Anyway, the reason why I mention all of the above things will soon become apparent, as I'm going to start off talking about Manchester United. Liverpool and Manchester United have always been inextricably linked. As cities, they stole our industry by building the ship canal, something that United (and City to be fair) still flaunt by having a ship in their badge. In football, the rivalry has always been there. I would argue that the obsession has been far more intense on the Manchester side though. It's only from United fans that you'll hear songs about Liverpool during every game no matter who they're playing. And Alex Ferguson made it clear that his career goal at Manchester United was the emulate Liverpool when he said "My biggest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch." It meant a lot to him.
Fergie the grass
Alex Ferguson had a lot of control over the referees, the FA and the press. When I say that he had control over the press, people often question what difference that would make anyway. Well here's how it works, if a journalist criticised Ferguson or United, or even just broke a story that Ferguson wanted to stay private, he would ban that journalist and his particular news outlet from attending press conferences at the training ground and from attending Old Trafford. For a sports journalist, this could ruin their career. So as it was, Ferguson was practically immune from criticism so his job was never in question. The media have a lot of power when it comes to getting managers sacked as they have a great influence over public opinion. If you make a comparison to David Moyes who's in charge now, if he banned a journalist from press conferences for writing something he didn't like, if that journalist had anything about them he could ruin Moyes' career. It's like how newspapers win general elections. If a big newspaper turns against a manager they can sway huge portions of the supporters against them and get them sacked. Of course, numerous newspapers tried this many times with Rafael Benitez at Liverpool, but we're different, so they failed.
This power over the media is ultimately what gave Ferguson the control over referees. He could easily ruin careers. The main example I give of a referee bottling it from fear of Ferguson was in 2009 when United were 2-0 down at home to Spurs. That was until Michael Carrick went through on goal and Huerelho Gomes tackled him fair and square. However, Howard Webb decided to give United a penalty. They went on to win the game 5-2, but I believe that without the free goal from Webb they would never have got back into that match, and that was the game that won them the title that year in my opinion. If you want to see the blatant wrong decision yourself it's about 1 minute into this video:
However, it's not entirely down to Alex Ferguson that United have had so much "luck" over the years. Ferguson probably couldn't have had the same sort of control at any other club in the country. It comes down to the fact that Manchester United have always been this country's favourite football team. It dates back the The Busby Babes and the Munich Air Disaster, and ever since them days they're the club that the country has always wanted to be it's top team, and any other club that's been the best has never received the same sort of credit. I remember this video from the television show The Street from a few years back, and I've always felt that everything that Officer Slater says in it is entirely true, even if it wasn't meant to be taken seriously: (sorry I have to post it as a link but for some reason they won't let me embed it)
As a side note, that video is a good 6 or 7 years old but describing Wayne Rooney as a "fat, money grabbing bastard" is still perfectly truthful as of this week.
Liverpool, in contrast, have always had to do things the proper way, the hard way, and we've never even received much credit for what we've done. The reason I decided to write this blog, apart from the fact United hilariously got beat by Olympiakos yesterday, is because I was also made aware yesterday that it was the 5th anniversary of when Liverpool went to the Bernabeu and beat Real Madrid 1-0. This followed another anniversary memory from about a week ago of Liverpool defeating Inter Milan 2-0 at Anfield.
The results of the English teams in the Champions League over the past couple of weeks got me thinking how much I miss being in the competition. But not only that, looking at our games from years gone by made me think that the Champions League is actually crying out for us to return to it. England as a country should be crying out for Liverpool to return to the Champions League. But they're not, of course. I was thinking about what Liverpool achieved in Europe from the period of around 2004 to around 2009. We went to the Bernabeu and won, we went to the Nou Camp and won, we went to the San Siro and Won. We knocked out Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Juventus, Inter Milan, Chelsea and Arsenal from England. There's not really any top teams from Europe we didn't beat, but we never really seemed to be given any credit for what we achieved. Before the games the pundits in the media wrote us off, after the games they seemed shocked, but that was it. I haven't researched this before saying it so I might be wrong, but I don't think any other English team over the past 10 years has had the same sort of results against the top teams in Europe as we have, yet the other teams are the ones the country seemed to get behind.
"This is Anfield... and what?" proclaimed Spanish newspaper Marca, before Liverpool destroyed Real Madrid 4-0 at Anfield
Throughout history Liverpool have never been given that much credit for their achievements. We beat Real Madrid in the 1981 European Cup final, but when supporters of other clubs talk about it they say it was a poor Madrid side. A poor Madrid side who made the European Cup final? In contrast, when talking about the 1978 victory we hear that it was "only Club Brugge". Club Brugge just happened to be one of the best teams in Europe at the time and one of the favourites to win the competition. The same thing happens when people try to belittle one of the biggest nights in our history, St Etienne, by questioning how great it was due to the opposition. Etienne, at the time, were one of the most feared teams in Europe due to the fact they were the most successful team in France, European Cup finalists the previous year, and had one of the best strikers in the world in Dominique Rocheteau. The same with Borussia Monchengladbach who Liverpool defeated in the final, they had a famous rivalry with Bayern Munich at the time which is still remembered in Germany but long forgotten or just not cared about here. St Etienne and Monchengladbach were pretty much the two favourites at the start of the tournament and we beat them both. Just because a team isn't great at a certain time doesn't mean they once weren't. You could take an example now, even though the chronology is reversed, that 5 years ago beating Paris Saint Germain would have meant nothing, but now it's a great achievement.
Dominique Rocheteau against Liverpool
So even though I described the past couple of decades as a darker period for Liverpool earlier in this blog, we did have some good times. However, it's fair to say we were overshadowed by United. But now, I truly believe, that without Ferguson United have had their day. And personally, I would quite happily see them be crippled by their debt and go into administration and drop through the leagues like a stone. They've had everything handed to them on a plate for years so they'd deserve it. Even though Ferguson may have knocked us off our fucking perch, we're still here, and right now we're ahead of United in the league and our future looks a lot more promising.
I've gone on for quite a bit now so I think I will just leave you with this final thought: When Liverpool's era of dominance ended, after we won our last league title in 1990, we had 11 more league titles than Manchester United and three more European Cups. Now, the Ferguson years are over at Manchester United and they have two more league titles than Liverpool and are still two European Cups behind.
You may have knocked us off our perch, Sir Alex, but we never fell very far.
Up The Reds!
@adamheath
(Credit to Joe O'Brien for the title of this blog @joe_obrien34)
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