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L’ imminente disputa della stracittadina di Liverpool, che sarà ospitata dall’ Everton, riaccende i riflettori sul “Merseyside derby” che quest’anno la “BBC” ha ribattezzato “Miseryside derby” visto l’altalenante cammino delle due squadre. I “Reds” di Benitez, pure se vittoriosi sul Debrecen, hanno dovuto abbandonare a metà settimana le residue speranze di proseguire il proprio cammino in “Champions’ league” e la stessa panchina dello spagnolo Rafa Benitez appare barcollante mentre i “Blues” sono freschi reduci da una sconfitta sul non impossibile terreno dell’ Hull City.La stracittadina di Liverpool, dopo anni in cui il rapporto tra le tifoserie si era un po’ svelenito nonostante il persistere di una forte rivalità sportiva, è tornata agli anni dell’ antagonismo più estremo ed in tempi recenti sono stati fatti diversi appelli dagli addetti ai lavori per ristabilire una competizione senza eccessi. Le generazioni più giovani, tuttavia, sembrano sorde al richiamo. Infine, le recenti uscite di films sugli albori della scena “casual” britannica continuano a destare l’attenzione mediatica.
The Miseryside derby
Liverpool. Great city, terrible week. It’s an interesting time for the Merseyside derby.
There was no great escape for the Reds as they stumbled past the might of Debrecen on Tuesday night and then stood in forlorn hope of a late late Lyon goal that might save their bacon. Unfortunately Insua and Skrtel weren’t in the Fiorentina line-up so the goal never came.Benitez trotted out a few careworn clichés on the merits of staying positive. But that won’t do. The Europa League means diddly to a club of their aspirations. It’s like getting up on Easter Sunday in anticipation of a glut of Easter goodies and finding the only thing on offer is a past-its-sell-by-date Crème Egg.
Benitez hasn’t had much to smile about
Besides they’ll have to get past Fulham to do it and you can’t see that happening.
Purslow is right behind Rafa, and given that the bloke’s just signed a five-year contract, you wouldn’t expect him to say owt else.
Hansen and Lawro would’ve been growling about how that’s not ‘the Liverpool way’, but at the moment it’s the only way.
The thing is, Benitez has had this coming. He’s got out of jail so many times in Europe. His two great successes with the club were the work of fiction writers with a highly-developed imagination. 3-0 down to Milan, 3-2 down to West Ham, and the No.8 pulls on Stevie’s Magic Boots and saves the day. (And even more miraculous, Smicer scores).I’m not saying these triumphs weren’t damn exciting – hell that night in Istanbul was probably the most exhilarating club final ever. In fact, if you want to know why Liverpool fans still cling to the Red Rafalution just watch the highlights of that match again.Whatever else the Spaniard does he has given the Koppites an unsurpassable night of bliss. I mean I used to have a recurring dream that I was under a duvet with the Three Degrees but that just pales into insignificance in comparison.The thing is, what does Rafa do now? Torres’s hamstring nags away like a 70s sitcom wife and Gerrard is reportedly playing with pain-killing injections (perhaps they could hand out some of them to the fans ‘n’ all). And now Ryan Babel’s been chipping away to the press. I’d ground the adolescent fool.One good strike in 105 appearances and he’s bleating to the papers. ‘It’s too cliquey, they’re too greedy’… Get over yourself, son. Benayoun’s got more of a case for complaint and he’s keeping schtum. So should you.I really don’t think they’ll get fourth place this season and then where’s the money going to come from to fund next year’s revival?Bill Kenwright’ll tell you. From building a new stadium. Only Everton won’t be doing that. And their form’s worse than Liverpool’s, just about. At the KC and you’re three down after half-an-hour? And that was just the number of pints my Bluenose pal had sunk in that time.At least Moyes is not using the injury list as a get-out-of-jail free card. No Arteta makes the Toffees very dull boys. But you can’t see a manager of his capabilities holding out for a transfer budget while various Merseyside boroughs come round to Uncle Bill’s for canapés and Chianti for another decade.So here’s where we’re at. Everton fans don’t want to move from Goodison, and Kenwright, even with the big Tesco connection (in fact because of the Tesco connection in the latest ruling) can’t get his plans through anyway.Liverpool, with Statler and Waldorf loading up the club with debt, and a manager who keeps handing over cows for what he hopes are magic beans, haven’t got enough in the coffers to build their new ground either, even though the location is far less unsettling for the fansNow everyone in the city of Liverpool knows there’s a solution. It’s as easy to swallow as a porcupine coated in wasabi, but it is a solution. Ground-sharing.
