ECHO Comment: "Fears of Witch-hunt Against Liverpool FC" part 3
- Thread starter cronullasharks
- Start date
they wont get close, they'll be fighting for 4th with spuds and Leicester. City, United and Chelsea are all a step better than last season, they RS wont get close to them
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
Yes I mean singing songs about another team being gay using slurs, at a game not even involving Chelsea would be depressing beyond words.
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
I actually quite like Lewis. One of the few reds who actually called out their racism on Suarez if I remember. They are miles off United and Chelsea though.
Norwich opened them up a few times yesterday, and Norwich are a horrendous team. United and Chelsea dispatched much better teams yesterday.
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
It's strange as I actually feel quite confident in that. If Pogba fires for United too, that will be massive for them. Look at the players they and Chelsea have to add too. Lukaku who is probably the best striker in the league. And United have Cavani, Rashford and Varane as well. It's a bit scary how much better they are than the rest of the league.
JLW
Player Valuation: £70m
Fixed
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
Wasnt Howard Gayle their 1st black footballer as well?
I'm glad they called out the homophobic abuse. Be interesting to see how many of those are banned though, as unless theres some firm action, nothing will change and its merely virtue signalling.
True. Didn't we once ban a fan because he called Lois Saha French?
joey_macmo
Player Valuation: £35m
Norwich fans are getting the same treatment Everton fans do after every derby on Twitter.
As ever it’s not true and they’re deciding to interpret a song in the wrong way despite being told over & over that it means something different.
As ever it’s not true and they’re deciding to interpret a song in the wrong way despite being told over & over that it means something different.
Yarrgh
Player Valuation: £70m
We certainly did.
BlueStevie35
Player Valuation: £70m
Amazing the defence of it ‘it’s not homophobic lads, we’ve done it for years, it’s no different to United having Turkish flags against Leeds, Leeds singing Munich, Norwich signing Sign On, it’s bantz’
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
IIRC they used to have a song in the '60s racially abusing Mike Trebilcock.
All the media guff about how they helped pioneer black footballer acceptance with the Barnes signing is just that: media guff.
And Howard Gayle was ostracised at LFC as he stated himself in his biography.
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Any official press response of theirs to any of the roll call of their supporters offensive behaviour/public order crimes is always Teflon coated to protect the product. "Unacceptable" is clearly the new version of the well used "disappointing". Plus ca change... an' all tha', La.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
61 Minutes in Munich: The Story of Liverpool FC's First Black Footballer
I first became aware of intolerant attitudes at Melwood through people who didn’t realise I was close by and within earshot. Unacceptable phrases were used. It would happen in the canteen at Anfield. It would happen on the bus en route to training or games. Such language was delivered in jest. But I was not laughing.
The racism was easier to take from the terraces because you reasoned it was down to your performance; you liked to think you were doing something right. Maybe that’s naïve: I was abused frequently, whether I played well or badly. When it comes from the people that you work with, though, it hurts. Because you don’t tolerate it and because you snap, the management perceives that as a weakness. How could they trust you to keep your calm in a pressure situation?
Tommy Smith presented my biggest problem at Liverpool. Tommy had been Liverpool’s captain and was known as the ‘Anfield Iron’. He had a fearsome reputation, playing nearly 650 games for Liverpool during 16 years at the club. He’d won four league titles and two FA Cups.
The season before my arrival, he scored in the European Cup final victory over Borussia Monchengladbach, a goal I’d celebrated wildly like all Liverpool supporters. Tommy had been one of my heroes.
Tommy seemed bitter that his career was coming to an end. He seemed bitter that the captaincy had been taken away from him a couple of years before. He was replaced by Emlyn Hughes, who was a great Liverpool captain and one of the characters inside Liverpool’s dressing room whom I trusted.
He was a difficult person to be around. He was irritable. I don’t think he had many friends inside the dressing room. I was young, I had an edge, I was different: I was black. Tommy never said that he didn’t like me. But that was my impression.
During my first six months as a Liverpool player, I’d train mainly with the reserves, but I trained with the first team too. Tommy chipped away at me with comments. At first, I wondered whether he was testing me.
Tommy lingered around like a bad smell. He was constantly trying to prove himself as the player he was before, even though his knees had gone. This must have frustrated him.
I tried really hard in training. Tommy seemed a bit intimidated by that. One-on-one, I had the better of him: pushing the ball past him and chasing, like Bill Shankly had told me to do. Tommy tried to distract me by making nasty comments related to the colour of my skin. For a while, I somehow managed to restrain myself.
I appreciated Tommy was a former Liverpool captain and a living legend. Here was me, a nothing. But my upbringing taught me that if you let something go once, everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
What Tommy did affected me. For a period, I didn’t enjoy going to Melwood and my morale was really low. I told my brothers and they told me they’d accompany me to the training ground and fight him. Obviously I didn’t want that to happen, so I had to sort it out myself.
Eventually, something was going to happen between us.
On a cold November morning, I’d had enough. Some of the junior professionals, including myself, were invited to play at ‘Wembley’, the best patch of grass at Melwood, where the staff hosted matches at the end of training sessions. The younger players involved were expected to do all of the running for the older staff members.
I received the ball, controlled it, and lashed a shot towards goal. Tommy Smith was on the other team and it hit him on the leg. It clearly stung and some of the other players started laughing. I had a smile on my face as well. I saw it as karma. Tommy responded with a tirade of abuse. It was ‘black this, black that’.
The place went quiet. Everybody could hear it, including the staff. He was a legend. I was a nothing. Nobody said a word.
I’d had enough of him: this bitter old man. So I went over and squared up: nose to nose. I looked at him dead in the eye. “You know what, Tommy; one night you’ll be taking a piss at home and I’ll be there waiting for you with a baseball bat,” I said, calmly. “And then we’ll see what you’ve got to say.” I wanted to start a fight with him. And then he walked away.
The episode between us set the benchmark. Little comments may have been said behind my back but never directly to my face. Other people at Liverpool knew that I wasn’t afraid – that I’d take on anyone if I thought it was necessary.
Like going to party when Ancelotti dies!
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