Photo credit: gazlimb on Flickr. This photo is part of Gary’s 96 Tears series, dedicated to those who lost their lives and loved ones in the Hillsborough Disaster. The Shankly Gates, pictured, are located next to the Hillsborough Memorial at Anfield.

The Albert Pub outside Anfield on gameday. 30 January 2010, Liverpool vs. Bolton Wanderers.

Photo credit: jazzebbess on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Trigger

Sometimes you wonder why you’ve been wasting all your bloody time every day for the past three years writing and linking to pieces about issues of club ownership, club identity (versus club brand) and the difference between being a supporter and being a fan. As we’ve haphazardly been doing here since 2007.

Because today, I read a piece that delves into and reveals the truth of all this in one simple essay; a piece of writing that is at once learned, literary and yet unafraid to cite Trigger from Only Fools & Horses as a savant on the question of why fans resist the uprooting of tradition at their football club, be it at Manchester United, Liverpool or Chester City.

I give you Fredorrarci, of the estimable Sport is a TV Show, writing in the latest Norman Einstein’s magazine, on how a club establish the tradition it then trades off:

Tradition remains important because it is kept alive through the generations by the supporters. The word “supporter” may be largely synonymous with “fan,” but it is more evocative of the dynamic that raises a football club above being a mere business. Because a club is more than just a business. Actually, no. A club can be more than just a business; it becomes so through years of active engagement by the supporters, who will tolerate a certain level of commodification of the club’s traditions, as long as their importance is acknowledged. Football clubs are relatively young institutions, and like young nations, the maintenance of a sense of identity is paramount. It cannot be taken for granted.

This essay began with a quote from a sitcom. Here’s another, from Only Fools and Horses, spoken by Trigger:

“We have an old saying that’s been handed down by generations of roadsweepers: “Look after your broom” … And that’s what I done … I’ve maintained it for twenty years. This old broom has had seventeen new heads and fourteen new handles in its time.”

Trigger is the resident idiot in Only Fools and Horses, but this is a savant moment. As with brooms, so with football clubs: players are bought and sold; managers are hired and fired; ownership changes hands; stadiums are built, renovated, vacated for new digs. But constant throughout are the supporters. Sure, they die out like everyone else, but it is in them that the club’s spirit is in chief residence, from them that it is passed on to the next generation. Fans need not be required to trace their support back through their family tree to the days when their great-great-great-grandfather stood on a wet terrace built up out of rubbish and slag, of course. But it is notable how often a love for a particular team is inherited.

And for all the jibes about how Manchester United fans come from anywhere but Manchester, local support for the club is immense and has been for years. Fans may be in many ways at the bottom of sport’s food chain, but when the supposed custodians of a club see that club simply as a mint and ignore their greater responsibility, they betray an ignorance, wilful or otherwise, of the peculiar gravity that holds this thing together; they shouldn’t expect it to pass without remark. It is the fans who ensure that a club is the same club it was at its foundation.

Read the rest. Now.

The Liverpool Echo says “A number of billboards have sprung up on major routes into the city,” while also confirming via SOS that a mooted joint protest between Liverpool and United fans at their game this month will not happen.

Manchester United and Liverpool supporters getting behind the same cause?  The Manchester Evening News reports that such is the level of each club’s fanbases disgust at their respective ownership groups that they are considering a joint protest at the March 21st game between the two clubs:

Plans to stage a joint show of strength at the March 21 game have been discussed but are still being finalised.

Any joint demonstration is expected take place in the ground with protest marches ruled out amid fears fans, unable to ignore the two club’s historic differences, would clash.

Supporters of both clubs may be encouraged to join in chants and display banners sympathising with each’s cause.

One source described the plans as “ground breaking.”

He said: “There have been talks and certain groups from both sides are up for it.

“It just shows what state football in this country is in when two of its biggest rivals are talking about joining together.”

We contacted the Independent Manchester United Supporters’ Association for comment, but they were unable to help.