Will Liverpool and Everton ever share the same ground?
There’s only a bit of a park between the two grounds anyway. Knock down Anfield, knock down Goodison, build a new stadium directly between the two and you’ll have a spanking new ground and twice as much green space for the happy Scouse toddlers everywhere.I know the rivalry’s intense – hellfire, Babel’s not even allowed to wear his precious blue boots – I mean crikey even Tony Blair got to wear a blue tie once in a while – but let’s face it, the real enemy has never been within – they’re a short trot down the M62, and what’s worse there’s two of ‘em now.It may seem hard to put aside age-old allegiances and traditions – although from what I can gather there’s a whole host of Liverpool greats (Carragher, Fowler, McManaman, Owen) who grew up as Everton fans, so it’s not like people can’t put these things to one side when they have to, eh? And it’s not as if opposing fans will see each other on match days any road.And if you’re worried about the state of the pitch then I suggest Everton replace Moyes with Allardyce and then every other week the ball won’t get anywhere near the grass.The home ends can be at opposite sides, directors’ boxes too, and you know what? If this former European Capital of Culture is to mean something significant, how about years of enmity being put to one side in the names of a celebration of two great names in British football history coming together to share the same piece of green sward in the name of community cohesion, common sense and, let’s face it, financial desperation.They do it in Milan. It’s not like them two teams have achieved nowt since. It makes sense in every regard except that the people who are most intimately involved are football supporters. Oops! That’s logic out the window, then.But the time has come for summat to give, before the Europa Cup truly becomes something worth winning.
( BBC Sport )
“SMART CASUALS”
Casual City Service Flag
In the light of two new films being released, The Firm and Green Streets 2, revisiting the football hooligan genre I tracked down an original to see what the scene was really like.If you asked someone to describe football hooliganism the usual images of shaven-headed bovver boys and bloody violence on the terraces usually emerge. No one would think to associate it with a lasting youth sub-culture which incorporates style, fashion and music. Except those entrenched firmly within.As I go to meet Craig Cameron it is with slight trepidation as I know Craig was part of one of the most feared football firms in Britain during the Eighties and Nineties. The Capital City Service is the hooligan element or casuals as they were labelled, of Hibernian FC and Cameron was a proud member for nearly fifteen years.What first strikes me about Craig is that he looks as far removed from the stereo-typical hooligan as you can imagine. Smartly dressed with glasses perched on the end of his nose, he looks more like a trendy geography teacher and his soft-spoken articulate manner adds to this image.“People have always got the image of the English lads running through the streets when you mention hooligans. Most boys in the C.C.S always look smart. It’s always been a part of the whole culture, just as important to have the right labels on as it is to have the bottle for a pagger [Edinburgh slang for fight],” he laughs.“Funny I know, but that’s the way it is. I got sent home once when I was a youngster for having the wrong trainers on. Eighty lads about to knock hell out of each other but my Pumas would have made the firm look bad.”
