… and chooses the same team two games running. The 100 not out headlines were all prepared for tomorrow, the copy written. The national journalists might have to put a bit of effort into it now.

And waiting until Noel White resigns before naming an unchanged side shows an immaculate sense of both timing and occasion. Good on you Rafa!

Anfield on Saturday was home to a performance to put a smile back on the face of every Red. Against the background of muckraking by the press, beautiful, fast inventive football blew the previously unbeaten Villa away. The first half was best described by the ever brilliant Stuart Hall, who was reporting on the game for BBC Radio 5live:

“Sibelius, ex-Grimsby, once said they don’t erect statues to critics. Benitez whistling Fidelia has swamped his demons. A first half of pure Sibelius: sounding brass, tinkling cymbal, soaring fortissimo. Liverpool magnificent. Gerrard on a loose reign orchestrating. Alonso El Imperious. Garcia a sparkling jewel. Fluid, electric football that mesmerised Villa.

Kuyt the flying Dutchman lashed the first goal on the half hour. Flamingo Crouch defying gravity tickled the second. The third on 43 minutes a gem. An epic. Gerrard on the rampage, a flick to Kuyt, a one-touch to Crouch, intuitive ball to Garcia stealing in on the left, clinical finish, 3-0. The Colosseum erupted”.

With a cowardly anonymous board member blabbing to the Mirror that Rafa wasn’t quite his cup of tea, and invented nonsense designed to unsettle Gerrard once more being written by tabloid guttersnipes, the lads stuck the proverbial two fingers up to those determined to undermine the club.

And the final word on those “Gerrard’s unsettled, doesn’t get on with Rafa and wants to go to Real” stories? We’ll leave that to the man himself who has provided today’s Echo with an eloquent quote:

“I’ve never read so much bollocks”.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Midfielder’s future in the balance
By Simon Bollocks

STEVEN GERRARD’S future for England is hanging in the balance, with the England midfielder growing increasingly unhappy with life under Steve McLaren.

Sunday Looking Glass Sport can reveal the strained relationship between Gerrard and McLaren is now close to breaking point.

Gerrard publicly insists that he is happy to play anywhere in McLaren’s tactical “system”, but privately, he feels his poor form this season is down to the Englishman’s insistence that he plays wide on the right of midfield, while Frank Lampard and Michael Carrick play in his favourite central position. Gerrard is prepared to put his preference to one side for his home town club Liverpool - but feels his talent is going to waste for England.

McLaren, who has insisted he will not quit England, now faces a third fight to keep the £30m-rated midfielder in his home-town country. Gerrard looked destined for Spain after Germany 2006 but was persuaded by McLaren when the Englishman arrived at the FA from Smoggyland.

Twelve days later he asked for a transfer to Kazakhstan after becoming frustrated by the lack of progress regarding the absence of passes to him by inbred Mancs and fat Cockneys - but changed his mind again.

But at the age of 26, he feels he may have to move on to realise his potential, with Easter Island favourites to land the midfielder in the January transfer window.

I intend to find out. In fact I’m cultivating a healthy interest in foreign affairs, the environment, the mating cycle of the Mongolian dung beatle and anything else which keeps the paper masthead side up.

And why is this? No particular reason, I’m sure there’s lots of fascinating events taking place in the world of football at the moment, I’ve simply taken a life decision to improve my knowledge of other, more cerebral affairs. In a similar vein my carefully considered boot through the front of my telly has reawakened my love for radio, but only serious, weighty, non sports related programming.

I feel a more well rounded, altogether better kind of person already. Women will swoon at the range of my conversation, men nod sagely as I casually display my grasp of world affairs. An appointment to the diplomatic service or perhaps the foreign desk of a major broadsheet newspaper can be merely a matter of time.

In short, I’m enjoying a simply splendid week.

I’m sure I write for many Reds, if not football fans the world over. Regardless of club loyalty or feelings about other clubs, such as Chelsea in this case, none of us want to see the type of injuries incurred by Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini this weekend.

Both were knocked unconscious in seemingly innocuous challenges with Reading players. I really hope that Chelsea and their outspoken manager do not try to use these terrible injuries as emotional currency for their club, but rather join with all true football fans and just hope that two of the game’s very talented players make a swift and full recovery.

Spain has many attractive features. The weather, the wine, tapas bars and beaches all spring readily to mind. They also do a great line in attacking midfielders who ensure the ball is just over the line in European Cup semi-finals.

It also has fiestas. Many and varied. Every town and village hosts a week of joyous abandon where they celebrate just for the sake of celebrating. Enjoying life as, for them, it’s the only logical thing to do. It’s something we don’t do enough of in this country.

