Excellent and creative LFC Articles

Half thought about putting this in The Kop because of the fact that excellent articles get spread everywhere and can be hard to find.

Have always thought that a thread for great creative articles (this one) and a thread specifically for general news only on all things Liverpool Football Club (by reputable sources only of course) would be good in the Kop and a good place to read news daily and also to refer to and quote from when commenting on different topics across the forum.

I'll start this in here though.

This is about the best I've seen this week and one that a lot of the supporters who aren't from the area will be able to relate to:

Confessions Of An Irish Wool

By Trevor Downey 22nd August 2013

IT’S not easy maintaining your credibility with Scousers. Aside from us Irish, they’re the single most dedicated group of piss-takers I’ve ever enjoyed being verbally abused by. Over here, keeping each other in check is a way of life. The missing Eleventh Commandment was discovered in the wilds of Connamara, under a poteen-still – Thou shalt not be getting notions about thyself it proclaimed – and we denizens of the oul sod, being a devout lot, took it to heart. The faintest inklings of hubris, the vaguest sign of an un-checked ego and there’s always someone ready with a scathing put-down; a reminder that you might be the big fella now but I remember that day you cried when Tricia died in Emmerdale.

Suffice it to say then, that I was more than ready for the caustic Liverpudlian wit I’d grown up reading about, and I’ve revelled in the experience of it first-hand. The very first cab driver I hailed, all those years ago, was relentless – an expert in everything and utterly dismissive of any contributions I made to the one-sided ‘conversation.’ Once it emerged that I was one of the pilgrims over for the match, he was ruthless – each word dripping with the kind of condescension you don’t need a degree in anthropology to discern.

Gradually, as it emerged that I might actually have a vague notion of what I was talking about, Joe (we’re mates now) became less didactic in tone and more amenable to this visiting Irishman’s ideas on Liverpool Football Club; his football club; his city. We stayed parked outside my hotel for twenty minutes, debating the merits of Kevin McDonald as a footballer (few, said Joe) and the problems with David Moores as a chairman (many, said Trev) and I thought we’d made a real Hiberno-Scouse breakthrough until I was closing the cab door and he lobbed one last grenade as he drove away laughing. “Don’t they have a footy team where you’re from Trev?” Cheeky b***ard.

Joe’s closing dig has been thrown back in his face by me over the years, as he saw repeated evidence that I was not a fly-by-night, but as dedicated a Red as exists. Sadly, he wasn’t the only one who’s expressed his wariness of us Out-of-Towners and Day-Trippers over the years, and the battle to somehow earn the right to be listened to is one familiar to many opinionated and passionate Liverpool fans from Ireland to Indo-China. Those of us who can go the match, even occasionally, are the lucky ones.

In recent times, the proliferation of forums and fan-sites has allowed people to connect with like-minded souls irrespective of their location. Some of the most knowledgeable and interesting football folk I know are people I’ve encountered via the internet – people who view my limited annual attendance enviously, as they will probably only ever see Liverpool play via a jumpy stream at 5 am, whilst mainlining coffee and fighting off a cat or a toddler. The passion of such folk is inspiring and must not be dismissed. Their connection with the club is as valid as mine or any of the Liverpudlians I’m proud to know.

I recently wrote a piece looking at the much vaunted notion of the LFC Family. To be fair, both the notion and the term make a misanthropic old codger like myself feel mildly bilious, smacking as they do of some kind of cynical attempt to play on people’s heartfelt desire to connect with the club and the city. The whole #ALLOFUSLFC  campaign is cloying and cringey in the extreme, and the marketing nabobs whose ‘job’ it is to dream up the next bloody hashtag or slogan,  no doubt let out a little bit of wee as they watched the incredible passion of the fans in Jakarta, Melbourne and Bangkok. They may well flog some merchandise on the back of the newest empty-headed campaign but it won’t be because they told us that they came not to F***ing play. It’ll be because the proud history and tradition of Liverpool Football Club has transcended societal and geographical barriers.

