someday, I will find my true north again. I’ll rediscover my internationalism and figure out a way to understand the English working class. However, right now that place seems so remote as to be in another country altogether.

Liam Thorpe, writing in the Liverpool Echo, has called on us not to retreat into our Scouse bubble. He argues that we are an outward looking city. We are.

Liverpool is proudly exceptionalist, but we are not petty or nationalist. I believe that we see ourselves as citizens of the world. A world in one city with an internationalist spirit.

We are also fighters. We don’t stay down, no matter how hard it feels to get up. In the coming years the blows will once more reign down us. We’ve been here before. We survived by believing that unity is strength, not through division and self recrimination.

In another overheard piece of conversation today, I heard someone mention the election. “I’m done with this, ” said a woman at the counter in a coffee shop.

“Nothing we can do. We’ll just have to buckle up and get in with it.”

“This is it. You’re right. Yes.”

Again, stoicism and a refusal to be broken. In the months and years to come, we are going to need that in spades.

That has to be the way forward. As Scousers, we may feel like strangers, in a strange land, but we will have to be the change that we want to see in it, if there is any hope for us and the future.

We will need to respond to those who would divide with a greater commitment to community and solidarity, to hate with hope. And yes, we will need to look after each other like never before. That means supporting our Foodbanks and other charities with even greater vigour and working as one city to help vulnerable communities and the homeless, and being prepared to support our public services.

Liverpool must become a beacon of cooperation and community solidarity and a model for the rest of the country. The next Labour leader must rebuild the party and the movement on these principles and ideas, and not those of the right-wing and their little-England ideology.

If England has any hope of redemption for me, it rests on the unshakeable spirit of the Mersey.

Hillsborough verdict, 30 years of pain in Britain’s pathological State

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Thirty years ago British football witnessed the worst sporting disaster in its history. On the 15th April 1989, 96 men, women and children died Another victim of the crush in the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium, Tony Bland, a Liverpool supporter who was in the fatal crush, died from injuries he sustained that day, which placed him in a persistent vegetative state, died in 1993. He became the 97th victim of the disaster, but the true toll goes way beyond that.

Survivors of the disaster, the families of those who lost their lives and countless others have suffered three decades of needless torment. Some, were unable to bear the pain, and took their own lives. Meanwhile, energy that should have been spent rebuilding lives was instead devoted to fighting against an establishment that simply wanted to sweep the disaster under the carpet and move on.

Men, women and children carrying the unbearable weight of grief and loss were forced to become campaigners, study legal texts and relive the disaster in minute detail in courtroom after courtroom. It should never have taken two public inquiries, civil and criminal proceedings, two coroners inquests, an independent panel report and over 11,000 days to right the wrong that was done to these people and their community. However, despite all of that, that wrong has still not been put right.

The ‘not guilty’ verdict, delivered in a drab courtroom in the North West of England on the 28th November 2019, meant that the only man to face criminal charges for the deaths of all those people was acquitted. It also meant that families of the deceased and survivors had sat through days of testimony and evidence, much of which dredged up traumatic memories and rehashed long discredited theories and conspiracies, and all for nothing.

The coroners verdict had exonerated the supporters. It had found that David Duckenfield’s decision making and actions on the day directly contributed to the deaths of 96 people. It concluded that those who died – many of whom could have been saved had expert help arrived sooner – were unlawfully killed.

After the verdict in Preston, families are left asking, if Duckenfield is not guilty, just who was it that unlawfully killed our loved ones? The answers to that question will now have to wait. Further proceeding are pending and all of us will have to hold our tongues, something we’ve all dutifully done throughout this whole process.

Not so the internet trolls, however. This verdict has emboldened those who would once again seek to divert culpability to people whose names have long since been cleared – the supporters. As a result, the hurt and the pain is set to continue for people who have committed no crime, and who have behaved with such dignity and strength for so long. It is a national scandal.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, a healthy State would have wrapped its arms around them all. Every service and aid would have been placed at their disposal, justice would have been swift and learning would have been profound.

In a healthy State, the survivors would have been cared for from day one. They would have been offered the comfort and support necessary to rebuild their lives. Today, they and the families would be able to have made sense of the disaster and while they would never forget, they would be able to live in peace – perhaps enjoy life once more. Instead, they fight on, in needless pain and suffering.