A few years back a friend and former work colleague from Valencia invited me and two other friends over for a week. On arriving in the city we immediately headed up the coast to Benicassim which was hosting its annual festival (not to be confused with the famous international music festival held there). His family owned a villa right on the beach which was more than handy!

It was a week of mad parties till 8 in the morning as the town and all the surrounding local villages came out to play. A showground hosted live music in large marquees, a host of temporary bars served chilled beer, and stalls sold every part of a pig you could possibly eat. Among the various fairground rides it was traditional to take your life in your hands as everyone competed in pissed-up dodgems at 4 in the morning. Churros y chocolat was the breakfast of choice on the way home.

They also had a bullring. Or more accurately a rickety metal construction with a bit of a grandstand above a circular cage below. The young, the not-so-young and the foolish would congregate behind the bars of the cage, with the idea being to show their bravery by dashing from the bars, skipping past the bull and getting to the safety of the bars on the other side of the arena. The foolish would stand in the sawdust ring and goad the bull, before plunging headfirst for safety into a “protected area” in the centre of the ring, which was nothing more than a rudimentary wooden box.

So one night we were happily drinking the cruzcampo, chomping on sticks of chorizo, watching this mad spectacle go on below. Larger and larger bulls appeared as correspondingly more foolhardy (experienced?) locals took their turn, after the young braves had earnt their spurs earlier in the evening with the smaller bulls. Occasionally the metal structure shook violently as a bull just failed to make mincemeat of a festival reveller.

Suddenly this scrawny Spanish kid appeared from our left. He was way above his station against a bull who’d obviously been on the patented Rooney Sayer’s diet. I immediately noticed he was wearing an old bobbled Red shirt - bloody hell it was a Liverpool shirt!

He headed straight for the steroid-pumped bull, performed a pirouette worthy of John Barnes, and just escaped with his life, disappearing to the right and through the caged bars with a horn just failing to pierce his arse.

As he disappeared into the cage I spotted the name and number on the back.

Phil Babb 6.

How, for the love of god, did he have a battered Babb shirt? And more importantly why? This was back in 2000 and he can’t have been much older than 15 or 16, so the lad must have been around 10 when Babb bestrode the Anfield turf like a latter day Brian Boru.

What possessed a young Spanish fan to request a Phil Babb shirt from his parents? And does our former defender have legions of admirers dotted all round the globe? Are there Phil Babb fan clubs in the villas of Buenos Aires and the back streets of Calcutta? Is there an international fan club we can all join? Does the goalpost at the Anny Road End have VIP membership?

I left Spain at the end of the week bewildered and confused. I don’t think I’ve ever really recovered from the incident of Babb and the Bull.

I manage the Internet Liverpool Football Club (ILFC), a supporters team formed from a range of websites. We play home and away in the Northern Football Supporters League (NFSL) against teams like Blackburn, Accrington Stanley, Leeds Utd, Chester & Morecambe.

We also play in the IFA which is a national cup, and WorldNet which is a weekend competition held annually in Leeds with teams that include Inter Milan, RC Lens, Everton, Celtic and others from up and down the country.

Last season we had a trip to Milan to play the Inter Milan supporters’ team and this season we hope to do something similar with another European supporters’ team.

We have just secured a new sponsorship deal with the Sandon pub and have a brand new kit. We raise money by the Sandon selling spot-the-balls for us on a weekly basis.

The reason I’m posting is that we have lost a couple of key players this season to injury and we are looking for a goalscoring striker and a defender.

We don’t have a game now until the 29th October when we play Leeds which should take place at 1pm at Stanley Park.

Generally our games are at Stanley Park and obviously the away games are a good crack. We also sometimes play home matches on the pitches at Lower Breck Recreation Ground, next to the Anfield Youth Club.

If anyone is interested in joining ILFC then by all means leave a message on our website or drop me a pm on RAWK.

Our website is: http://www.ilfc.co.uk/forum

and you can PM me by clicking this link: Send PM

thanks

Phil
Manager, ILFC

Those of us of a certain age may have memories of a little section of the ground, which was tucked away in the far right corner of the Kop, known as the Pen. Entry was about a bob (5 pence) when I first started going which was considerably cheaper than the four bob (20 pence) entrance into the Kop.

I had first been to Anfield in 1961 when Dad took me to Liverpool v Bristol Rovers and we sat in the old Kemlyn Road wooden stand. My inaugral trip into the Pen was one cold December day in 1965 when a couple of us rode the 81 from Speke to Utting Avenue. For Southenders like myself, this was a trip into unknown territory. For me the boundary between North and South was London Road and we just never ventured into the unknown North.

