Mails: Fans can win! (but we can’t stop now)

Daniel Storey

Good work, now keep them coming. Send your mails to theeditor@football365.com

 

Football can win!
Fair play to the Liverpool walker-outers for winning; fair play to the Liverpool decision-makers for reacting positively.

It’s glib, but football won today.
Alex Stokoe, Newcastle upon Tyne

 

…According to most fans of other clubs, the 77th minute walk out by Liverpool fans was commendable but futile. It was the right thing to do but ultimately wouldn’t change a thing. Patronising platitudes. Well I think after FSG’s response we can safely put that in the commendable and effective drawer and stick one in the eye to the naysayers.

I know it’s good PR for FSG but putting the cynicism aside this is great news for Liverpool fans and maybe other clubs fans too. They now see that a bit of fan solidarity and a protest done in the right way can work. FSG are to be praised for their quick and decisive response as are the Liverpool fans for the stand they took.
MickT Liverpool

 

…Well done Liverpool fans, proved many wrong.

Not solely a victory for Liverpool but proves in this day and age, when so many protests are ignored, they still can achieve their goal.
Cormac, Galway

 

…I know you’ll get a lot of these this morning, but I feel that I should say how impressed I am with the owners of Liverpool football club and their statement.

Many times in the past, fans have staged pointless protests to argue against the decisions of the hierarchy of a club. However, FSG have actually listened. They have put money into the club (a lot of it wasted on shite players) and have responded to the city’s and fans concerns about ticket prices.

This restores a slight bit of faith in the ‘Moneyball’ owners thought process for the future of Liverpool and leaves us a far cry away from the Hicks and Gillette debacle of half a decade ago.
D. Hamill. London

 

Dead proud of Liverpool
I know you’ll get a few of these but I am dead proud of my club today.

Football as a whole (not just Liverpool/FSG) have been taking supporters for granted for far too long. I was not surprised that it was our fans rather than the Manchester and London clubs who took the bull by the horns and actually wrestled this issue.

I am massively biased but Liverpool always has been the quintessential community club in my opinion, and to see the fans walk out en masse over such a communal and oft-ignored issue was yet another example of such.

Now to see John Henry and FSG respond in such a quick and contrite manner makes me equally happy.

I understand the imperative for the club to turn a profit, for both owner (return on investment) and the fans (who want investment into the team in order to win things), but FSG misread this situation badly. One only has to look at the tone deaf leadership of Newcastle and certain other clubs to know that Henry’s statement was not inevitable, and that it demonstrates a management team who understand the connection between ownership, club and fans, and who sought to fix that fracture right away.

Sure, it would have been better if they hadn’t pushed the prices up in the first place but this is the sort of response that makes me hopeful about the future of our club. Just imagine how Hicks and Gillette would have responded (if at all)?

Hopefully this whole episode reignites a conversation that desperately needs to be had in football grounds and boardrooms up and down this country. But for now, I am simply proud of how FSG have responded to the fans.

Now can they listen to us about the goalkeeper situation…?
Matt

 

…Well, I don’t think any of us saw that coming. An awful lot of reactions will meet FSG’s climbdown in the coming days, but I have to echo the thoughts of my fellow Liverpool fan from a couple of days ago who took immense pride in events at Anfield last weekend. I hope he’s feeling even prouder today.

Whether or not you consider FSG’s statement and accompanying price revisions to be of little substance in the grand scheme of things, and even if you think they’re motivated more by PR than generosity of spirit, there can be no denying that this welcome change from the millionaire owners of a Barclay’s Premier League club represents an unprecedented victory for fan power and, just maybe, might send a strong message to all hard-set football fans across the country (and beyond) that there can be no place for cynicism in the struggle to make watching your local or favourite team affordable for all.

The honourable goals of the Twenty’s Plenty campaign may still be a long way off, but hopefully this move demonstrates that you will never, ever achieve anything when you see an obvious injustice and do nothing about it, and you have to give credit to the fans who quite literally took a stand and made it possible.

As an aside, I know we Liverpool fans don’t half p*ss the rest of the footballing community off with our insufferable fawning over how wonderful we find our own club, and I’m sure this email is only contributing to your collective nausea, but it really is stuff like this that makes us drone on the way we do. It really can be a great club to be a part of sometimes.
Drake, LFC

 

Arsenal fans hate Flamini
Great article on players hated by their own fans.

As an Arsenal fan I have over the years hated many of our players. I have had newspaper cut outs of Denilson stuck all over my walls with “I will find you” scrawled over it. Now not all hate boils down to talent. I do not hate Joel Campbell for example although he does have limited ability at this level. The players we hate are the ones that when their name appears on the team sheet you instantly get that feeling of anger followed by an acceptance that you will not win the game and you’ve already blamed that player.

So please step forward Mr Mathieu Flamini.
Frankie AFC

 

The only way to beat Leicester: Bet on them
Can any Arsenal fans out there please refrain from predicting an Arsenal victory?

I think we all know the correct course of action is to admit defeat in the hope that we can collectively jinx Leicester. God knows we need all the help we can get at the moment.

For my part, I’ve drafter Robert Huth into my Fantasy team to stop him from scoring or keeping a clean sheet. I also plan to bet on Leicester at +1 for the win.

With a few thousand of us doing the same, I reckon we can swing the result in our favour.
Adonis (confused) Stevenson, AFC

 

Can Danny Ward now be Liverpool’s No. 1?
What does Ward need to do to get a game for Liverpool?