Because, Britain is not a healthy State. Instead it is one that is deeply pathological. A healthy state treats all of its citizens equally, from top to bottom all people are equal in the eyes of the law, and institutions are accountable and act in a way that is caring and supportive when they get things wrong. A healthy state is open, transparent and holds its hand up when it falls short of the standards expected of it.

In a healthy State, government and institutions serve the people and answer to the public. The injured and bereaved do not have to fight for truth and justice. It is seen as a minimum standard, a legitimate expectation and a human right.

None of that is too much to ask. It was achievable in 1989 and it is today. The cost of delivering care and justice promptly is far less expensive than the protraction of agony, the intolerable suffering and the lining of lawyers pockets that has occurred during thirty years of injustice. Yet, to the establishment and the system it propagates, all of that is preferable to real scrutiny and accountability.

The British State is pathological, in my view, because in the face of catastrophe, it’s first instinct is to protect itself, the powerful and institutions. The need to do that far outweighs any other consideration. There are no lengths the State won’t go to in order to avoid taking repsonsibility.

Faced with the Duckenfield verdict, I am left with the seemingly inescapable conclusion that there is no equality before the law, only a pretence of it. Ordinary working people are clearly treated differently, and often with an indifference that borders on the callous.

When an anguished relative, struggling to cope with the enormity of the not guilty verdict, yelled out in court, pleading with the judge to tell him who unlawfully killed the 96, he was ignored and the court was simply adjourned. Those who have been so terrible wronged are left to pick up the pieces without succour from the State. They’re expected to find their own way in an uncertain future.

They facd yet more hardship and struggle. Meanwhile, the judge could find no words for this distraught a being, in pain, in his courtroom.

It should be beyond comprehension that the State and its institutions can be so lacking in basic compassion – yet none of this surprises any of us. My whole life has been spent witnessing evidence of the pathological State. I only really opened my eyes to it after Hillsborough, but it has been there all the time, and it doubtlessly predates me.

The list is endless, Bloody Sunday, The Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, Orgreave, Hillsborough and more recently Grenfell. In all these cases, we see the same pattern. A lack of openness and transparency, attempts to shift blame and even falsification of evidence in order to protect institutions and powerful figures. Justice is rarely served, and if it is at all, only after decades of struggle by people who lack the resources to fight.

Sometimes they struggle in isolation, often they are vilified and every obstacle is placed in their way. Only if they have the stomach to overcome all of that, can they get close to justice. However, even then, they can have it snatched from view in the final hour.

This should concern all of us, whether we are personally affected or not. For humanitarian reasons, sure, but not just that. Because the States pathology means that it never learns, things don’t improve and the injustices continue, handed down from one generation to the other.

Anyone who has lived through the aftermath of Hillsborough will have been horrified by the eerily similar patterns that have unfolded following the Grenfell fire. A complete failure to care for the victims by the government – many have still not been rehoused – compounded by attempts in the media to blame the victims and even the rescuers for the tragedy. And, two years on, many high rise buildings in the UK remain unsafe, despite evidence that they are covered in the same dangerous cladding as Grenfell. The pathological State doesn’t learn.

Its primary motive is self-preservation, and it is too remote to care about anything else. That is true today, and frankly it has been true for as long as I can remember.

The time for peace-meal reform is long past. The State is in need of fundamental reform, if not a complete revolution, which would allow ordinary people to hold the powerful to account and usher in a compassionate State. Only then will we be able to have faith in government and its institutions.

Rees Mogg and Grenfell: Callous or detached indifference? — Ramblings of an Ordinary Man

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Were Rees Mogg’s comments on Grenfell the result of callous or detached indifference? Either way they make him unfit to govern

Rees Mogg and Grenfell: Callous or detached indifference? — Ramblings of an Ordinary Man

Whose side are you on?

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By Jeff Goulding

So, if you’re a Red in the UK, you’ll be all too aware that we face a General Election in six weeks time. Within hours of Parliament agreeing to go to the polls, Boris Johnson was being booed out of a London hospital, the Lib Dems were blaming Labour for almost a decade of austerity they helped to facilitate, and Brexit – which austerity helped to facilitate – and Jeremy Corbyn was asking a nation to choose between disaster capitalism or a future in which we cooperate to solve our problems.

