Billy got the bus with the rest of us
FOLLOWiNG this week’s totalfiasco over the european Super League idea, i thought i’d offer my own perspective. i have followed Liverpool FootballClub since i was old enough to walk. Once upon a time, i could afford every home match and many away games. Sadly, football has been hijacked by financial chancers who have not one scintilla of interest in the game. i recall when clubs such as Preston, Bolton, Blackburn, Derby, Charlton, Huddersfield and many others supplied the backbone of the english national team. These same clubs were not considered worthy of the failed Super League, i noticed. Once, clubs needed the attendance of the fans to flourish, but this fact has been usurped by sponsors and the TV companies and their cash for broadcasting rights. it is not the clubs, fans or players that are responsible for the current mess, but solely the owners. i’m tired of the media quoting the clubs as being guilty, owners are not the clubs. Fifa and Uefa, themselves now crying foul, are just as guilty of financial greed and dodgy deals without any regard for the integrity of the game. indeed, many of the players have no loyalty to the clubs they represent and would change allegiance when it suits them. i accept they have short careers and have to look after their own futures, but many of them condemning this week’s actions of owners are themselves millionaires and i don’t believe the fans’ interests have always been at the top of their agenda either. There was a time when players were more like the rest of us. i remember when Billy Liddell, one of the greatest and most modest players ever, queued for a bus, boots in hand, after a game along with the fans — no expensive supercar for him, just a tuppenny bus ticket. i saw him score from about the halfwayline once against Notts County. it went in and the crowd was silent for a second; they couldn’t believe what they had seen — then they roared! i’ve always appreciated clubs with smaller fan bases, such as Bury, and the league is all the poorer without them. it was a sad day when footballsold its soul to people who saw it as a money-making machine, which made it harder for smaller clubs to compete.
william mcaliSTer, Burnham on Sea, Somerset.