COMMENT: Magical solution to Anfield misery remains a mystery

Feb 18 2008 by Chris Beesley, Liverpool Daily Post

ANYONE who still clings on to the naïve or misguided belief that off-the-field uncertainties are not affecting Liverpool’s form on the pitch must have been burying their head in the sand during Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Anfield.

If there are any such individuals still out there it can only be assumed that they found the sand in Dubai on their way to find the white knights of DIC with their begging bowl while trying to negotiate their way out of the desert and on to the grass which is always greener on the other side.

So many people with what they feel are the best interests of Liverpool Football Club at heart have got their own personal master plan at the moment but nobody has yet come forward with a magic solution to the instability.

February 16 2008 will go down in Anfield history as a dark day with Barnsley dumping Liverpool out of the FA Cup but away from the action on the turf, the fans group which calls itself ‘The Sons of Shankly’ held their latest meeting at The Olympia.

Although arguably not as radical as the hardcore ‘Nieces and Nephews of Nessie’ – word is you get a slice of cake at each of their meetings – this football political rally showed just how frustrated a section of the club’s supporters are with the ownership issue.

The event came just 24 hours after a presentation at Liverpool Hope University on how a ‘Barcelona-style’ fans ownership scheme could supposedly be implemented at Anfield but it seems that ‘Hope’ remains the operative word there.

Rogan Taylor and his followers have taken what they see as being the moral high ground but their idealistic vision of a football utopia will surely remain a pipedream.

The figure of £5,000-a-head to join is insulting to the ordinary supporter who will be immediately be priced out of this ownership by ‘the people’ and the membership count of 100,000 would presumably include a large portion of the global fanbase the fat cats at the Premier League offices seem so fond of pandering to with overseas matches seeing as the record home attendance in Liverpool’s entire history is less than 62,000.

Would a change of ownership solve all Liverpool’s problems full stop? Like the team against Barnsley, the club’s supporters might find that just one goal is not enough.

A word of warning to ‘The Sons of Shankly’, who presumably, to a certain degree, share the late manager’s socialist sentiments, the fact is that like it or not their club owes its origins to the ultimate football entrepreneur.

John Houlding, a hard-nosed businessman of the shrewdest kind created Liverpool FC from scratch in 1892 as a means to make money because Everton left Anfield claiming he was trying to make a profit at the club’s expense.

Unlike most of their rivals, English football’s most successful team did not evolve from a bunch of lads from the community who wanted to play the game they loved but instead started life as a ready-made club to satisfy Mr Houlding’s business interests.

Fast forward 116 years and things have turned full circle.

If only the ‘Sons of Shankly’ could have used Barnsley’s visit to Anfield to enlist the support of the Yorkshire town’s most high profile political figure, Arthur Scargill, to help them keep their red flag flying high.

Instead, those of us in the vicinity of the directors box were treated to Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird’s one-man show.

The septuagenarian former Test umpire didn’t take his seat at Anfield until 3.15pm, declaring that he’d stopped off in Lancashire for a bite to eat en route – perhaps a genetic thriftiness caused a delay in settling the bill?

With his fellow Barnsley fans chanting ‘Yorkshire, Yorkshire’, an excitable Dickie seemed to think he was back at the cricket, shouting, ‘Wide, wide,’ on numerous occasions during the first half but it turned out he was trying to issue instructions to the Championship team to get possession out to a winger as opposed to calling a ‘no ball’ from the bowler at Kemlyn Road pavilion end.

But for all Liverpool’s missed chances and the goalkeeping heroics of Barnsley debutant Luke Steele, who played the game of his life, there could be no begrudging the visitors their last gasp-winner, which came shortly after a seemingly good claim for a penalty had been turned down.

There have been rumblings of discontent at Liverpool since November but it remains to be seen whether Brian Howard’s goal sparks any football equivalent of the storming of the Winter Palace at Anfield.

The legendary Liverpool manager from whom ‘The Sons of Shankly’ take their name is credited with many a famous quote.

Just who was by his side jotting down all these pearls of wisdom every waking hour it’s not sure – even good old John Keith couldn’t have been there all the time repeating the word ‘Son’ in his best faux Scottish accent.

But unlike Harry Kewell or Ryan Babel, Bill was a proper left winger who declared: “The socialism I believe in is everybody working for the same goal and everybody having a share in the rewards. That’s how I see football, that’s how I see life.”

Unfortunately that’s the exact opposite of what seems to be going on currently at Anfield.