johny

I've seen him moan and groan and drag the team down more times than he pulls off a hit and hope and gets credit for inspiring a lacking performance. He can get the side going now and again, but likewise if he's not performing he has a negative effect on the rest of the team and overall it's a detrimental effect, they win more with out him.

I've been going to see Liverpool regularly since the mid 80s

I've seen him score goals in League, FA, UEFA, and European Cup finals, seen him have an FA cup final named after him. Seen him drag average teams to the top 4 in the league and win a European Cup. I've seen him destroy Real Madrid, seen him go to places like the Nou Camp, San Siro, Bernabau, Stadt Velodrome etc and win. I've seen him do things I've never seen anyone else in Red do, win games and score goals that will be remembered forever.

Than't what we will remember, and when the dust settles, all that will ever matter.

oh dear, hard luck!

Being serious though, don't fall for this fella's bullsh*t. he's a snake.

My birthday .

 

(If you guys fancy having a secret whip-round for a ticket for me I promise to act surprised )

I'll bring it up at the next Klan meeting.

book your train tickets now for the 14th. think it's pretty much nailed on we'll get each other in the semis if we both get through and we won't be playing on the 15th.

the FA, spineless bunch, are going to basically let the courts do their dirty work. why drag their brave, churchillian shagger through the process of a bothersome racism case, one which now has very clear precedent, when they can let the courts clear him on their behalf.

now, the criminal courts have to convict on the basis of 'beyond reasonable doubt', whereas as we have seen the FA will decide based on the probability of one mans word being worth more than another. Lets see if they can show a little more consistancy than the press?

Nothing to do with suarez either, terry's a horrible c*nt who has proved on numerous occasions that he shouldn't be anywhere near the england captaincy. God knows how much he pays for his PR!

Liverpool v. Brighton

Everton v. Blackpool/Wednesday

Chelsea v. Birmingham

Crawley v. Stoke

Stevenage v. Spurs

Norwich v. Leicester

Sunderland/Boro v. Arsenal

Millwall/Southampton v. Bolton

My predictions - we're going to win it boys and girls!!!!!!!!

crawley would destroy you.

 

 

Liverpool v. Brighton

Everton v. Blackpool/Wednesday

Chelsea v. Birmingham

Crawley v. Stoke

Stevenage v. Spurs

Norwich v. Leicester

Sunderland/Boro v. Arsenal/Villa

Millwall/Southampton v. Bolton

 

 

my predictions, can't see any big shocks.

it's hilarious the way people seem to expect anything other than mediocrity from England.

here's what will happen this summer:

they'll struggle through the group stage and get knocked out by the 1st half decent team they face in the knockouts.

nailed on.

for what it's worth, I'd say 90% of the match going fans I know, red and blue, don't give a sh_t about england. myself, I was probably still a kid the last time I got excited by an england game, maybe the 90 world cup semi.

they're turning the current location into some sort of park I think. the anfield pitch is the final resting place of many people's ashes, both officially and unofficially, and the club were keen that nothing be built on it.. I think the hillsborough memorial and shankly gates, under the hicks and gilette plans at least, were to stay were they were. not sure what the plans are for this new (old) stadium though.

steve nichol was given the obligitory peno in his testimonial for us....and stuck it wide. he could've hit the tamest pass back ever and the keeper would've just dived over it, but chose to make sure and place it just inside...

...the corner flag.

behave yourself bluesky, there's tv footage from BBC's panorama of anfield singing you'll never walk alone from 1964, years before celtic started singing it.

one of the main issues with the stadium is planning permission.

currently two designs have passed PP, the original rick parry bowl shown above, and the hicks & gillet wotsit. now, AFL have already revised their design on the 1st effort...here - http://aflarch.demonweb.co.uk/projects.php?action=showProject&catID=43&projectID=227

which looks infinitely better than the parry bowl, incorporating a massive 18k single tier "kop" end. however I think this deisgn is for a 72k stadium, which would currently be rejected.

according to chris bascombe, who I would rather murder than listen to, the original design has had some "tweaks" to bring it up to modern standards, so something between the two would be my guess.

years of screwing around, lies, and red tape have left us looking at paying £300m for a 10yr old design that would've cost less than half 10 years ago. which isn't good enough anyway IMO.

fuck me, I know this won't carry much weight on here like, but we're moving from one of the most revered stadiums in europe to a bigger version of boltons masterpiece. or a shit emirates / stadio de luz if you prefer.

