The Club Vs Country Conundrum...

So the England National team has played out another Euro 2012 qualifier and I find myself asking two simple questions.  The first is as follows -

“Why was I not feeling in the slightest bit tense about this England game before hand, why do I not feel tense before any England game for that matter??”

If this was a Liverpool game, no matter which competition domestic or European, I would be feeling that churning in the stomach, call it what you will, nerves, tension, apprehension, excitement maybe? I would even go so far as to say dread or fear if the team has been under performing (not looking at anyone in particular......Roy my boy) . But label this feeling inside however I must, I feel something God damn it!

Is it simply because my club team Liverpool play much more regularly than my national team England, is that the reason for my emotional difference. I love Liverpool, I watch them weekly and in the off season follow transfers and club business closely, is this why? Is it because of this constant weekly fix that I have the feelings that I have for Liverpool, a drug for sure, my drug.

  

Do I feel numb for England because they have a group of players who ply their club trade with direct rivals of Liverpool and therefore I associate them with the way I think of that individual as they are for Manchester United, Arsenal, City, Spurs or Chelsea??? Perhaps, but I am still English, still an Englishman. Can I be that pathetic, that childish? Is there something wrong with me?

Maybe the country as a whole has lost some passion some pride and to a degree some identity, maybe the 3 Lions on the shirt or the St George Cross have been diluted through a couple of decades or poorly managed and badly judged politic?

All I know is that when Liverpool play the result will shape my mood, if they win I get my wonderful drug and everything in life is just that little bit sweeter, however if they lose, it is not unknown for me to lose sleep...certainly put me in a dark and sinister place for a good few days (Bless my family, it must be an emotional minefield for them every single football season, lets not even mention the Hicks and Gillett reign, what must my wife have being going through with me then, poor bastard!!!)

  

I love England, I long to see the team perform and challenge for a Euro or World Cup, I guess I still get a little worked up in them bigger games, but if I am honest, it doesn't come close to what I feel for Liverpool.

My second question very simple and aimed to all football fans...

Does anybody else feel the same???

A Bastion of Invincibility

On a cold morning in December 1959 a collection of huddled press affiliates were attending a conference in which Bill Shankly was announced as manager of Liverpool Football Club.


"I am very pleased to and proud to have been chosen as manager of Liverpool FC, a club of such potential. It is my opinion that Liverpool has a crowd of followers which rank with the greatest in the game. They deserve success and I hope, in my own small way, I am able to do something towards to help them achieve it. I make no promises except that from the moment I take over I shall put everything into the job I so willingly undertake."


Shankly once at the helm had the task of turning a struggling team around. To make a side lacking direction, unity and belief into a team, into a group of players which he believed were worthy of playing for the red shirt, for the fans, for Liverpool. It would be slow process to begin with, but once the momentum began the sheer energy Shankly put into his role, the commitment to the club, the fans, the city, this momentum simply accelerated and no rival team in domestic football would be allowed to stop it. Shankly and his newly assembled ‘Boot Room’ quickly re structured a playing squad and galvanised a team, which in turn started the modern era of dominance for Liverpool Football Club.


"The word 'fantastic' has been used many times, so I would have to invent another word to fully describe the Anfield spectators. It is more than fanaticism, it's a religion. To the many thousands who come here to worship, Anfield isn't a football ground, it’s a sort of shrine. These people are not simply fans; they're more like members of one extended family."


Shankly was ardent in his belief that the unity between manager, players and fans was the foundation in which a football club was built, Shankly proclaimed he was made for Liverpool and that Liverpool was made for him. He gave a his all to the fans, he gave them what he believed they deserved. Shankly was a working class man with simple yet unshakable beliefs, he saw a little of himself in every single paying fan who came through the Anfield gates to worship their club in their church, and he gave them a team to be proud of, to call their own.


 "Above all, I would like to be remembered as a man who was selfless, who strove and worried so that others could share the glory, and who built up a family of people who could hold their heads up high and say... WE ARE LIVERPOOL."


Well Mr William Shankly OBE, The legacy which you left at Anfield will never be underestimated. It allowed Paisley then Fagan to build upon and elevate Liverpool Football Club to the Elite of Domestic and European football, to cement our name in the history books of the beautiful game as one of the greatest football teams to ever exist. Shankly built a team, which forged an army of followers, a family which by transcending generations through the years will always be there for each other, through glorious times and through devastating heartbreak. We are all Liverpool football club, and we can hold that in our hearts eternal.


I know I am with family here, the greatest family any one person could hope to have - Liverpool F.C. I have brothers and sisters across the globe and we were all born from Shankly.


Bill Shankly, I would simply like to end by stating this…


That you sir were Liverpool Football Club, you sir made Liverpool Football Club and it is because of you sir we can all forever hold our heads up high and say…We Are Liverpool!  And you sir, will Never Walk Alone.

Cobain's Nevermind 20 Years On...

This week some 20 years ago an album escalated a band who in turn elevated a whole musical style to the globe, Nirvana’s Nevermind not only gave the Seattle three piece world wide acclaim and accompanying fame and fortune, but it firmly placed the ‘grunge’ genre where it belonged as a pivotal musical style equally as important to anything that has gone before or come since. To Cobain the record and its creation was a poisoned chalice, it was the album he simply had to make but also an album which would lead to unbearable hurt.

In Nevermind Cobain would have known all too well that if the record were to succeed it would unleash on the unsuspecting masses an album that would push mainstream tolerance and mass media avenues to breaking point, this was ‘alternative’ music, this was not radio friendly, this sound was not what people were used to hearing on the radio or seeing on the television, this was something else, something more naked and unyielding.

Of course the album and the artists Kurt Cobain vocals/guitar, bassist Chris Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl could be as beautiful as the next band Polly, Something In The Way and Come As You Are show that this band had soul and richness of sound which could stand up there with the best REM or U2 could muster at the time but it also had a much darker side. Cobain’s guitar and vocals at times would reach manic and disturbed levels, coherence and form no longer the desired effect, more of a primal raw energy which very few bands can transmit on a studio record.
This was the key to Nevermind and even more so Cobain, Novoselic and Grohl, they were a live band who made the audience feel the song...Teen Spirit, Breed, In Bloom and Territorial Pissings were live songs, they were tunes lashed together to play live, to show piece their natural relentless musical talent to the crowd, to make an audience feel that special little feeling inside, the ache that only truly great live music gives you! Nobody wants to hear an album version of a song at a concert...this should be the mantra of any live music lover! ! ! Nirvana made a record live and breathe with blood coarsing through its veins, they made an album in Nevermind which was truly a 'live' studio record. 

Modern music is pushed and moulded into what it is today by pioneering and revolutionary people, since the birth of Rock ‘N’ Roll with Elvis changing the way music sounded, to the Beatles and their willingness to experiment, Dylan throwing off the shackles of his ‘Folk’ roots becoming the Jokerman electric poet...you can trace these pioneers up through the ages, Cobain can rightly take his place in this distinguished list, a man who brought us one of the finest albums of all time yet ultimately despised the fame and attention that followed to beyond breaking point. 

As for Nirvana, they will always be remembered as a band which helped shape modern music, they had only begun to tap into the promise which they held, they had only started to learn their craft, but because they had such natural ability it still hurts a little inside to think of the music that Nirvana didn’t get chance to make, Oh well whatever...Nevermind.