He repeatedly asked, ‘Whose side are you on? Is it the bad bosses, who grow rich by avoiding tax while exploiting their workers? Or are you on the side of the real wealth creators, forced to compete for zero hours contracts and supplement their income with visits to a foodbank? Are you on the side of unscrupulous landlords who force tenants to live in squalor, or the media barons whose squalid coverage has polluted our politics and sewn hatred and division? Or do you side with those who want decent homes for all and a media that deals in truth instead of lies.

The Tories, meanwhile, have boldly suggested that, after they’ve spent a decade in government, ‘Britain deserves better.’ I could not agree more.

After years of failed Brexit negotiations and broken promises, three successive Tory Prime Ministers have failed to deal with a single one of the country’s ills. And, they want us to believe that all of that is the fault of the opposition, not those who’ve been in power throughout it all. It is a spectacularly brazen con, but it will be dutifully aided and abetted by their friends in the print and broadcast media – particularly those who donate millions to the Conservative cause.

By now, if you didn’t know already, you will be beginning to see where my allegiances lie, where I’ll put my X on 12th December and whose side I’m on. For the avoidance of doubt, I’ll be voting Labour.

You may feel this post seems out of place on a website devoted to my love for Liverpool Football Club. Well, let me tell you why it isn’t.

To readers who reside in Liverpool, I know you require no explanation. We have long understood our relationship with the British establishment. If the sleep was not cast from our eyes by their policy of managed decline of our city during the Thatcher years of the 80s, we became fully awake in the aftermath of Hillsborough.

Managed decline: A Tory vision for Liverpool

In the years that followed that terrible day in 1989, we were treated to the full spectacle of the press, the police, the courts and the government acting in concert to shift blame away from those responsible for the tragedy, and on to the people who suffered most. We responded by being even more united and determined than they were in our quest for truth and justice. And, we won.

We beat MacKenzie and Murdoch and we outlasted and outfought Thatcher and her successors. That banner on the Kop – the one that says ‘Unity is Strength’ – is about so much more than football. It’s a message to all who visit the away end at Anfield too. And, it’s a lesson for life.

We can be sporting enemies for 90 minutes, but in life we are cut from the same cloth. Those in Yorkshire who remember Orgreave and those living in the shadow of Grenfel know only too well that our struggles are the same.

Manchester United fans, or fans from any other club who support their teams on Anfield Road, return to the same daily grind as those who stand on the Kop, when the final whistle blows.

In the next six weeks we will once again be faced with a barrage of lies and distortions. We will be told we are ‘leavers’ or ‘remainers,’ ‘Workington man’ or ‘London elite.’ These are labels intended to divide and convince us to vote against our interests.

Then there is the ‘people versus parliament con trick’ – the one that suggests that privileged and powerful people like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have our backs. That has frankly never been true, but it has never been more laughable than it is today.

If that fails, then the Tories will rely on the most dangerous lie of all taking hold among voters. It’s a falsehood that is already gaining traction, and it can be captured in just four words:

‘They’re all the same.’

We’ve all seen these words writ large on social media pages or uttered almost proudly in coffee rooms or on public transport. It is the rallying cry of the apathetic and a justification for disengagement and inaction. And, it is music to Tory ears.

To be honest, I almost sympathise. If you’ve been treated to scenes of parliamentary pantomime on your TV screens, to MPs in suits shouting and bawling while the country goes to rack and ruin, if you’ve watched the opposition leader struggle to be heard amidst the melee, while some posh bloke in a gown yells ‘Ordeeer!’ Then I can understand why you might think it’s all a farce and that it means nothing to you and doesn’t solve your problems.

I also understand that if every major news outlet accuses the opposition of incompetence, and worse still treachery, you could be forgiven for throwing in the towel and escaping to the make-believe world of Strictly and Celebrity X-Factor. But, that would be a terrible mistake.

Because, they are not all the same. This election is about two very different visions of our future.

