The Daily Antoine: 25th Feb 2011 – Liverpool F.C. News update

We have a new writer on EOTK, welcome aboard John

Good win yesterday, not pretty but a win is a win and we move on. We will face Sporting Braga in the round of 16.

We are into the last 16 of the Europa League more…
(Thank you Dirk)

And this is what Kenny had to Say more…
(LOL)

Martin Skrtel eyes Euro Glory more…
(YNWA)

Robbie Keane might not feature when we play West Ham this weekend more…
(I must admit that he makes me nervous when he plays against us)

Congrats to Caroline Wozniacki who has qualified to the final four more…
(YNWA)

Christian Purslow has stepped down from all positions at the club more…
(Ba Bye)

More talk of Enrique joining us in Summer more…
(There must be some truth in this now)

And even Michel Bastos more…
(We were ‘linked’ with him 2 years ago)

And Give Me Football bring back Yann M’Vila more…
(Hummm)

And finally Aquiliani’s future might be decided soon more…
(I think Juve will eventually take him)

On Twitter @empireofthekop

The Spionkop

Hi all.

Through out the world the Kop is such a famous and fearsome word that would strike even the hardest football play with fear, yet fill the heart of others with utter joy and love. But do you know the stories of sacrifice and hardship to which all Kopites hold so dear…… The true SPIONKOP?!!!!

Over One Hundred years ago, on the evening of Tuesday 23rd January, 1900, 1,700 British troops prepared to attack a hill in South Africa known as Spionkop.

Spionkop means ‘Spy Hill’ and was coined by the Dutch settlers for the commanding views it afforded. The following days witnessed a bloody battle between the British Empire and a ragged collection of Boer farmers and the British Empire lost.
Spionkop

The British soldiers were from the Second Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, the Second Battalion of the Royal Lancaster Regiment and the First Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment. Capturing Spionkop meant that the British Army could relieve their countrymen besieged by the Boers in the Natal town of Ladysmith and be home by Christmas.

However, that reckoned without a series of blunders by the British High Command, led by Sir Redvers Bullers, and the terrifying fighting qualities of the Boers. Reports at the end of the battle, which raged for two days stated 332 killed, 563 wounded and 163 prisoners taken, but these figures are still open to question with some claiming up to 340 killed and 1000 wounded. The Boers had beaten the mightiest army in the world and the reverberations were felt around the globe.

To commemorate the their fallen, upon returning home the survivors named stands at their local football grounds ‘the Kop’, the most famous of these being ‘the Kop’ at Anfield (Liverpool FC).

The Kop remembers the Liverpool men who lay, frightened, at the foot of an obscure hill in Africa all those years ago. The Kop has proved equally daunting to visiting teams and has witnessed many great victories for Liverpool FC. Hopefully, it will continue to do so for another 100 years.
The Battle of Spionkop

On the 23-24th January 1900 the Battle of Spioenkop took place, a terrible military blunder, by the British forces on their way to relieve the siege of Ladysmith in the Boer Wars of South Africa. As a direct result of this awful battle, one side of Anfield preserves to this day the name of a conical, sun drenched and water-less hill in distant Natal.

The battle arose as British forces numbering 1700 under the command of Major-General Sir E.R.P. Woodgate marched towards the town of Ladysmith that was held under siege by the Boers. Woodgate could not advance straight onto the township without passing a row of four hills – Goenkop, Conical Hill, Spionkop and Twin Peaks. The Boers were encamped along Twin Peaks and Groenkop and part of Spion itself, and Woodgate believed that if his troops could quietly ascend one face of the Spionkop and entrench upon the top, he would command a view of the Boer positions and direct artillery and infantry attacks into their exposed positions.

A military reporter from the Manchester Guardian understood the thinking behind the assault and outlined the Major-General’s approach for the readers back home: “If we could get on to the Southern crest of it we could probably push on to the northern end, once there we could open a flanking fire on the Boer lines which ran east and west. Spioenkop, properly used was the key that would open the door of Ladysmith. Patrols had reported that there were only a few Boers on it.” The attack commenced on the evening of the 23rd January.

“Soon after dusk on Tuesday a party set out to make a night attack on the hill. There were Thorneycrofts’ Mounted Infantry, the Lancashire Fusiliers, the Lancashire Regiment, two companies of the South Lancashire Regiment and a company of Engineers. General Woodgate Commanded. It was a hand-and-knee march up the southern face – a climb over smooth rock and grass. It was slow”.

