First of all thank you to Antoine for giving me the opportunity to ramble on about the ‘bastion of invincibility’ that is Liverpool Football Club. This is the first column/blog I have ever done so bear with me.
Born in 1981, Liverpool and still living here. Grew up and went to school throughout the ‘L’ postcode area, funnily enough a certain Stevie G was in the year above me in high school. He’s got his money, but I bet he would swap it all for my 100% attendance certificate in Year 9 J.
Started going to the home and away games from an early age and was blown away by the Kop (still am on those European Cup nights). Was brought up to follow a ‘Kopite’s Charter’ – stand by your team, never boo and come home with no voice. This was instigated by my dad who has seen LFC through their best and worst years and was there for are greatest success’ and our two main low points.
I am just about to qualify as a teacher, so I will have to bite my tongue and not swear in case my pupils of the future find out that I’m a bit of a lad.
A lot has been spoken this week about the whole PTS situation and the fact that this policy has been removed. I really feel for these people as I know a lot of them are real, genuine matchgoers and I have serious doubts about Ian Ayre. This time last year these idiots announced that the Fan Card was to become an annual subscription – what a load of rubbish. I had a fan card at this point and just thought there is no way I will subscribe to ‘belong’ (as they called it). I belong – see above. We all belong because we wear red, are loyal and get behind the team regardless of whether we are from Liverpool or Los Angeles. Due to this I gave up my fancard and decided to get tickets via word of mouth.
I have believed in a long time that a ticketing policy should be introduced. Part of this ticket policy should be approx 2,000 tickets available on match day for those who wish to queue. Getting there at 4am would be no problem to me and would separate the day trippers and glory hunters from those who live, breath and sweat the club. There may be flaws in such a system and point them out and let me know, but for me it’s a simple system to satisfy local/national/international demand. I don’t want to really discuss the local fans debate but I do think that with fans with an ‘L’ postcode should be at least on a par with overseas/nationwide fans– it seems that Peter Robinson was the last bloke to give a dam about this issue.
Anyway feel free to feedback and disagree.
Take care
YNWA J96