In this Parliament there are those who are there to serve the interests of the wealthy, the landlords, the billionaires, the bosses and their backers – let’s call them ‘the few.’ And there are others who seek to represent the rest – we’ll call them ‘the many’.

In my view this has been the case for more than a century. Yes, it’s true that sometimes those charged with fighting the corner of the masses have let their constituents down. The current crop of Labour MPs may not be perfect on that score either. You may feel their leader doesn’t seem strong enough, wears the wrong tie, has a beard and oh, don’t they say he’s a terrorist?

Frankly though, if you won’t vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party because you honestly believe that he is a jam-making, terrorist racist, despite him campaigning his whole life for peace, and being arrested once for fighting against South Africa’s racist apartheid laws. Or, because he’s somehow simultaneously a terrorist and a pacifist who refuses to incinerate the planet in an all out preemptive nuclear attack, then this blog probably isn’t for you anyway.

However, if you’ve seen through all that stuff, but remain unconvinced that Labour will do any good in office, then I urge to look at their programme. Seriously, it is one that offers something radically different to anything we’ve seen since 1945 and it could transform your life for the better.

It is a stark difference to the slashing and burning of workers rights, pensions, environmental and consumer protections on offer from this government. You may have wanted to take back control from Brussels, but did you really want to hand it over to Trump and his backers, allowing them to buy up our public services and turn them into profit machines for the super-rich?

I don’t believe you did. I believe you want the same things that I and millions of other people want. You want to live in peace, you want your kids to be educated well, in classrooms that help them to fulfill their true potential. And, you want a decent home and to live in a society that cares for you when you need it and where you have the wherewithal to care for your family, instead of being one paycheck away from a loan-shark or a foodbank.

Actually, you want more. And you should aspire to have more. You should find work rewarding. It should satisfy you financially but you should also feel valued in the workplace and have a voice at work.

And, when work is over, you should be free to enjoy your leisure time, which should be affordable. People should be able to play and watch football or take part in their community or the arts without going into debt or sacrificing other things.

We should all have a voice in how our neighbourhoods or our football teams are run and served. It should not be left solely to billionaires and speculators to monopolise our free time, in order to extract profit from us.

If you’re young, you should be able to look forward with optimism, not fear about whether you can afford an education or what state the planet will be in. You should expect to leave University free from debt and look forward to a career and a life that is fulfilling.

These aspirations are not too much to ask for. We’ve been told they are for too long. The 14 million people living in poverty in the UK today, have been made to feel it’s their fault, while the super-rich avoid tax and the rest of us are asked to accept there’s no other way.

Curtailing the excesses of privilege is robbing people of aspiration, we are told. It’s a perverse logic that prefers the hope’s and dreams of those tiny few, already bloated by excess, at the top of the pile, while depriving the rest of all hope for a better life.

It’s a lie that your desire for a decent and fair life is unaffordable. This is one of the wealthiest nations on earth. The challenge for us is not one of managing scarcity, but of seeking social justice, and striving to achieve greater redistribution of wealth and power.

We can meet all the challenges facing us, if we work together. It won’t be easy but we can deal with the climate emergency, regain control over our working lives and of our communities. We can share the wealth we create and look after those who can’t look after themselves. We can do all of that despite what the media and some politicians tell us.

It’s all within our grasp. All we have to do is vote for it on December 12th. Only a vote for Labour will deliver this vision. No other Party is offering real change.

The club we follow today is built on the principle that if everyone works together we all win together. And, on the simple idea that the spoils of victory are shared by all. This was of course Shankly’s mantra but it belongs to an old and noble tradition of socialist thought that has the potential to benefit us all, regardless of who we are or where we’re from.

This is also a vision regained and held, at long last, by the Labour Party today. It’s in every word of their manifesto and the hearts of their half-a-million members.

So, in this election there has never been a clearer choice at the polls. When it comes to the political parties in this country, they are absolutely not all the same and there is no justification for apathy.

All of us need to decide whose side we’re on. Are we on the side of the many or the few? There is a bigger picture, bigger than Brexit and bigger than any individual politician.

Our collective futures are at stake in this election. A vote for the status quo will deliver only sustained decline. So, I know I’ll be voting Labour, for the many. I ask you to do that too.