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 Britis
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.
O BTW for those who don’t know Lancashire was the old county to which Liverpool belonged before Merseyside was created, which is why Lancashire play cricket at a ground in Liverpool
spionkop = spy hill, the kop = the hill? So the kop originated from Dutch word?
It is Dutch….Very useful ppl the Dutch lol. Good footie players and good cafes lol. Let us not forget that before Afrikaans it would have been called something else. Duno what tho
I grew up in Ladysmith and many years ago (in the sixties)we went on a school history trip to Spionkop. As a huge Liverpool fan it’s wonderful to know the connection between Ladysmith/Spionkop and The Kop at Anfield. Even though I’ve never been there, as a Natalian and a South African, The Kop at Anfield has a special place in my heart.
knew some of the history but not to that extent, thanks for the education. YNWA
I was born and currently live in Durban, South Africa which is roughly 300kms away from Spion-Kop. I have always known how the kop got its name and it never fails to make me proud to know that Im so far away from Liverpool yet something so important to the club is right on my doorstep!!!
I hope to attend the annual hillsborough memorial at Spion-Kop in a few weeks.
YNWA
There is a monument in Ormskirk, just outside Liverpool in memory of the Lancashire Regiment at the battle of Spion Kop.
.In Defence Of Luis Suarez by Rachael Singh
February 8, 2012 · Comments ( 3 )
Like him or not, Luis Suarez has been the most talked about and divisive character of the season. I had my say a few weeks ago, but Dispatches is nothing if not fair. As this week the law is under the microscope on here, Liverpool fan Rachael Singh pleads the case for the defence. Take cover.
There probably isn’t a view that hasn’t yet been expressed on the subject of Luis Suárez and the allegedly racist remarks that he allegedly made to Patrice Evra. Much has also been said in response to Liverpool’s handling of the situation; nearly all of such comments have been negative. Not a great deal at all has been said, comparatively, about the FA’s handling of the case or even the content of the report issued by the ‘independent’ panel – appointed by the soi disant ‘independent’ FA. Sports journalists have never had quite as much fun stoking fires and pouring oil onto them when they’ve not been pandering to personalities and egos (not least their own).
In my eyes, as a Liverpool-supporting linguist and sociolinguist who originally trained as a barrister, the Suárez case has highlighted and confirmed many points that have been raised over the years about the FA, its deeply ingrained bias that so reflects the attitudes and interests of its members, the flaws that continue to afflict its procedures. At no stage has an actual concrete case been mounted against Suárez. I don’t mean a case that would stand up in court; I mean a case that could reasonably be decided on the balance of probabilities.
Firstly, there was no actual evidence – no witnesses, no TV recordings, no officials, stewards, players, colleagues – no-one – just Evra’s word against that of Luis Suárez. There has been no explanation as to why Evra had three separate meetings with the committee while Suárez was only allowed one… a cynical mind may draw conclusions as to the position of David Gill, Manchester United’s CEO and a player in this process and wonder if some degree of ‘coaching’ wasn’t taking place. In the end, with no actual evidence to go on, no independent witness of any other kind and despite Evra’s insistence at different times that Suárez called him (in a Spanish conversation) ‘negro’ – pronounced ‘neh-gro’ and simply being the Spanish word for black once, then 5 times, then 10 times (when on a French TV interview), the panel found Evra a more ‘credible’ witness and insisted that Suárez had called Evra ‘negro’ SEVEN times – a whole new number plucked from thin air. This, despite the FA having called Evra an ‘unreliable witness’ on two occasions in the past, though admittedly when accusing Englishmen. The French FA after the South African World Cup went further, calling Evra ‘a man of low character and a liar’…but then, David Gill wasn’t on their board and they were not afraid of the possible repercussions of Alex Ferguson.
And all this before you go into the panel’s decision to disregard the testimony from linguistic experts on the nuances of South American Spanish – which, incidentally, isn’t the same Spanish that Evra speaks. Continental Spanish and South American Spanish each exist in their own cultural context; none of this was taken into account, either.
Liverpool Football Club saw all of this clearly. They spoke up in strong support of their team-mate, because that’s what people are meant to do in the face of injustice. Mock the t-shirts all you like, but it really is that simple.
Contrast all that with the current media furore surrounding John Terry – captain of Chelsea and erstwhile captain of England and a man with a reputation (much of it proven) lower than a snake’s belly. He verbally abuses Anton Ferdinand, brother of Rio, Terry’s defensive partner for England. The incident is reported, heavily witnessed, clearly filmed and even reported further by a member of the public to the police. Naturally, the police have investigated the allegation of such a racially motivated public order offence (Emma West, anyone?) and passed their file on to the CPS… who have brought charges on the basis of the evidence before them. In the meantime, the FA closed their own file on the matter, having concluded that there was no action to be taken. Imagine the shock when criminal charges were brought. Imagine the pressure to be seen to take proactive steps to kick racism out of football when a racist act is perpetrated by none other than the captain of the national squad. Imagine the embarrassment of having to approach the CPS and ask for their evidence before deciding whether to re-open the FA investigation.
Take note also of the reports from our sports media, not least from Terry’s self-serving biographer who tells us that calling someone “a black c*nt” isn’t racist – and he knows this because he asked a black person (coo gosh, how’s that for investigative journalism). The same sports media that unquestioningly accepts the FA’s cowardly abdictation of responsibility in transgressing its own rules with a view to preventing a replay at Loftus Road of ‘that’ memorable John Terry/Wayne Bridge handshake incident way back at Stamford Bridge. Ah, the wonders of the FA PR machine blundering along.
So here it is. On the one hand, you have one man’s dubious word against that of a newcomer to the Premier League; he is a foreigner and ought to be put in his place. The (English) word ‘negro’ is unacceptable – who cares what he said in Spanish, right? So, £80,000 fine and an eight game ban. And this is in spite of Evra, the FA and the independent panel declaring fulsomely that Suárez is not a racist. On the other hand, you have an English player facing criminal charges brought on the basis of evidence from a number of witnesses (including the victim), evidence deemed sufficient to conduct a prosecution and secure a conviction. Rather than re-open its file, the FA has taken five months to strip that player of the captaincy (a position to which, as many feel, he probably ought never to have been reinstated – or indeed elevated – in the first place). No committee, no report, no procedural impropriety, no £80,000 fine, no eight game ban – just an endless discussion, between now and the European Championships this summer, of who will succeed John Terry as captain.
Nooooo, Stevie, don’t do it!