Which probably tells you how touchy this potential “partnership” in protest is likely to be, and how potentially powerful as well.

Big Story
I was once representing supporters in a meeting with senior club executives on a heated issue, taking minutes assiduously throughout. Towards the end, one senior executive (who is no longer with the club) said we had accused him of something that I thought we hadn’t said. Yet he was very, very angry about it. I suggested he was mischaracterising what we had said; he disagreed. I said it was in my minutes, and offered to read them. He became even more irate, claimed he had been “recording the whole thing” (we had never been told the meeting was being taped), and stormed out promising to prove his point (he never returned, nor provided any proof). I don’t, of course, rule out the possibility that my own interpretation and minutes were in the wrong.

But the point is, without such a tape recording, even with written notes meetings are subject to such wildly different interpretations. Liverpool’s Spirit of Shankly (SOS) supporters’ union experienced something similar following their meeting with Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow this week: neither side could reach agreement on what Purslow had said when they compared notes after, so the Sons of Shankly published both their own and Purslow’s minutes in full.

Read them over, because it’s remarkable how different they are. The key difference the media have focused on is whether or not Purslow said Liverpool’s owners are now “out of money”. What doesn’t seem to be in question is that Purslow accepted Liverpool badly need £100m, though interestingly, the Times uses Purslow’s minutes of the meeting and does not mention the SOS’s differing take on how Purslow phrased the urgency of this need. Compare:

SOS minutes:

SOS – Can you also confirm that the intention (as reported) would be to secure investment from a third party for a 25% share of the Club – is this still the intention? If not, what is the current intention?

CP – It is not a given that £100 million will buy 25%. I need to find £100 million, and if this is for 1% or 100% I don’t care. I am concentrating on getting the investment needed. Some investors may have issues with working with the present owners, but some don’t just want a percentage, some want 100%. No investor is going to want to invest £100 million and have a smaller stake than the present owners.

Purslow minutes:

SOS – Can you also confirm that the intention (as reported) would be to secure investment from a third party for a 25% share of the Club – is this still the intention? If not, what is the current intention?

CP – I have seen this reported and I think it comes from the sales document prepared by the owners bankers last year. The reality is much less proscriptive. The owners and the board are considering different sorts of proposals which could involve new investors taking a stake or a full takeover. The market will determine valuation and we have enough interest to suggest that the owners valuation is realistic.

The current lead bank RBS is highly supportive of the club and this is a vitally important and positive thing. With new investment they have already agreed that they would provide new long term facilities and would also like to participate in financing the stadium and they are not the only bank who has met with the club and expressed interest in the stadium project, many have.

But the common denominator of all these financing providers is that we need new investment first and so this is the key first step.

Critically, SOS’ minutes paint a far different picture of the bank’s current view of the club: missing from Purslow’s minutes is the following on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) frustration with Hicks and Gillett.

SOS – If the bank want £100 million paying down on the debt as part of the last re-financing, what will they ask for in the summer? Will it just be for 12 months again?

CP – I have got a conditional agreement for a 3/4 year loan deal. At the last re-financing agreement, Hicks and Gillett paid down the debt with their own money. A new investor will pay down the £100 million needed now. The banks want us reducing debt and being cautious. RBS are annoyed and unhappy with Hicks and Gillett and they want a change of ownership. The £100 million pay down is compulsory, it has to be done. I will not agree to a deal that is unworkable for us, but we need to have the owners own and the managers manage.

Whatever the true story, it’s sad that this attempt to communicate has failed so miserably. Purslow’s own minutes close with him saying “I assure you I will not spin or lie. I am under no obligation to meet with you-the fact I do is because all fans have a legitimate right to express views and I want you to feel that you have a channel of communication into the club you all love.”  Whether SOS’s or Purslow’s minutes are accurate, that channel itself is now presumably closed, as someone is indeed spinning and lying here.

