Saturday 27th January 2024
It has taken me a lifetime ( even past the Three Score Years and Ten) to take some interest in football. It was kindled by unavoidable watching of the sport sections on TV news and being impressed by Jürgen Klopp who seemed to bring a new aspect to football management contrasting with the entrenched gum chewing fraternity. Jürgen kicked it off in one of his first interviews when he was asked if he considered himself "special" in comparison with José Mourino, self claimed as The Special One. Jürgen replied, "no, I am normal, I am The Normal One."
Having mentioned my interest to my son W, family banter ensued accusing me of being a closet football fan after all, and to keep up the image I started to idly follow the fortunes of Liverpool FC. The next Christmas W presented me with a Liverpool merchandise red dressing gown, incidentally one of the best items of clothing I have had in all those three-score-and-ten-plus years. I even bought a mini metal pin badge, not lightly added to my fleece along with a revered cut out map of Scotland and a badge made and painted by granddaughter Katie with a miniature painting of OS mapping in the background overlaid with the word Mapman.
Yesterday the news of Jürgen's departure at the end of the season was a shock, but on reflection it underlines his character in having the wisdom and courage to make the right decision at the right time. Jürgen's commitment to Liverpool was further demonstrated when he said he would not manage any other England club, that compared with most managers who flip backwards and forwards like the ball in that early ping-pong computer game.
I suppose I may continue to take some interest in Liverpool FC. We will have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime I have been impressed by the success of our England women's team where here again we have a whole new approach to football management.
Who will they replace him with? Not a question you could answer without a crystal ball.
ReplyDeleteHope you will continue to wear the badge with pride. .
It must be something in our genes; I too became a Klopp fan. Just that: a human being somehow managing an acutely stressful job with more than a smidgeon of style. And human enough to lose his temper once in a while.
ReplyDeleteI find that soccer teams are inseparable from the oafish, gurning slobs regularly caught by the TV cameras as they surge like doomed lemmings into the stadium before the game. Liverpool can go to pot now although I do retain a certain soft spot for the Scousers given the way they united against The Sun following its terrible calumnies after the Hillsborough disaster. Virtually ensuring that the newspaper hardly sold any copies at all in Liverpool. Forcing the management to send in their so-called big gun - the dreaded cloddish editor, Kelvin McKenzie - who was promptly sent back to London with a flea in his ear.
BC - I have little knowledge beyond my passing interest in Liverpool in particular so am in no position to even speculate.
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RR - Football is perhaps a blessing in disguise. Just imagine (you are good at that) all those thousands of fans not having their devotions and being turned into idle hands - there would be even more disruption in the community so let them get on with it I say.
I’m saying absolutely nothing! On the grounds we could fall out.
ReplyDeleteAlan R - It would be a tragedy if we took football too seriously. I hope you can see that my comments are at least a little more forgiving than Big Brother's hyperbolic response. I know there is much enjoyable whole family participation and the bad reputation comes from perhaps a number of semi-professional trouble makers who are there just for the aggro.
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