Neil’s excellent piece on Monday was a real rallying cry to those who’ve been less than joyous in their support in recent years. It was an easy trap to fall into. The dramatic fall-off in Rafa’s final season was jarring after coming so close the campaign before, but nobody could have predicted the impenetrable gloom that Roy Hodgson visited on Anfield. After giving it six or seven games out of a sense of fair-mindedness, I finally cracked. I’ve never been as angry in my life. There have been lads I’ve punched in the face for whom I felt more affinity than I did for Hodgson. Every match was a soul crushing procession towards the worst kind of mediocrity. It was not Utopia, it was dystopia, and it damaged the mindset of the fan-base badly. Travelling in those days, as the recession bit all of our arses, was a big ask, a massive ask, but travel we did.

The local lads next to me on the Kop are lovely blokes but they’re thoroughly miserable bas**rds. Lucas, Henderson, Allen – every year they’ve got a back to get on, and boy, do they fill their boots. During the Hodgson era, however, the lads were eerily silent. Everything was so monumentally sh*te that they were stunned into a kind of numb apathy, shorn even of the bleak joy they took from verbally brutalizing one of their own. Joe Cole wandered around, hands on hips, like some kind of pub footballer exhausted and content on the back of his one back-post run for the match, but nothing in the way of inventive invective emanated from two rows below me. I felt bad for them and threw out a few half hearted “You’re useless, you” to help get the bile flowing again, but it was no good. Nothing. They were broken men. They’d been Hodgsoned.

Kenny’s second coming was what it was and warrants more analysis than can  be given here. The man is my only hero and the indescribable joy of seeing him lead the club in that oversized match-coat again would require some kind of epic poem for me to do it justice. Yet despite the return of The King, in terms of fan expectation, the bar had been spectacularly lowered. I remember being in the ground in early 2009, top of the league but dropping two points. I was consumed by the anxiety of my fellow Reds in the ground. Nobody was enjoying it. The misery was almost surreal. It wasn’t good enough. We were going to blow it. How we would relish that kind of failure in the campaign to come. Last season began with a manager hamstrung by a series of unfortunate events. As the campaign played out, Brendan Rodgers learned on the job. It was a painful process for him and for us, but something was changing. A little hope returning, perhaps? Something…

My brother and I were over for Lucas’ comeback game against Southampton in December. I enjoyed that one-nil win as much as any game I’ve been to. I’ve a ridiculous amount of man-love for Lucas and to see the lad back and playing well was tremendously gratifying. The best part of the trip was when Lucas turned to the Kop to gee us up. It was a beautiful moment, as the lad who’d been the subject of so much derision from that very source, now rallied us in support of the team, his team. I swear to your chosen deity, I was near to tears as I witnessed the two miserable bas**rds below me roar their heartfelt support of their former human piñata. “That’s why we like him, we like him, we like him / Infact we f***in’ love him, we love him, we love him / Whoooaaooo…..”

Yes, something was happening. It was slow and it was imperfect, but it was something – a laggardly ascent out of a dark era of despair and justifiable angst. The additions of Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge offered still more reason for abandoning the comfort blanket of pessimism and snarkiness worn by many on a match day. The trip to Liverpool was exciting again. As Ryanair threw the plane roughly from the sky onto the tarmac at John Lennon, we didn’t even notice. We were thinking only of our team. Could they knock in four again? How good was this Coutinho lad? Could Gerrard last a full season? Would Jose Enrique have sprouted a new hairstyle since the previous week? It was bloody fun again. It’s even more fun now. We’re done with the misery, even if Twitter does eat itself every time a Willian chooses Spurs or a Costa stays put.

Results may batter at my ebullience but they will not destroy it. I’ve noted that not only Neil, but fellow contributor Karl Coppack has adopted a similar attitude. Neil’s youthful effusiveness is one thing, but if two world-weary sorts like Karl and I can do it, anyone can. What else is there for it? We shall continue our regular pilgrimages across the Irish sea, my fellow wools and I, possessed of a real hope and a desire to simply enjoy the bloody football. Life’s a b***ard, you take your happiness where you can and Liverpool Football Club, my friends, makes me happy.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2013/08/confessions-of-an-irish-wool/

He referenced 'Neil's excellent piece on Monday' in there.