Worldwide News

• Speaking of Liverpool, Goal.com gives an interesting, rather potted — and I’d like to hear some Merseyside opinion on this — I’m not 100% certain entirely accurate historical overview of the transformation of the Liverpool-Everton rivalry from “friendly derby” to vitriolic battle: “The 1980s in particular were littered with football-related examples of ‘Scouse Solidarity’, as Merseyside dominated the English football scene, winning eight of the decade’s ten league titles, and exclusively contesting three major cup finals in five years.”
• European Football Weekends has yet another excellent supporter-interview up, this time with an AFC Wimbledon trust member, whose meatiest quote comes as he considers the prospect of MK Dons some day heading to their stadium for a game as something that would “make Galatasaray look like a genteel afternoon at county cricket by comparison.”
• How does soccer make Fox News?  Combine John Terry, Eric Wynalda, John Harkes and at least two (alleged) affairs, and the sport hits the so-called fair & balanced “news” (alright, it’s an AP wire story, but still. H/T to the Offside Rules.)
• There ought to be more praise for Stoke winger Matthew Etherington, who has spoken openly about his gambling addiction and the treatment he has taken for it; as something that has played havoc with many players’ careers, perhaps more in the future will feel comfortable seeking help earlier than Etherington was able to.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story
Tom Hicks Jr has resigned from the Liverpool board, after the club director and son of owner Tom Hicks made the now infamous decision to write “Blow me fuck face” to a fan sending him an email. This, of course, will be used everywhere as an illustration of how not to communicate with your customers, or fans, or whatever your preferred phrasing is.

The club’s press release did not exactly express sorrow for the incident: “Liverpool Football Club today announce that Thomas Hicks Jr has resigned as a director of both the club and its parent company Kop Holdings.”

Supporters opposed to the ownership of Hicks and George Gillett played a smarter PR game than Liverpool on this issue (though even Hicks Snr. surely found it hard to defend his son on this one), quickly capitalising on the incident and putting pressure on Hicks Jr to resign through the press. This was the work of Sons of Shankly, the Liverpool Supporters’ Union set-up last year. The group has had its own PR disaster in the past, though that does not mean, of course, that they are not right to pursue this issue, and the broader need for Liverpool fans to have more say as their club is run into the ground by bumbling, incompetent ownership.

Worldwide News

• Our own Richard Whittall has a sensible post at his blog offering some “caveats” to the coverage about Angola: “The Footy Blog and the Score’s James Sharman admirably admitted that, a few days ago, he didn’t know where or what Cabinda was. Yet many others in the same boat are plowing into instant socio-political analysis on the attack with a full-fledged list of responsible parties, each with their debased motives, primarily the Angolan government for hosting games in Cabinda to prove to oil investors the Angolan civil war is over, the separatists have lost, and the oil-rich region is open for business.” We have, of course, offered our own similar analysis; perhaps it is time to pause for reflection. On that note, and on the need for a broader perspective on Angola, Our weekly columnist, Andrew Guest, will have a post for you this morning which doesn’t focus on the Togo tragedy, remembering his own experiences of life and soccer in the country.
• Jeff Carlisle at ESPN Soccernet has an excellent historical piece on Americans who travelled to Eastern Europe a couple of decades ago in search of a professional future in soccer: “The late 1980s and early ’90s marked a dark period in American soccer. The NASL was dead. The advent of MLS was still some years away, and the flickering flame of outdoor soccer was being kept alive by leagues like the American Professional Soccer League. It meant if players wanted to advance their game, heading to Europe — anywhere in Europe — was a must. That included countries just emerging from under the yoke of the Soviet Union.
• Last year, we posted on the price a small town close to my heart and hometown, Lewes FC (who play at the charmingly named Dripping Pan), were paying for mismanagement and over-ambition. Two Hundred Percent sadly reports that they are now just 48 hours for extinction, facing the taxman the third time for £48,000 of unpaid debt: “Their single, solitary season in the Blue Square Premier was an unmitigated disaster. A trip to The Dripping Pan in January 2009 showed a club that seemed to be in disarray both on and off the pitch, with the bar closed and a team that had been decimated during the previous summer simply unable to compete with the professional clubs that they were up against. Their first winding up hearing came in March 2009, and their relegation back to the Blue Square South was rubber-stamped not long afterwards.” Sad days.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story
“Premier League looks to cash in on Asia” is the headline on another of those BBC news articles we seem to read several times a season about how Premier League teams “hope” to turn the apparent fervid support of Asian fans into many millions of pounds. This particular piece is about Singapore, and a schism over a paid TV deal that may turn off supporters, with a warning that they risk turning away “fans who are being asked to pay ever-higher prices to follow teams which play thousands of miles away.”

