So here it comes. We have climbed the hill boys and ahead is the wonderful wonderful view of the new season.
In a matter of hours, the Reds are off on the race, no more messing, its the start of the long march… Game on.
Can you taste it ?
Now little Djimi’s gone
He disappeared one day
But no one saw Iain Dowie
As he took little Djim away
Well the news has come through that Djimi Traore has left the club to join Charlton. The Mali international was a player who never lived up to the high hopes we had when he was signed by Houllier way back in 1999.
Prone to lapses of concentration and lacking ability on the ball, his decent defensive performances at both fullback and centreback were often brushed under the carpet in the rush to castigate his deficiencies. This seemed to be crystallised in that anti-Zidane turn at Burnley in the FA Cup.
What can never be taken away from him are his Champions League winners medal and his excellent performances in the knockout stages, being part of the defence that restricted Juventus and Chelsea to 1 goal in 360 minutes, before clearing off the line to keep the score at 3-3 against Milan.
And then there’s his one and only goal for the club.
Bucharest in November is a depressing place at the best of times. Grey buildings, grey people and grey weather combine to sap at the soul. To make matters worse Reds landing in Romania were met with monsoon conditions. It rained and rained and rained. There was serious talk of the game being called off. In reality it should have been. The Ghencea Stadium pitch was a waterlogged cabbage patch with large areas of surface water despite the use of a helicopter to try and blow the flood away. The open terraces channeled the relentless rain into waterfalls which pooled around the feet of fans quickly heading towards hypothermia.
The conditions were too tough for many but not our Djimi. Picking up a short corner from Stevie G, he cut inside the nearest defender on the edge of the box and as he slipped on the treacherous surface he swung a right boot at the ball and curled it into the opposite bottom right corner. Cue a few hundred Reds singing and dancing and splashing in the rain.
Thanks for that goal Djimi and good luck at Charlton.
I’m not selfish but I am a typical Red who cares less for the national team than my own sweet set of troopers from L4 and I’ll tell you right now, I hope for our sake, Gerrard isn’t the next England captain. He’ll have to show up for meaningless friendlies, press conferences, look good and be ever more aware of his public persona, an exhuasting role at the least of times. Not that it’s not an immense source of pride for a player, I’m sure.
But no, I want him to be a Liverpool Captain. I may be irrational but One Ship - One Captain.
“Our Road To Istanbul’ is a pictorial tribute to the Reds’ fantastic 2005 European Cup win. Produced by the lads at Red All Over The Land, all the pictures used in the special are those donated by fans who travelled by plane, train and moped during our fantastic run which started in Graz and ended on the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul. The tribute takes you on that magical journey from the Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Ataturk via Athens, La Coruna, Monaco, Leverkusen, Turin and London.
The 68 page album has a foreword by Kevin Sampson (author of Extra Time, Powder, Awaydays etc) and an afterword by Stephen Done (curator of the LFC museum), plus a superb piece of writing by RAOTL’s own European regular John Mackin on what it was like to be part of history in Istanbul.
If anybody wants to order a copy by post then send a cheque for £6.50 (UK), £8 (Europe) or £10 (Rest of the World) made payable to JOHN PEARMAN to:
RAOTL,
P.O. Box 296,
Loughborough,
LE11 4ZR
the price includes post and packaging. If you’re in the UK you can also buy it online using paypal:
http://www.raotl.co.uk/index2.htm
The book is also available around the ground from the RAOTL fanzine sellers (including the first game of the season at Haifa) and in the HJC shop.
For further information people can e-mail RAOTL editor John Pearman at either john@raotl.org or johnp@raotl.co.uk or John Mackin at jsmack77@hotmail.com
Here begins the followings of a new season for Joe, Peter and Tim. We all usually catch most of Liverpool’s games on the telly in the local boozer.
Joe the pessimist - until I calm him down. Peter the pessimist - until I calm him down. And me, the optimist who spends most of the time er… calming Joe and Peter down.
To start this, Joe is apprehensive about the Bellamy and Pennant signings. Peter is unperturbed at the moment. Me, I’m really excited.
Joe and Peter will usually moan their way through the first twenty minutes of every game if we’re not 3-0 up by that time. They’re both so fickle about LFC and our players - it’s untrue.
What I’m going to do - as frequently as I can over the new season - is briefly dissect our views of each game we watch. This will hopefully include a breakdown of the feelings before, during and after each game from each person.
I feel confident that a humorous pattern will emerge….
The only respite we’ve had from football for perhaps 3 years, was the week directly after the World Cup. Last season and the one before brought no rest as daily reports of the goings and goings of Steven Gerrard bedevilled our summer days. No time to say phew, lets reflect on what’s been, enjoy and savour and then recuperate our energies for the new season ahead.
I used to love the close season almost as much as my wallet did. It was time to get excited again about the possibilities of what might lie ahead. Only in the close season can you really anticipate winning 4 trophies, playing beautiful football and signing the greatest of talents. The reality of the autumn (or late summer as we ever move earlier with the new kick off.. Next year’s season will start about 3 games before the FA Cup Final…) always lets you down. Or if it doesn’t then at least all that time off from the footy whets your appetite for seeing the Reds trot out again.
With Champion League Qualifiers coming ever earlier, I really can’t remember properly the last time we had a decent holiday, time away and time enough to get all jumpy and impatient for the season to start. Last summer I was as knackered as Gerrard was, wondering what he was going to do, and this close season, I’ve had about a week as I said, to think, oh hang on, there’s no football. Then suddenly came transfers, pre season, and with the advent of the internet forum, the level of analysis over our pre season form is exhausting never mind the actual results.
I don’t really pay attention to the pre season games, we beat Celtic 5-1 one pre season, it meant nothing. We lost 5-0 this week. It means nothing. So now the summer is over, and once more we muster our voices, our scarves, and our money and set off on the long road to next May.
But we all know we can’t wait. Roll on Wednesday.
We think we know Bill Shankly, we’ve voraciously read everything we could on the great man. Well now we have an inside track on the manager who shaped our great club. Compiled by his granddaughter Karen Gill (and daughter of RAWK poster vicgill), “The Real Bill Shankly” provides a fascinating insight into the mind of this unique character through the recollections of the fans, players and his family.
The book includes marvellous photography from the archive collection of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo and is officially endorsed by Liverpool FC. It’s published by Trinity Mirror Sport Media and will be launched on September 29th to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the great man’s death.
The book (ISBN: 1905266138) is available for order in advance of its launch:
My idea was to build Liverpool into a bastion of invincibility. Napoleon had that idea. He wanted to conquer the bloody world. I wanted Liverpool to be untouchable. My idea was to build Liverpool up and up until eventually everyone would have to submit and give in.
The worst friendly result ever? In recent memory it ranks up there with losing to a French 4th division team during Houllier’s reign. But with Rafa and Paco flogging the players with twice daily training sessions, including one on the day of each friendly match, it’s not one to dwell on. Pre-season is all about the three Fs. Fitness, fitness and fitness. The season starts against Haifa with a settled team at a packed Anfield next week, not on a sun-dried potato patch in a game of 20 substitutions.
Talking of 5-0 inevitably takes any Liverpool fan back to a game in the early 80s, with the result more positive in outcome:
The Baddies were blaggers extraordinaire as we conquered Europe in the 70s and 80s. One day the circus visited town.
Thanks to a post on RAOTL we can now read about the aftermath …
YouTube has been a fantastic innovation. All sorts of interesting LFC clips turn up on there. Today we bring you Terry McDermott’s great headed team goal which rounded off the 7-0 win over Spurs in September 1978.