At Christmas time every school kid took an envelope home for the Blind Kids. You would mark on the back a cross on the envelope for each penny that went into the envelope and then took it back to school. On entering the Pen, I noticed two things:

Why were loads of smaller kids standing by the copper?
Why were two kids going round searching other kids?

I’ll answer the second one first because after explanation, you will know the answer to the first question.

The kids in question were ‘encouraging’ other kids to place pennies into the blind envelope. “Was this a charitable gesture?” I thought until they came to me. I was bricking it, I had to say because me and my mate were no match for these Northenders. I said I had no money and then was pinned against the fence and ‘searched’. Luckily for me, the searching techniques were less than rigorous and I escaped with my bus fare home. Lesson number one was hide your dosh!

The Boys Pen always sang! Two minutes after the Kop! The ninety minutes there was punctuated by escaping kids going over the fence into the Kop. Some made it and some did not. I can see the copper now pulling the kids down from the top of the fence and being ‘escorted’ out by the ear. Different times eh? Instant punishment and you wouldn’t grass to your Dad about that. I was thinking at the time why bother ‘escaping’ until you noticed that some of the kids were always eying up the other kids rather than watching the match.

My God, you learnt how to watch the match with blinkers on because you did not want eye contact. The Copper either was watching the match or pulling kids down from the fence. The robbing going on was always out of eye contact from the copper. The final whistle went and you were glad to get out in one piece with your bus fare home. On reading the chapter on the boys pen in Alan Edge’s great book ‘Faith Of Our Fathers’ many years later I have to say that my experience was not as intimidating, but Liverpool was a hard city in the late fifties and going into the Pen with new winkle pickers was just asking for trouble! Oh by the way, we beat Arsenal 4-2 and we were top of the table.

I started going regular to the Pen after that and Dad would drive us there and take us home because he was a regular in the Annie Road (at least the bus fare was not needed). It only got better because I was more aware of what was going on around me but to be truthful, I hated the place. But at least I got to see the Reds. Sometimes, I would use birthday money to get into the Kop but that was a treat.

My final game in the Pen was against Celtic in the semis of the Cup Winners Cup in 1966. Anybody who remembers that night will perhaps agree with me that it was one of the noisiest atmospheres Anfield ever witnessed and I was in the Pen nearly two hours before kick off. What a mistake! Attempted GBH between the local nutters and kids like myself! I said to myself after the game that the days in the Pen were finished. Season 1966/67 I went in the Kop, Annie Road, Paddock, anywhere but the Pen!

At least the Pen gave young kids like myself an opportunity to go with your mates to the game from say 11 onwards. I learnt a lot about life, survival and ‘pecking order’. Would you wish it on your own kids or grandkids today? I don’t think so!

More memories of the Pen can be found on the RAWK main site: The Boys Pen

With the official website’s excellent 100 Players Who Shook The Kop just coming to an end, I thought I’d look back at a player who finished 91st in the list and lit up the Kop for short time in the early days of the Houllier regime: Titi Camara.

So what made him so special? So downright lovable? What best captured those magic moments of his?

Those flashes of the Camara.

Was it that smile?

Sure the smile. It had to be. For who else’s ever beamed so readily and engagingly? Who else’s ever invoked your average Red to dredge up some long entombed mothering instinct to take the protagonist home and sit him proudly on the mantelpiece beside Granny’s old carriage clock?

But what about that shiny bonce, too?

Oh yes, that bonce. On top of who else’s shoulders did there ever sit one so delectable, so Uncle Festerish, so perfectly domed, so innocently demanding to be smoothed and patted till the end of time? Too right, the beloved bonce.

And that moving display of emotion for his father?

Without a doubt. Can anybody who watched him after he scored in that game against West Ham ever dispute we were witnessing a genuine and fully paid up member of the human race opening up to us? Surely a cameo to touch anyone who has ever lost anybody dear.

And yet, at the end of the day, was it not simply that box of tricks of his, beguiling us all with the delicious recipes he kept unfurling from within it?

Yeah, that’s it. Of course, the box of tricks. What else could it have been all along?

I can picture them now. The sheer impishness of those flicks, that outrageous backheeled one-two with Jamie Redknapp at the Kop end against Villa, the lavish pirouettes and strutting, those majestic gliding surges with head held so imperiously high like a king surveying his domain.

And then, disarmingly, the whole thing brought back once again to less regal dimensions with that wonderful beaming smile. The one to melt the hearts of a million Kopites.Aah, Titi! What a gift from heaven, you truly were. What a star you rose to be. What a hero to Reds, young and wizened alike.

Yet who had suspected it, barely a few months before your arrival?