The same thing of course occurred in China just a couple of years ago, when the Premier League moved to pay tv and discovered their “product” wasn’t so unique that most wouldn’t be content to just watch the Italian or Spanish league, or the NBA, on free-to-air television instead. The Premier League had to intervene and put some games back on free tv.

So the hopes to cash in have yet to realise the road to riches promised. But what isn’t asked in this piece is whether the Premier League’s efforts benefits Asian football overall.

Lucrative pre-season tours take place each year, of course, rotating around whichever part of Asia is deemed to be the hottest forthcoming property. Premier League teams sometimes even say their visits are not about money, but about “developing the game”. Some teams do have charitable efforts and academies in various parts of Asia, to be sure.

So is it true that the Premier League’s expansion in Asia a crucial contribution to the sport’s development there, as Premier League CEO Richard Scudamore has said? Is this the twenty-first century equivalent of British sailors, soldiers and industrialists bringing the sport to new ports in the late nineteenth century, and sowing the seeds for the game’s explosion in South America? Or are they merely sucking out money from the sport’s domestic development in Asia itself, which already has, after all, its own Champions League?

Worldwide News

• Roberto Mancini has in the matter of a week or so managed to put the furor over Mark Hughes’ firing firmly outside the goldfish bowl memory of the English soccer media, as two wins in a row has the “the king is gone; long live the king” mantra going, with his ability to tie a scarf in a charming fashion having him hailed as Britain’s “best-dressed manager” already (is there really much competition?).
• Debate over whether MLS teams should be adding a second designated player above the salary cap is hotting up; Steve Davis has a balanced column on the debate, though once again when assessing the financial impact, there is too much focus on attendance and too little on the associated sponsorship income and media exposure and credibility certain players bring.
• How are FC United of Manchester attempting to ensure their game on New Year’s Day goes ahead? As is typical of the community club, they are asking supporters “to come to Gigg Lane on Wednesday at 10am armed to the hilt with shovels, spades, brushes, and anything else that would help clear the snow and ice at the ground.” Now that’s support.
• Headline of the day? The Sun, with Benitez has to try Arda.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story
The future of Rafa Benitez dominates the British press this morning, as Liverpool slumped to their sixth defeat in seven games and fingers are being jabbed once again: former Liverpool star Ronnie Whelan suggests Rafa does not care about the Premier League; Sam Wallace concludes that Rafa is too clever for his own good; John Ley looks at the facts unnecessarily needed to prove Liverpool have had a poor start; and David Hytner looks at the club’s growing injury crisis, the one mitigating factor that seems to be saving Rafa.

But the most pertinent and balanced piece comes from Rory Smith in the Telegraph, getting to the heart of the issue: money, which Liverpool do not have to throw away. “Liverpool have neither the mechanism nor the means to effect a dismissal, requiring as it would a majority vote in a boardroom fractured beyond repair and up to £20 million to pay off Benítez and his staff (if they were not to be re-employed elsewhere),” Smith writes. “That money, it is fair to say, would be better spent backing Benítez in the January bring-and-buy sale.”

As ever, for all the ink spilled, that serious sum of cash is likely to ensure Rafa will stay come what may until at least the end of the season.