Your feature on players hated by their own fans is on the money. However, it’s not hatred towards Mignolet that I feel – just contempt that he is not of the requisite quality to be Number 1 for Liverpool. This is made even more damning when we have a young keeper who we brought back from a successful loan spell who will no doubt be itching to get some game time. He was playing regularly and to massive plaudits in Aberdeen, and the SPL is a physical league. Why call him back if he is going to continue to sit on the bench and watch the calamity performances from Mignolet?

FA Cup and League Cup games would have been the perfect opportunity to throw him in and if he performed well then he could push Mignolet out. But instead, we continue to play Simon to try and build his confidence when clearly he needs a spell out of the spotlight. Worse still is that this is affecting those in front of him and we’re now at the point where something has to give.
Alan (Today is my Friday) LFC

 

Whatever happens on Sunday, Spurs will bounce back
As a Spurs fan from 1980 onwards can I just say that I’m feeling the same as the Leicester City fans at the moment. Looks at league table and smiles.

I have no idea where we will end up come the end of this bonkers season, we should get top four but I’m enjoying this rollercoaster while it lasts. Hell we may go all Spursy and get tanked by City at the weekend, I don’t think we will but it won’t matter if we do because we’ll bounce back.

There’s only one thing getting on my nerves at the moment and that’s ‘The Sun’ [views on The Sun unfortunately removed]

I’m pretty sure Poch is going nowhere this summer and if someone was to somehow get Levy to do a deal it wouldn’t be a club below us and out of the Champions League. That rules out Chelsea and probably United as well the way things are going.

Yes United are a bigger club and both teams have more money but why would you pass up the CL to go to a club in the Europa League at best. United are a bit of a shambles off the pitch at the moment as well so you would have deal with all of that along with a certain SAF passing comment from his lofty position at the club. And don’t say he doesn’t because him talking about Poch is enough and no matter what you think of him its highly disrespectful to LVG as well.
Fenspur (Looking forward to a feast of football this Sunday as long as the Ars v Leicester is a draw and we beat City) THFC

 

On fourth officials and managers
Nick Miller’s piece on the fourth official made for good reading, even if the revelation that Messrs Robinson, Evans, Mourinho, Faria Poyet and Pardew can be incredibly odious is hardly earth-shattering. What it made me wonder, though, is are there any managers/coaches out there renowned for having a good and cordial relationship with officials?

When there were allegations of racism surrounding Mark Clattenburg, The Secret Football wrote a column about him, describing his habit of referring to big players by their nicknames and everyone else by their surname, but also mentioning his use of wit to disarm an angry footballer. As TSF pointed out, it’s hard to be irate when you’re trying not to laugh.

The fourth official’s sideline presence is almost unique to football (“unique” in the sense that I can’t think of any others but I’m convinced I’ve forgotten something obvious), because other sports’ extra officials are usually required to oversee replays. Despite that, there must be some managers/coaches that fourthers don’t dread working with. Good officiating in any sport is a strong combination of knowledge/interpretation of the rules and rapport with players/managers. As the excellent Pierluigi Collina profile pointed out, the best of the best referees get players to accept they are right even when they are wrong, and they wouldn’t be able to do that without a good working relationship with the players.

One thing I found from being involved in ice hockey is that officials do what they do through their love of the game, and that out of the heat of battle, most were happy to chat to players, coaches and fans alike. Many are even happy to explain decisions to fans, providing there isn’t any hostility. I can’t imagine Phil Dowd wanting to do that somehow.

Given that there are 10 matches in each round of fixtures, each requiring several officials from the same finite pool, it’s likely that clubs will encounter the same officials several times a season. There must be some allocations that aren’t greeted with a mix of dread and contempt, so has anyone got any examples of what is effectively the opposite of Nick’s article to highlight?
The literary Ed Quoththeraven

 

A fair point on Spurs
I really don’t want Spurs to win the League as I’m sure Harry will find a way to congratulate himself for their achievement
Peter

 

Aren’t the BBC meant to be unbiased?
As a long suffering Albion fan i feel compelled to write in to the mailbox as i don’t think I’ve suffered a more one sided and biased coverage of a football match than the BBC have served up tonight.

I fully appreciate that most of population outside the blue and white half of The Black Country would have loved to see underdogs Peterborough win. They played really well and deserve great credit for a decent performance, but was the total BBC Boro w*nkfest really necessary? Barry Fry on at every opportunity? Check. Any decent Albion play spoken about through gritted teeth? Check. Constant reminding of which division each team play in? Check.

I’ve got nothing against the Posh and i love a good cup tie but this was almost cringeworthy. The Magic of the cup is one thing but such one sided coverage is a bit of a p*ss take in my opinion. Needless to say i was delighted when Foster saved the spot kick!
Flash551ft (Pulis Fan) Cradley Heath

 

Were you there when Marlon lumped a lino?
One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on a football field was on the opening day of the season around 2001-2, give or take a season.

Marlon Harewood opened the scoring for Nottingham Forest (with what I think may have been the first goal of the entire football league season) and peeled off swinging his fist around in celebration. Only he got a little too close to the linesman/ assistant referee or whatever they were called back then, and lumped him full on the head.

I’ve searched youtube and other sites in vain for the footage -please can someone help?
Jonny Dance