Not happy, to say the least, but I can see the owners hands are tied here, any new design would need the whole PP process all over again from scratch.

Adidas man pulled off a bit of a PR coup, he said that Liverpool priced themselves out of the market for their final positionings..

hardly! we've just doubled what they were paying us.

He admitted to saying it what more evidence is needed if you call a person who you don't personally a cnut it has the same meaning regardless of how you say it really as with what Suarez said to argue the case of tone of comment is another kick in the teeth to other Black players for me.

 

Maybe they went with Evra as for one Suarez admitted saying the above he also pinched him to envoke a reaction and so on whilst Liverpools evidence was shambolic and massively inconsistent.

 

All that is Liverpool who claim he is no racist keep banging on about Negrito in his native tongue is fine He isn't in his native land for crying out load and keep forgetting he admitted saying I don't talk to blacks!!

 

Evra is always the victim and I personally don't like the blokes attitude but on this one Suarez is bang to rights..

where did he admit to saying I don't speak to blacks?

he admitted he only used it once, saying "por que, Negro?", which means, literally, "why, black?"

and regardless of what "Land" he was in, it was a private conversation in spanish between two spanish speakers. It's pathetically obvious that taking whatever was said in any other context other than that is to wilfully subvert the meaning to fit an agenda.

Look at the back page of the mirror the other day - Suarez "I called him a Negro". did he fuck, negro might have the same spelling as the english word, but it's not spoken the same (pronounced neh-gro), nor does it have the same meaning.

They've found someone "guilty" based completely on their taking one persons word over anothers, nothing more.

Don't forget, racist abuse is a crime, will the FA do the responsible thing and hand their evidence to the CPS so the criminal can be charged?

not sure what everyone seems to have read here but the only "evidence" the FA received that claimed suarez said "I don't speak to blacks", "don't touch me because you're black", or "blackie, blackie, blackie" is from evra, and people evra spoke to after the game had finished.

There is no video evidence of him saying anything like what has been said, nor are their any 1st hand witnesses to it.

Suarez admitted to saying it once, in nothing like the manner evra has suggested above.

There are also massive contradictions in the evidence evra has given to what he said at the time, but the FA simply ignored them as inconsequential, which seems very odd.

they've simply convicted suarez because they prefered the cut of Evra's jib, and pretty much admitted it.

So if I start a conversation in English in Zimbabwe (and cause offence) I must expect the Zimbabwean authorities to adhere to what's socially acceptable (and legal) in Britain rather than locally?

 

And "negrito", however you want to portray it, means "little black person" so it's about colour. So it's a racist comment....no defence.

evra, the frenchman, started the conversation in spanish with a uraguian. it's pretty obvious he chose suarez's native tounge to drive home his snide little "sudaco" barb.

and "little black person", even in english, isn't racist in this country. neither is "little black friend" which is a much closer translation.

shaun wright phillips is a VERY little black person, for example.

Need to have some context for that if it happened to be able to judge. Who was doing the interview for what market?

it was for south american television.

can't find the link now someone posted it on a website, anyway heres another example of him using it.

http://www.chivascampeon.com/noticia/2009/

it's in the text BTW.

regards context, remember evra instigated the converstion in spanish, whatever was said MUST be taken in THAT context surely?

have a look at that argentinian banner I posted earlier, it's pretty bloody obvious that "negrito" is nothing like a racist term.

if it was just a case of the mention of his skin colour that's caused offence, then I take it "Jungle Bunny" would have been perfecly acceptable?