Dressed to Impress
[I try to suppress a grin as I picture the scene of tragi-comedy but Cameron starts to laugh again, an infectious bark which continues throughout most of the interview. “Crazy times man, I remember being so gutted that I wasn’t part of it.”Being “part of it” was exactly what it was all about. I find out that hooligans and casuals were actually two different groups vying for supremacy within the club. The older hooligan element wore their scarves with pride and stood out because of this.The new and younger casuals on the other hand were influenced by fans in England who dressed as well as they fought. Armani, Burberry and Benetton became the labels of choice; “scarvers” were frowned upon. In the working class areas of Leith, this new found smart style caught on and the Hibs casual set-up grew and eventually overtook the hooligans of the seventies.I find it slightly incongruous that I’m discussing fashion trends of the early eighties with Craig but he stresses the importance of fashion and style and how this influenced him to join.“In the mid-eighties Scotland was a grey place to live and different scenes always emerge from hard times. When you’re young everyone knows you want to belong to something, be part of a scene. Twenty years before you were a mod or a rocker, when I was growing up I wanted to be in the casual scene. Bands like the Happy Mondays and The Jam were influencing my generation and the clothes and attitude of the casuals represented this to me.“It was 1984 when I was at Motherwell away, still in my DMs and scarf, when I noticed parts of both sections of supporters wearing polo tops and bleached jeans. To me they were really smart and I decided then to start ‘dressing’. In the next year it was like a fashion parade. The top boys decided what was ‘in’ and everyone quickly followed suit. It was the casual scene that brought flares and parkas back, Adidas and Lacoste were shown to the masses as cool labels again.”I realise we have been chatting for nearly an half an hour but at any mention of violence associated with his past Craig body swerves it with all the grace of one of his Hibernian heroes. Out of the blue, he starts to talk about an incident against the Aberdeen fans in 1987 although strangely this seems to have been sparked off by the memory of an item of clothing rather than the violence itself.“I remember having this white Kappa sweatshirt, brand new. I was wearing it up to Aberdeen and it was always a good scrap up there. We went up early to avoid the police and arrived raring to go. There is nothing in the world like the adrenalin rush you get just before a fight you know. It’s like all your emotions trying to get out at once.
Violent Scenes
“The only problem for me was I was shit at it. I had the balls but just wasn’t very good at the fighting. I did go through a stage when I thought I was invincible but I got a bottle over the head in Motherwell and that ended that. I remember that day; we caught the Aberdeen boys off guard and cornered them in a pub. I got a bit ahead of myself and tried to kick a window in. Not a good idea in tennis shoes. The blood showered all over me and all I could think was that the bastards had ruined my new top. Didn’t feel the pain at the time but I felt it later.”He exhales deeply and looks lost in thought as memories obviously filter back and I wonder if Craig has really done any serious harm to anyone but struggle to find the words to enquire. It is hard to put this funny and quite charismatic man beside the image of a mindless thug, but he explains further the ethos of the casual element as if he has knows what questions are coming next.“Look, the way it goes is if your part of any set-up, be it Aberdeen or Leeds or Millwall, you know what you are getting into. It’s considered bad form to attack just any opposing fan, you don’t go after scarvers or families, just the boys on the other side who know that no mercy will be asked for or given.“The problem now is that the young lads are bringing more and more chibs [knives] to what used to be just a fight between lads. I mean it was always pretty heavy stuff but it was rare anyone actually got murdered. The Glasgow boys started that ‘cause we always used to batter them,” he adds with a satisfied smirk and again the laugh like a sea-lions bark assaults my ears.Undoubtedly Craig is an intelligent man, and although violence was a factor in his membership of the C.C.S, he doesn’t seem to revel in talking about past battles. He has been in jail several times; the longest being a three month spell in 1998, but again, where I would expect a touch of bravado at being sent down Craig is quite philosophical at the experience.
Websites like footballcasuals and hooligan show just how endemic hooliganism is in British football
“It definitely changed my perspective on life. A 30-year-old man inside for fighting at a train station and I remember the wee lad [I fought] was only about seventeen. It was nothing really serious just loads of small incidents all coming together that got me put away, like an accumulation of fouls can get you a red card,” he smiles.“I thought I was going to miss the birth of my first kid and I was gutted but luckily for me she was two weeks late. I’ll use the old cliché but I swear its true, well for me anyway, but the minute you see your bairn everything else comes second.”Craig has another child on the way this year (“I’m trying to get his middle name to be Franck [after the famous Hib’s defender] but the missus is having none of it.”) and has recently moved out of his beloved Leith into a new house on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Is this the end of Craig’s association with the casual scene?“You have to grow up sometime don’t you. I’ve still got friends that go to every away match and come back with their scars and stories which are enticing a new generation into the C.C.S and the Leith Young Team [a C.C.S for young lads] but that was me then and I have to think about the me now.“Don’t get me wrong, Paul Weller once said he’d be a Mod for life and that’s the way I feel about the casuals. I don’t do the paggers anymore, that’s a young mans game, but I’ll still be around the boys. It boils down to being in it for your mates, being proud of who you are and what you represent. I still buy my jeans flared, still love a good parka and always go for Lacoste or Aquascutum. And believe me since 1985 I’ve never had a shite pair of trainers.”Smart casuals indeed.
( colonnelli63.worldpress )