He was talking about this piece which was written by The Anfield Wrap presenter Neil Atkinson on the back of the win against Stoke last week. It's one that oozes (whisper it) positivity. Something that we could all do with at the moment.

It is good though, well I liked it anyway. And anybody who can create and get a word in like 'fuckoffedness' deserves a mention anyway in my book:

The Buzz

By Neil Atkinson 19 August 2013

PAUL COPE said to me: “Listened to your Melbourne podcast. And I just thought, yeah. We should enjoy it. It should be great. It used to be. We get to go and do this and all we do is act like it ruins our day whereas people’d kill to do this every week. Well let’s start F***ing enjoying it. I’m going to have a great season.”

I’m still buzzing off Saturday.

Rob Gutmann said to me: “I’ll take the scrappiest 1-0 from Stoke. The scrappiest.” I said to him: “I think we need a statement of intent display. A performance. Houllier or Benitez seasons can start scrappy but this Liverpool side did its best stuff in style last season.”

We got scrappy. We got a statement of intent. We got both.

Liverpool were terrific at times. Fluid and intelligent. Lucas and Gerrard held court in centre mid. Coutinho shining like a national guitar. Aspas lithe. Sturridge splendid then brave. Kolo Toure became a man we’d follow to the very jaws of hell. Then they tired without the second they deserved. They had to fight. The side was painfully let down by the vice captain before Mignolet got us all out of jail.

John Cross channelling Emmylou Harris on Twitter described the collective as “The city of forgiveness where everyone bar the unfaithful lover is to blame.” John, you need to get up here. We aren’t anywhere near as romantic as that these days. We spend our time fighting the darkness that hacks at our heels every year and being tainted by that fight. But at our best these days there’s a noisy, gnarled defiance that I love. Nothing says Liverpool like a communal “F**k off you.” Loud while through gritted teeth. Watch the last twenty minutes of Chelsea at home in 2005 again. Spurs home 2010. City in the league cup semi. Just F**k off you.

The sheer fuckoffedness in the aftermath of Mignolet’s penalty save was glorious. Liverpool’s day was saved. Our day was saved. It was the sound of forty thousand days saved. The sound of forty thousand days saved times nineteen. Times thirty eight. The darkness that Martin Skrtel against City, combined with the Dempsey cock up and the Arsenal debacle, let in last season wasn’t being let through the door on Saturday. The darkness that was Hodgson Hodgson endless Hodgson, that was Skrtel and Carragher breaking each other’s face, that was Charlie Adam running round in centre mid shattered and apologetic after sixty wasn’t darkening these parts. Just F**k off. F**k off with that. We don’t want that taint. We were roaring because it was kept at bay and because we need to keep it at bay. Liv-er-pool belted out by all quarters because that is who we are for better or worse. Liv-er-pool F**k-off-you.

And so we were all out. We all had a great day. A great Saturday with laughs and shrugs and drinks and jokes. We were buzzing. So let’s keep buzzing. Let’s see the club do the business in the dying days of the market and let’s all come together to build some massive defences against the darkness that dogs us. We aren’t good enough to assume it won’t grab at us and I include next Saturday in that. But we all have to work at it. We are good enough to keep shaking it off. We owe it to each other around the world not to acquiesce to it.

Saw Cope. He said someone started moaning near him after three minutes. He felt a bit sorry for him. That bloke needs to get with it. Look at them. They suddenly could be a red gang again. Not yet a squad but a gang. I want to be one of Kolo’s Heroes. I want Steven’s lime green boots. I want Lucas to stick up for me against a million grocks.

Saturday sits on my shoulder. I want it today and tomorrow and Wednesday. I want it thirty seven more times. People’d kill to do this every week.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2013/08/the-buzz/