Klopp calling on Liverpool to create own atmosphere
LIVERPOOL manager Jurgen Klopp is enjoying watching his players create their own atmosphere as his side warmed up for their Premier League return with a 6-0 Anfield friendly win over Blackburn.
The match not only enabled Klopp to step up his players’ fitness levels ahead of the Merseyside derby on June 21 but also to adapt to the closed-door surroundings and the safety protocols.
On the lack of supporters, Klopp said: “Yes, it’s different, of course. You need to get used to it, but I like it. After three times, it is completely okay.
“I thought before — and I don’t have experience in this area — that it would be really awkward, but we have to create our own atmosphere in the games.
“We have to be lively as well, we have to be animated and stuff like this. Being positive about the things that have happened and so on, that’s how you can create an atmosphere — and it’s what we have to do as well. Apart from that, it is Anfield.”
Klopp is also trying to ensure there are no surprises for his players when they deal with the unusual new rules and protocols designed to stop the spread of Covid-19.
“Everything is different,” he said. “The boys now go home and they didn’t have a shower. It was raining before the game, so that would have been funny if there had been really hard rain and then you drive home in your own car and you didn’t have a shower.
“Our meeting was here in the boardroom. We want to have it like this, we can organise it differently at Anfield when we play here, but we have no clue how it’ll be at away games and we need to create as awkward as possible situations just to not be surprised.
“We want to focus completely on football and whatever happens around the games, we just take it like it is.”
HE was arguably the biggest star ever to shine in Irish League football and now fans are getting the chance to see and hear the late legend that was Jackie Milburn talking about his memories of playing for Linfield over 60 years ago.
And supporters will also be able to watch rarely screened interviews with other sadly departed Windsor Park greats including Tommy Dickson, John Parke (below), Bobby Braithwaite and Alex Russell and to view film of Linfield’s finest hours in European football.
The interviews and action are all included in a 28-yearold video documentary about the Blues which is being aired in public for the first time, on Linfield TV’S Youtube channel tomorrow at 2pm.
The video, Weavers to Winners, also features interviews with other iconic Linfield figures including former managers Billy Bingham, Tommy Leishman, Roy Coyle, Eric Bowyer and Trevor Anderson as well as chats with ex-players like Peter Rafferty, Lindsay Mckeown, Billy Murray, Davy Nixon and Peter Dornan.
I scripted and narrated the 90-minute video and my co-producer and editor was a UTV colleague at the time, Stephen Mccoubrey, whose father was the Linfield chairman Billy Mccoubrey.
Stephen and I had just completed making a similar documentary record of his football club, Bangor Amateurs, when we were offered the opportunity to make a behind-the-scenes production about Linfield.
It was agreed early on that the video would explore the entire history of Linfield through the good times and the bad times including controversies that had dogged the club for years.
The late Belfast Telegraph sports editor Malcolm Brodie was our ‘guide’ and talked about the establishment of the club in 1886 by workers in a Sandy Row linen mill, hence the name Linfield.
He also spoke of how the religious divide in Belfast was mirrored in football, with Catholics supporting Belfast Celtic and Protestants backing Linfield.
For years, however, the two teams had both Catholics and Protestants in their ranks and the players who were fierce rivals on the pitch met up in bars after games to socialise.
Brodie said the sell-out
Linfield v Celtic games were something special.
One ex-celtic player, Joe Douglas, talked in the video about joining the club from Linfield and how he was surprised that he didn’t get more stick from his friends.
Ex-linfield player Norman Lockhart talked in the video about how the players were appalled by the violence on the terraces. But he added: “It was the highlight of my life playing against Celtic.”
The trouble reached a sad crescendo on Boxing Day 1948 when Linfield fans invaded the pitch and attacked Celtic centre forward Jimmy Jones after a game and threw him over a parapet, breaking his leg.
Malcolm Brodie remembered how tensions had been high during the match after an announcement was made to the 30,000-strong crowd over the public address system that Linfield’s centre-half Bob
Bryson had sustained a leg fracture.
In an interview for Weavers to Winners, Linfield goalkeeper Alex Russell said he didn’t believe the incidents during the game had anything to do with what happened after it.
Linfield’s long-serving scout
Gerry Burrell, who had played for Celtic, said his old club’s departure from the game was “the worst thing that ever happened to Irish football”.
Alex Russell later talked in the video of how Jackie Milburn’s signing in the ’50s was a major fillip for the Blues.