“Your club. Look what it’s become! History! Have you even won a trophy in the past five years? Pathetic. Your trophy room is nothing but a bunch of old, dusty tinfoil with filthy cobwebs. United are going to make minced meat out of you and you’re going to be sorry.”
Prior to Liverpool’s destruction of the Red Devils at our holy temple of Anfield, I received this lovely text from a Gooner ‘friend’ of mine. After staring blankly at the message for a few minutes, I couldn’t decide what was more ironic – the fact that an Arsenal fan was talking about trophies or the fact that United was completely mutilated by King Kenny’s army. Either way, the e-mail gave me a nice laugh. But I wasn’t done reading the hateful messages. There were some more angry statuses and comments when I logged onto Facebook. Here was a nice conversation between two of my supposed friends, a Yid and a Manc, who also happens to be a Barca supporter. Hmm.
“Nearly everyone hates Liverpool except Liverpool fans, and the funny thing is that they think it’s cause we’re jealous of them or something when really it’s cause they’re fans are just annoying idiots. xD”
“Carragher’s a dirty cunt in my eyes. Going studs in on the knee is just plain stupid and twat-like. Gentleman, my arse. My dogs are most gentlemanly than him. My papá was telling me about the old days of “Equalisers” in the game. A player on one team would be assigned the role and if someone on the opposing team put in a dirty tackle on a teammate, they’d go out to get him back. Oh, that would certainly make that game more interesting. I wonder how much Carragher would cry if the same happened to him. If I were Nani, I would’ve sobbed. Poor baby.”
Needless to say, I ended contact with them afterwards. To them it might seem like harmless banter, but to me, and to all of you, I’m sure, insulting my club and my family is out of order. Am I upset that I lost these so-called ‘friends?’ Absolutely not. It’s such hypocrisy. They applauded Rooney for elbowing that poor Wigan player, then called Carragher disrespectful names even after he apologized to Nani. If you’d like, share some of your experiences with bitter fans in the comment section! Let’s all have a laugh.
Back to my original point, I hear fans of other teams talking about our history all the time, particularly during the Shankly and Paisley eras. Many people at the time, and even today, were amazed by the transformation under Shankly. In the 50s, Liverpool were in rather poor form after being relegated in ’54. We stayed there until Shankly came along and transformed us to the title in ’64 and ’66 and from then on, we’ve been an absolute powerhouse in English football history. The English media eventually focused their spotlight on us after we dominated domestically and on the European stage. After Paisley retired came the era of Dalglish, and after a brief hiatus, it’s resumed again.
However, Liverpool are not all history. I’ve lost count of how many of my mates tell me this on a daily basis, but they’re wrong. Sure, we haven’t won the league for twenty years, but we’ve come awfully close. Besides, we’re still dominant on the European stage. According an OptaJoe Tweet, had the Premier League started on the first of January, we would be third, behind United and Arsenal. We are experiencing a revival under King Kenny, moving from 19th to 6th in mere months after his appointment. The mess that Roy Hodgson made us seem even stronger. Everyone was amazed by our comeback, even after losing our so-called “best striker” Fernando Torres. Why, we beat Chelsea when no one thought we could, then went on the have a 6 game undefeated streak! Most recently, of course, we smashed United to smithereens. Suarez made United’s defenders look like a bunch of flimsy cardboard figures. I can assure you that none of this would’ve happened under Roy Hodgson. Our players had lacked confidence – they had lacked passion. After the demise of Rafa, Roy, our managerial staff, King Kenny has reawakened the powerhouse team that dominated the 80s.
Liverpool ARE history. Liverpool are also the present and the future. With excellent young prospects in Jonjo Shelvey, Raheem Sterling, Fernandez Suso, Jack Robinson, Daniel Pacheco, Conor Coady, David Amoo, Adam Morgan, and more, our Youth Academy is undergoing a revolution that will soon carry on to our first team. As said by the legend John Aldridge:
“I say with some confidence that this is the best youth team Liverpool have ever had. There’s so much promise among the players that fans are excited to see them in the first team when the time is right. Usually, you can identify just one or two who might make the grade from the second strings. Now, there’s up to 14 who could easily appear for the senior side at some stage. Hopefully, in the next few years, the lads in their late teens will be getting some action and it sets up some exciting times for Liverpool.”
The glory of the Fields of Anfield Road will never end. YNWA.
Follow me on Twitter @AccioMaria if you’d like.