Simon Barnes on Liverpool and Money in Sport
Simon Barnes is my favourite sports writers and his piece on Liverpool in today’s paper is one of his best. And that is praise indeed, as to beat his usual high standard takes doing.
This is the opening paragraph.
What’s the difference between Peter Ridsdale at Leeds United and the Tom Hicks-George Gillett Jr regime at Liverpool? Answer: Ridsdale tried to use money to acquire glory; Hicks and Gillett tried to use glory to acquire money.
As the two Americans are saying they’ll be suing RBS for $1.6billion, I suspect that some journalists, who have put the boot into the two, may well be up for feeling the long arm of the American Legal System.
At least though our judges will probably protect those that need to be protected.
Liverpool on the Brink
Of what I’m not sure! But it looks like now that the Texas Legal System has got involved, that things will get more uncertain for the club.
I can’t see what a Texas Court has got to do with a deal done in the UK involving a British Bank, two individuals and an English football club. On the other hand I can understand why RBS don’t want to go against the US Courts, as there have been some rather one-sided results in the past, like the NatWest Three.
Liverpool Fans are Making a Crisis Out of a Small Drama
They love crises in Liverpool and the drama over the ownership of Liverpool Football Club is typical of the city. They even wasted an hour or so, talking about this subject on Radio 5, yesterday morning.
Ipswich fans could complain about past messes that their club has got in, but to us, there are more inmportant things in life.
So perhaps Liverpool fans should get a life outside of football.
In truth these dramas will go on and on until the most successful clubs in the UK have some form of community ownership. I doubt it will be like that of Barcelona or Real Madrid, but then who’s to say what will happen?
The Orange Men are on the Up in Liverpool
Blackpool actually play in tangerine, but they heaped a lot of misery on Liverpool yesterday at Anfield.
Liverpool fans were their usual moaning selves on 6-0-6 last night on the radio, but they have to understand that what goes up must eventually come down!
What price can I get about Liverpool being the Leeds United of the 2010s?
Liverpool Get A Good Kicking from the Cobblers
There is nothing better than to see one of the big four teams of the Premier League get their come uppance from a lower league team in the Cup.
Northampton Town, a.k.a. The Cobblers, did just that yesterday when they beat Liverpool on penalties in the Carling Cup. I just wish I could think of a better headline for this post. I also hope that Liverpool’s American owners were there to see the match!
Liverpool were not alone either, in that they were joined in their failure by Everton, Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester City, Blackburn, Bolton and Sunderland and Fulham
Back to Square One
I had thought that I’d found a house to move to in Canonbury in North London. But it failed the survey yesterday, and so I won’t be buying it.
But at least there would seem to be lots of suitable places for sale in the area to the east of Highbury and Islington.
So I’m going to start looking again.
I would really love to live in de Beauvoir Town, as C and I nearly moved there years ago, but instead we went to the flat in the Barbican.
I remember that we looked at a house owned by the writer, Alun Owen. Strangely, I’d met him before when he was a guest at dinner in the Liverpool University hall of residence, where I lived in my last year at University. Owen is probably best known for his screenplay for the first Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night!
New Uses for Old Railway Buildings
The BBC has done a piece this morning about the reuse of Edge Hill Station in Liverpool as an artistic creative space by Metal
Often these buildings were well-built to designs of the best architects of their day. Let’s reuse them rather than build something new and rather boring and anonymous.
Shirley Valentine
I have never seen Willy Russell‘s iconic play, Shirley Valentine about the Liverpool housewife, but I have seen the film starring Pauline Collins and Tom Conti. It is now being staged in London again, with Meera Syal as Shirley. It may seem stage that an actress of Indian origin should take this role, but this play has a history of good actresses of many races and nationalites having success with the part of Shirley.
I remember once many years ago, I drove from Chicago to Washington, leaving The Windy City just as it was getting dark. For the first two hours, I was listening to a chat show on the radio, where Ellen Burstyn spoke about her role as Shirley in the play, which was touring the United States and was at that time running in Chicago. Having heard that interview, I regretted that I had not known about the play, whilst in Chicago, as I would certainly gone and seen it. Ellen explained how she had been nervous to take on the play, as being set in Liverpool, she was worried about the accent. But then Willy Russell had reassured her and she decided to have a go. She said she couldn’t do the accent, but that she could do Irish, as she had that blood. Willy then explained that most Liverpudlians had Irish ancestry, so an Irish accent would do. In the end she made a great success of the part of Shirley.
So now that Meera Syal is taking over the part in London, all she is doing is following a great tradition of playing one of the best parts ever written for an actress.
Liverpool On The Brink?
There is a report today on the BBC that Benitez is going to leave.
No-one seems interested in buying the club, s perhaps we’ll have more of the same rubbish from a once-great club. And of course lots more whinging Scousers.
Liverpool Reborn
Stephen Bayley wrote an article in The Times yesterday about how inspiring architecture is creating wealth, health and happiness.
Cities are living organisms. This means sometimes they die. Pompeii is one example, although no one saw it coming. Detroit’s fate was more predictable, possibly even inevitable: Motor City is stuck in reverse and headed for oblivion.
Liverpool nearly died. Like Detroit, it fell at great speed from economic and social grace. Unesco World Heritage credentials describe old Liverpool as “the supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain’s greatest global influence”. It was the New York of Europe.
He talks about how good architects have rebuilt the city and made it fit for the twenty-first century, but observes that politicians in London haven’t noticed. London to me is a city of good modern architecture, but save for a couple of nice buildings, those bridges and Grainger Town, Newcastle doesn’t seem to have been improved. Surely now, in the depths of a recession, we should be encouraging good building to leave a legacy to the future and also provide the jobs and homes we need. I’m not sure you need that many more shops and offices, though.
He ends the article by asking what makes a good building. He believes it is one that makes you feel better. He is absolutely right and having created a few in my time, I like to think I know how to create them. I shall create another when I return to London. Somewhere to live and somewhere where I will probably eventually die.
But then Liverpool in the 1960s turned me from a shy young boy with ideas into a shy young man with ambition, drive and a strong belief in myself. It does that to people. Even now, I go back occasionally to make sure that I know what life is about. It is still the second city of the UK despite what others say.
I shall be buying his book. If nothing else it will give me the faith to carry on in this world.
The Anonymous Widower 