Notes from a sporting week 24/03/08

Reds doing a bad impression of Lancashire cousins:

There is obviously a slow wind blowing down the East Lancs roads from Manchester to Liverpool as it seem that whatever Manchester United do, Liverpool will do a few years later.

In 1999 United won the Champions League in dramatic circumstances, Liverpool did so in 2005. The Red Devils get taken over by American owners, a year or two later so do the Reds. Manchester United fans get the hump with the new owners and form their own team and now Liverpool fans are doing the same since the initial excitement of George Gillett and Tom Hicks’s ownership has worn off.

Like their counterparts in Manchester did the minute the Glaziers took control at Old Trafford, Liverpool fans have now decided to form their own non-league team in response to their dissatisfaction with their North American owners (Gillett is Canadian). FC United of Manchester meet AFC Liverpool.

The first response to the foundation of both teams should be, ‘aren’t there enough struggling non-league and lower league clubs out there who would appreciate your support and cash, without this new mob hovering up support, publicity and income?’ and the second ‘exactly what are you in such a state about?’

The contrasts between the two situations are highly marked: Whereas Manchester United fans didn’t want the Glaziers and made it known from the start, Liverpool and their supporters actively courted new owners and made Hicks and Gillett more than welcome. There was no hiding out in Florida for that pair.

The Reds needed new funds to move ahead with mothballed plans for their new stadium in Stanley Park. Liverpool had talks with Jersey-based businessman and lifelong fan Steve Morgan then Dubai International Capital came into the picture, before the controlling Moores family plumped for Hicks and Gillett, who promptly saddled the club with £400 million of debt to finance the new stadium and the squad, as the £20 million spent on Fernando Torres showed.

In the short space of time since the takeover in early 2007, Liverpool fans have realised exactly what it is that they wished for, as the pair have struggled to refinance the debt and plans for the stadium have been redrawn. Add in the pr gaff when Hicks announced that they had spoken to Jurgen Klinsmann behind manager Rafael Benitez’s back and the locals started getting restless.

We’ve had the protest marches in support of Benitez and there are more and more banners against the pair at Anfield, whilst at the same time the fans are calling for DIC to come galloping back to the rescue on their Maktoum stable horses. In short it is all becoming rather boring and sanctimonious from the Liverpool supporters, after all they made their bed and are now moaning about having to lie in it, with AFC Liverpool the latest hollow attempt to show their disgust at Hicks and Gillett.

For an example of non-league teams being set up by dissatisfied supporters, one should look at AFC Wimbledon. They were founded in response to Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes to become MK Dons in 2002 in a blaze of publicity. They quickly moved up through the lower non-league ranks and now sit second in the Ryman League, which is one league below the National Conference (England’s fifth tier).

However, the fact is that they are now old news. They had some currency when the world and his wife were up in arms over the franchising of a football team, but now a few years on few outside the hardcore support take any notice. MK Dons, the team they ‘replaced’, have ridden out the initial storm of boycotted friendlies and supporter protests to prosper, reaching their first Wembley final this season and sit atop League Two (fourth tier), whilst manager Paul Ince gains rave reviews.

There are plenty of clubs out there in the lower leagues that are struggling for survival and would appreciate the support of fans dissatisfied with their big club. The last thing that is needed is yet another club left to rot by supporters whose initial fury has dissipated, especially when their anger is pathetically self-absorbed, as it is with Liverpool fans in this instance.

Trescothick calls inevitable end to test career:

England opening batsman Marcus Trescothick confirmed that he was retiring from test cricket this week, something that had been accepted by most of the England team since his premature departure from the 2006-07 Ashes tour.

His return to the UK before any of the tests was the first hint of the stress related illness that has troubled him these past couple of years. It raised its head again this week when he pulled out of a tour to Dubai with his county Somerset, upon arrival at Heathrow Airport.

It is a great pity as not only did he play a key part in England’s revival in the mid-00s, but also that stress is something that receives little sympathy in sporting circles and it should be hoped that he finds away to deal with it.

Trescothick made a solid start to his test career, hitting 66 against The West Indies in 2000 and between then and his final test against Pakistan in 2006 he averaged 43.79 in 76 tests. He also played in 123 one-day matches, one of his finest the ICC Champions Trophy final in 2004 when he hit a century and gave England a chance of winning their first ever one-day tournament.

As an opening batsman he was never the most spectacular, but if he got behind a shot there was a good chance of it finding the boundary. He also provided the solid base to an innings that, alongside Michael Vaughan and latterly Andrew Strauss, helped establish England in second place in the test rankings in 2004 and 2005.

What often let him down though was his almost non-existent footwork that gave bowlers an obvious way of targeting him. In this regard he was not helped by Somerset’s pitch in Taunton that was the flat track, so beloved by powerful batsmen.

Nonetheless, there is little doubt that he would have been a useful member of the England team on their current tour of New Zealand. Having captained the test and one-day teams on occasions, he would have taken some of the strain off Vaughan and probably pushed the captain down the order to face the first ball opposite Alistair Cook. He might also have had a word for the mis-firing Strauss as he struggles to find some semblance of form.

In the end though he has been laid low by an illness that only those who have suffered from it understand. Like Denis Bergkamp’s aversion to flying he has received little sympathy or understanding by parts of the public. Hopefully he can enjoy the final few years of his career with Somerset and be looked back upon as someone who made the most of their talent and in doing so helped give his country its most successful period in recent times.
JI 24/03/08