Along the way a Boer sentry challenged the advancing British and he was shot on sight, and a charge was made by some of the Lancashire Fusiliers upon the Boer line which in fact proved to be only a tiny outpost. Maybe this caused some over confidence within the party as they steadily marched, curiously unopposed, towards the hill’s crest as night fell. A war correspondent described the events: “The crest was not reached until dawn. When dawn came the party found that it was in the clouds.

It could see nothing but the plateau – 400 yards across – on which it stood. Trenches were made but it was difficult to determine the right place for them. The Boers were invisible. At last the mist lifted. The curtain rose upon the performance of a tragedy. The Boers – need I say, on another ridge of Spionkop? – began to fire heavily, and our men seemed to have no sufficient protection in the trenches. The space was small; they were crowded together.”

The terrible miscalculation of their actual position was to prove costly. How the Major-General had lost track of the various false horizons was not recorded, but it was all too clear in the blistering light of day that things were wrong; “I will describe the scene as I saw it from below. I shall always have it in my memory – that acre of massacre, that complete shambles, at the top of a rich green gully, with cool granite walls (a way fit to lead to heaven), which reached up the western flank of the mountain.

“To me it seemed our men were all in a small square patch; there were brown men and browner trenches, the whole like an over-ripe barley field…The Boers had three guns playing like hoses upon our men. It was a triangular fire and our men on the Kop had no gun. Men must have felt that they had lived a long life under that fire by the end of the day”. The intense heat, lack of water and the relentless shelling and sniping took its inevitable toll upon the British forces.

Fortunately the arrival of reinforcements prevented the losses escalating beyond the 332 killed, 563 wounded and 163 prisoners – the remaining 642 finally released from their hill-top suffering by the close of day on the 24th January when they retreated down the hill.

The Redmen: Andy Carroll Songs By Liverpool Fans

The Prague Saga

Sparta Prague 0 Liverpool 0
Liverpool 1 Sparta Prague 0

Two games, 180 odd minutes of football and the whole shebang is decided with a single goal five minutes before the end of the second game. Dirk Kuyt’s 85th minute winning goal was a long time in coming but was the sweeter for coming at a time when it would have been difficult for Sparta to get the goal that would have put them in the next round of the competition.

To be honest they didn’t look like scoring in either of the matches so you could be quietly confident that if we did manage to break the deadlock then we could probably prevail and win the tie. The first game was nothing to write home about with neither team seeming to want to actually win the game, which was odd considering if we had scored it would have counted for double in the event of a draw in the second leg.
Not even Sparta seemed to want to take the bull by the horns in the first game either; it was highly forgettable all round.

In the second leg we went out knowing that we couldn’t afford to let Sparta score and that we had to get a goal if we didn’t want the match to ultimately go to penalties. The second leg was a much better, faster paced game than the first had been with both teams actually making the effort to try and go forward and make an impact on the match. We came close a couple of times in the first half but to no avail and the first half ended still at stalemate.

To be honest it was the same old story for much of the second half, and I was convinced that this match would have to be decided by penalties, but then Dirk Kuyt stepped up to the plate and score the goal which would turn out to be the winning goal.

We could have added another couple of goals before the end of the match with Joe Cole having a shot snatched from him by David NGog and then Cole going through himself unmarked but neither of them ended up in the back of the net unfortunately and we had to keep hold of our slim lead till the final whistle, which we were able to do, and take our place in the last 16 of the Europa League, ever closer to winning the trophy for the fifth time in its history.

Liverpool 1 (Kuyt) – Sparta Prague 0 [video]

An 85th minute goal by Dirk Kuyt ensured that we move through to the round of 16 of the Europa League.

Liverpool lineup vs Sparta Prague

Jamie Carragher starts on the bench as Pepe Reina captains the Reds against Sparta.

Starting XI :  Pepe Reina, Danny Wilson, Martin Kelly, Daniel Agger, Sotiris Kyrgiakos, Lucas Leiva, Christian Poulsen, Joe Cole, Dirk Kuyt, Raul Meireles, David N’gog

Subs : Peter Gulasci, Dani Pacheco, Milan Jovanovic, Maxi Rodriguez, Jamie Carragher, Jay Spearing, Martin Skrtel

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