Certainly not after the disdain of Barry Davies during that UEFA Cup Final for Marseilles. His dismissal of you as some sort of buffoon, casting aspersions on your wondrous talent. And we, all too predictably, like the fickle herd we fans so often tend to be, half wondering whether those ill-considered asides of his carried any credibility. Half duped by those inane witterings. As if we should ever have listened to some Jack-of-all-trades microphone prattler from the Beeb.

So who really was the buffoon, eh, Barry?

Not our delectable Titi. That’s for sure.

No sirree.

For how we all grew to love this magician from the Tropics. Our very own man from Guinea. Oh okay perhaps not all. But surely all those with big hearts? And there are always many of those around Anfield. Why his substitute warm-ups alone were worth our admission money. Again the warmth of those flashing smiles to his ever-growing adoring legions would have it, conjuring a rapport that would ripple the entire length of the touchlines. Embracing him from all corners of the ground.

But especially from the Kop.

Indeed, the mind boggles at how rapturously the old swaying Kop would have lapped him up. Yet even the more sedate seated version adopted him as their very own. Those Skip-to-my-Lou strains; that special Titi ditty of his serving to strike perfect accord with his touchline routines.

Ti ti ti ti ti, Ti ti ti ti ti, Ti ti ti ti ti, Ti Titi Camara

Has anybody ever touched their toes quite so poetically? With quite so much poise?

I doubt it.

But what of our Titi’s antics on the pitch? The arena where it really mattered. That gleaming white T shirt, peek-a-booing above the white-rimmed neck of his red shirt might well have picked him out from others similarly attired for action. His box of tricks may indeed have been the portents of something momentous. Were they, though, all they purported to be?

Fear not. For this man had class from engine to shining chrome trims. From boot to bonnet. Purring like a Limo yet primed to roar like a turbo-charged Ferrari, he could move through the gears as if on high octane. And could he produce the goods to go with it.

Boy, could this fellow play footy. Jeez, could he mesmerise his opponents. Us too. And his team-mates to boot.Goals flowed from him. Be they the tap-in or the breathtaking. The ridiculous or the sublime. They, though, were merely the icing on his cake. And what a cake it was, harbouring a richness most mere mortal footballers can but dream of. An exquisiteness fit to serve before the most discerning football crowds. An array of ball skills, running and dribbling, passing and shooting - not to mention that magical box of tricks – to satisfy even the most audacious Brazilian starlet.

When delivered to the accompaniment of that intoxicating smile, the package became nigh irresistible. Certainly for Reds like myself.

So where did it all take him, our African marvelman? In the Anfield pecking order of adorability, I mean.

Well his reign scarcely lasted, of course. Titi’s first season had barely passed when the giant shadow of Emile Heskey was allowed to scuttle him. Despite Titi single-handedly shouldering our attack for most of the previous season he was discarded like some oily rag by our manager’s wet dream of the functional automaton. Indeed, the player never really even made it as far as first team regular. And I know there are those who will scoff at the accolades I have afforded a player scarcely bedded into the first team.

And yet, from a strictly personal perspective, I would stick him right up there at the top of the Anfield folk heroes. Yes, in the Anfield pantheon I would rank him alongside Elisha Scott and his infamous scowling and swearing to the Kop, the Saint and his portly ball juggling down the Kop end before every game and dear fist-clenching Joey Jones all arms and legs a kilter greeting his fellow Kopites. His relationship with the crowd I would submit to be that special. In such a brief space of time it was little short of remarkable. Quite unlike anything I can recall witnessing at Anfield before and certainly since.

Long may his memory continue to enthrall.

Keep that Camara rollin’, Titi my son.

Back in the summer of 2005 Dave Usher over at TLW produced a superb special issue of the fanzine to celebrate the Reds winning the European Cup for the 5th time. As you can imagine it sold out very quickly.

Dave has since been inundated with requests for copies so he’s produced a new print run. The bumper 44 page special features a five page interview with Carra, where he talks in depth about Istanbul and Rafa’s first season, and explains what happened between him and Mourinho in the Carling Cup Final.

Neil Mellor talks about his Olympiakos heroics, the Arsenal goal and how he stayed behind singing with the fans after the Chelsea semi. There’s also numerous accounts from fans who were in Istanbul, as well as reports on the epic Juventus and Chelsea games.

The special issue can be bought online or you can also get your copy by sending a cheque, made payable to D. Usher, to TLW, PO Box 12, Liverpool, L31 7EJ (UK £4, Europe £4.50, Rest of the World £5).

On a similar theme RAOTL’s fantastic pictorial tribute to the Reds’ European Cup win is still available. 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

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 before home games from the RAOTL fanzine sellers around the ground 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.