Strange, as well, that Javier Hernandez wasn't banned for 8 games when he calls someone "Negrito" in an interview on camera whilst playing for United.

as darkly funny as it is that what evra said is considered much, much worse in south america, it's not half as funny as the fact that Negro is the literal translation of the word Alan Hansen was derided for NOT using on live TV.

this country is fucking nuts.

and blue 250, you don't have to take my word for it by any means, it's called the world wide web for a reason...

our average league attendances dropped from the high 40's to around 32k in 82, and didn't break 40k again until 96/97

^{http://www.que.es/archivos/201002/argentina_caceres-640x640x80.jpg}

^{argentinian players with a banner in support of a black teammate who was shot.}

^{means "get well soon you black b*stard" apparently}

doesn't wash with me this argument that we're in england so english sensibilities should be adhered to.

the conversation, which evra instigated, was in spanish. "Negro", in spanish used in south america, has the same meaning as "mate", or "pal". my uncles columbian internet girlfriend confirmed this to me over facebook. whilst it is a word used to describe a black person, it has absolutely no racist overtones whatsoever in south american culture, and is commonly used between friends of different races.

"don't touch me, south american"...this from a player who had already accused the ref of racism in the same game.

the man is an oddball.

left behind two kids.

unbelievable news RIP.

think it depends on the actual name

did anyone ever call st marys the "friends provident"? or how often was the riverside refered to as the "BT cellnet"?

with the emirates, I think it's simply because "Emiratres", regardless of the corporate connotations, is a half decent name for a stadium.

 

1-3 I can't agree that an apology is needed. However, the rest i can understand why. Some of the behaviour of media and officials was disgusting.

 

The 'X' number of fans who didn't own a ticket or didn't attempt to purchase a ticket need to take some responsibility though. That may come across as if i'm a twat, i'm not, nor am i trying to be! I feel that this topic in particular focuses too much on the responsibilty of others, when the 'X' number of people is the difference between a full capacity stadium and one that is dangerously overflowing.

 

I might not have explained this as well as I could, there were NOT any more people in the Leppings Lane than the official capacity, this has been independently verifyed. The problem arose because 3/4 of the people in the stand were allowed down the tunnel that serviced the central 2 pens. Blocking the tunnel once those pens were full was standard procedure for that ground, which wasn't followed that day. When they opened the gate and let 3,000 people in those pens were already full, the police control tower overlooked that end of the ground and yet nothing was done to stop everyone walking straight down that tunnel, which is what caused the crush. The side pens were half empty, and at no point was that terrace, taken as a whole, over populated.

 

In respect to the gate issue, were the gates not opened (initially) for the safety of the mass congragation of fans outside the gates? The officials felt that people would get hurt or trampled if they didn't release the pressure. Unfortunately the decision to act in the safety of others, caused a horrific and tragic loss of lives.

 

Also, in point 2 you mention about kick off times. Not being funny, but i've been late for games and they didn't delay kick-off when i was late. The biggest example was in the Europa cup some years ago, Fiorentina i think it was, EVerton made a major fuck-up regarding tickets, where you had to collect them before the game, the ques were the length of Bullens Road 6 times over and most people (000's) didn't get in until 30 minutes after kick-off....Evertons fuck-up, so you'd have felt that they would have delayed the game a little right? Nope.

 

And I've been to probably half a dozen games down the years that have been delayed. It's a standard practise in football, as it was back in 1989. All I can say about your example is that they've obviously not learned their lesson.

 

Point 1, a ground is a ground. Designated seating for away fans, whether thats the 'gods' at St James' Park or Windy Corner at SToke, if they were the turnstyles used. Then so be it.

 

There were other turnstyles available that were denyed to the Liverpool fans for fear of a loss of segregation. The number of turnstyles allocated, working at a constant full capacity, would have needed over an hour to admit the number of ticket holders allowed to use them.

 

It makes me angry this topic. So many young, innocent people who bought tickets to watch their hero's play and be entertained by some true greats of Liverpool, lost their lives. And although you might think (again) that i'm being a twat, I genuinely genuinely couldn't feel worse about what happened and I hope that the justice does come to the perpetrators but i don't think the blame solely lies with officials and the police. Some responsibility has to be taken elsewhere i'm afraid.

I don't think you're a twat, there is so much misinformation out there. Remember at 3.15, whilst people were still dying, people who only needed oxygen, oxygen that was in abundance in the ambulances outside the ground being intentionally kept from the injured by the police, the chairman of the FA was giving a press conference telling the world that drunken fans had rioted and broke the gate down. As someone else said the lies were halfway around the world before the truth even got it's laces tied.

www.contrast.org/hillsborough/