Worldwide News

• Following up on Saturday’s post on the debacle in Australia, where a record-low crowd showed up to see A-League expansion team Gold Coast United following anger at their billionaire owner’s decision to cut the capacity to 5,000, Football Federation Australia is stepping in to deal with a recalcitrant and short-sighted owner.
• League titles were decided in a couple of places you might not have noticed. In Lithuania, Ekranas faced the only team who could pip them to the title, sealing the deal with a 2-1 win over Vtra. And in China, fears of rioting proved unfounded as Beijing Guoan won their first ever Chinese Super League Title.
• I’m delighted to see that after a long hiatus, one of the blogs that inspired me to start Pitch Invasion a couple of years ago is back: the Culture of Soccer returns with a typically smart look at whether the United States is an importer or an exporter of talent. And the soccer blogosphere is a little wiser again.
• “Fan dressed as sheep set alight” is one of those headlines that sounds comedic at first glance, but the story here is pretty horrific on a train carrying Aberdeen fans home.
• Bulgarian football is in a state of disarray, as Botev Plovdiv’s 1-0 derby win over Lokomotiv was marred by fighting that involved pretty much everyone: players, staff and fans. CSKA Sofia, meanwhile, have suspended nine players for unspecified reasons, always the best ones to set-off wild speculation.
• Wembley Stadium’s owners announced they were pleased to only have lost £31m in 2008, which must be a nice position to be in. Expect more NFL and Coldplay there.
• The Table Football World Cup is underway in South Africa — why did no-one tell me about this before?

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story
Yesterday’s stunning day of UEFA Champions League action is of course the focus of discussion today, with every game providing talking juicy points for the press.

The British press naturally focused on Liverpool after their home defeat to Lyon. Paul Hayward considers the future of  Rafa Benitez (“Everything that can go wrong is going wrong at the moment”, Rafa said after), and Kevin Gardside says fans are losing faith in the Spaniard, though Henry Winter reminds us how many players Rafa was missing in their defeat to Lyon and Gabrielle Marcotti gives sensible reasons for why Liverpool would be “mad to sack Benitez now”.

An even longer-term crisis is focused on up north in Scotland, as Rangers crushing defeat at home 4-1 to Romania’s FC Unirea has Ewan Murray saying that “The most comprehensive thesaurus in the world would barely contain the words to describe this Rangers performance. The latest evidence that Scottish football may be in terminal decline rather than just suffering a rough spell arrived on another harrowing night in Glasgow.” Rangers boss Walter Smith faced calls for his immediate resignation.

Still, probably the most surprising result of the night came in Spain – Barcelona’s coach Pep Guardiola tried unconvincingly to sound unperturbed by their defeat to Rubin Kazan at Camp Nou. And the last minute goal conceded by Arsenal to AZ Alkmar is picked over by Rob Kelly in the Telegraph, who had seemingly been waiting for a chance to make the obvious conclusion that the current team is not a patch on Wenger’s old “invincibles”.

Worldwide News

• It was also a night of Champions League action in the CONCACAF region, as Columbus went through to the knock-out stage, with DC United awaiting results to see if they will progress and Houston hoping to advance tonight (though that looks less likely). It looks like it could be a better year for MLS in continental action after last year’s debacle, when only one team made it to the quarter-final stage and no-one beyond that.
• Notts County were forced by the Football League’s Fit and Proper Persons Test to reveal to them who owned the club, a process undertaken with much reluctance but finally completed. We still don’t know ourselves who exactly is behind the wall of mirrors, but at least someone in authority does.
• Following the famous beach ball goal against Liverpool, the Guardian trawls through other examples of “outside agents” interfering in the game. My favourite is definitely Bryn the police dog.
• To follow-up on Monday’s item about direct supporter involvement in clubs, Exeter City have announced their Supporters’ Trust has now contributed over £1 million pounds to the club since it was set-up just six years ago. Remarkable.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.