By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 13 April 06.

This Saturday, April 15th will be the 17th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy. For those of us over the age of about 20, we can probably remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we first heard about the terrible events taking place in Sheffield. For those under the age of 20, it might be a little confusing as to why it affects us all so much. If they don’t understand, then it’s up to the rest of us to provide the explanations. I won’t bother you with the details of where I was and what I was doing at 15:06BST on April-15-1989. I’ll take the proper amount of time to write something appropriate in next week’s newsletter.

Between now and then, I’ll simply ask you to take some time this Saturday to remember what happened back then and what it still means to all of us. Some of you might like to join together and say a prayer for those that we lost that day; others of you might just want to spend a few quiet moments alone and perhaps shed a few tears in private. Whatever you do, please promise never to forget, and more importantly, let’s all hope and pray that such a tragedy never happens again. For all Reds everywhere at times like this, it seems so fitting to remember:

You’ll Never Walk Alone.

By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 5 April 06.

Some jokes:

Q. What do you get when you cross a Chelsea fan with a pig?
A. We’ll never know; there are some things a pig just won’t do.

Q. Mourinho, Essien, Drogba, Robben, and Carvalho all jump off a cliff. Which one hits the ground first?
A. Who cares?

Two guys were walking through a cemetery when they see a headstone that says: “Here lies Joseph Smith, a fine man and a true Chelsea supporter. One of the guys turns to the other and asks: “When did they start putting two people in one grave then?”

Q. What do you call 144 Chelsea fans sunbathing?
A. Gross indecency

Q. You are trapped in a room with a grizzly bear, a tiger, a rattlesnake and a Chelsea supporter. You have a gun and two bullets. What should you do?
A. Shoot the Chelsea supporter. Twice.

Q. What do you have if you see a Chelsea supporter buried up to his neck in sand?
A. Not enough sand.

Cheers everybody, see you all at LSPH on the 22nd (9:00am, don’t be late!).

Drop us a line and let Keith know what you think of this article

By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 5 April 06.

Last Sunday’s match against Bolton was a difficult one to build up beforehand. It doesn’t exactly have the glamour of a local derby, or a grudge match of one hated rival against another; and to be fair, the match of the week had to be Man Ure at home to Arse-nil. That’s another one where I hope they both lose, but given the impossibility of that, then I suppose an Arse-nil win would be in our best interest. The League table is taking shape at both the top and the bottom, and with only a handful of matches left to play, a few points here and there can make a big difference for those near the top and the bottom. For us, there should be no doubt that we are capable of taking a top four place this season. Bolton won’t be up that high but are in with a chance of taking a UEFA cup spot, so they still have lots to play for.

Big Sam Allardyce tried to play up this fixture as a bruising physical encounter beforehand. His claim is that Rafa had brought in players to give the side more “physical presence” which is one way of saying a team of hard tacklers. Or does he mean unskilled brutes? I’m sure we have the required talent to play a physical game if and when necessary, but that’s not the way I (or most people, I’m sure) would characterise the team. The claim is laughable when you look at some of their squad, and then look for footballing skill or that so-called “physical presence”. The two are almost mutually exclusive in that outfit. Big Sam is obviously stretching for anything that will give his side a psychological lift going into the match. Let’s be honest, they need something before facing us at Anfield; they won’t outplay us but they might try to outmuscle us. Either way we should be able to win this one and take all three points, even if we have to grind it out over the ninety minutes. That’s more or less what happened, with Robbie fowler scoring the one goal that was necessary.

The conclusion of this last weekend’s matches puts us into a situation that can be described as “The Final Four.” That is, we have a final four League matches to play to the end of the season. As well as that, we are in the final four of the FA Cup. A week from this Saturday we take a short bus ride to Old Ratford to face Chel$ki in the first semi-final. It would be nice to be talking about us being in the final four in the Champions League, but that isn’t the case this year. But, there is still a great deal of significance in that competition and how it may affect the Premier League.

Arse-nil are having a dream year in Europe and certainly fancy themselves to go all the way to the final and lift the trophy for the first time in their history. At the same time, they are currently in sixth place, with only an outside chance of making it to the top four. That means that we could have a similar scenario to the one we found ourselves in last year, where we were supposedly defending champions of Europe, but not necessarily to be allowed to defend the trophy. UEFA’s embarrassment over that was temporarily alleviated by the compromise solution of letting us in at the first qualifying stage, while the permanent solution was to ensure that any team that wins must automatically be allowed back in the following season, no matter how they finished in their domestic league. So if Arse-nil become European Champions while finishing fifth or sixth in the Premiership, then the fourth place club will be facing some disappointing news.

For the superstitious among you, it may have been noticed that there are a lot of similarities between our European success last year and Arse-nil’s this year. Not only the good performances in the Champions League and inconsistent form domestically, but also the fact that both of us beat Juventus in the quarter finals with a 0-0 result in Turin. Add to that the uncanny coincidence that Tottenham are the fourth place club in the Premiership and could be bumped out by their cross-town rivals from Highbury, just as we might have done last year to “the best team on Merseyside” (sounds of cackling and knee slapping at the mention of that). I’m not superstitious and I don’t believe in coincidences having any power of predicting the future. My prediction for Europe is that Barcelona will be this years Euro Champs (I should apologise now for putting a jinx on them). But, nevertheless, we should be prepared for the possibility and make sure we get at least third place to avoid any surprises. To do that, we only need four points in our final four matches (we currently have 70 points, Tottenham’s maximum is 73, Arse-nil’s maximum is 69).

Those last four matches for us start this Sunday with a trip to Blackburn. That could be a difficult one with Blackburn only four points behind Spurs and definitely going for at least a UEFA Cup spot. That’s followed by the FA Cup Semi-Final on the 22nd, then away to West Ham a few days later. The Hammers are also well in with a chance at a UEFA spot, so they won’t be content to play out the season with a mid-table finish. The last two have us at home to Aston Villa, which is probably the easiest of the four - at least on paper. Then the final match of the season is a trip way down south to Portsmouth. Pompey are one of several clubs fighting to avoid relegation, and so could be out to give it their all in a last-ditch attempt to save their season. A funny aside here: last Saturday I was watching Sportsnet’s Soccer Central when they showed the Portsmouth result (2-2 vs. Blackburn). Craig Forrest says something to the effect of the continuing good run of results looking good for Pompey and that “Harry Redknapp has a way of rescuing teams from relegation, like he did for West Ham a few years ago.” Hmm, are there any Southampton supporters out there that would like to comment on that?

We know what we have to do in the final four then, in both the League and the Cup. It won’t be easy in either case, but it’s definitely there for the taking. Sometimes it’s an entertaining, free-flowing, high scoring performance that gets the results. At other times it’s a tough grind where it only takes one goal to decide the outcome. That was definitely the case against Bolton last Sunday where one goal was enough to take the three points. And thank God for that!

Drop us a line and let Keith know what you think of this article

As most of you might have found out via email last week, author Paul Tomkins has offered LFC Vancouver members a discounted rate on his new book Red Revival. Paul wrote last year's "Golden Past, Red Future" which was an excellent read, and his articles appear on the official site on a weekly basis as well as other sites such as RAWK.

If you're interested in buying it let us know and we'll do a bulk order. We'll save money on shipping from the UK this way, and all together it should come to $25 CDN which is reasonable, hopefully even less (it's hard to say without knowing how many books will be ordered). If we get 10 people interested we'll go through with the order, and we'd like to thank Paul Tomkins for the offer.

If anyone has anything else to say (buy/sell, jokes, rants, raves, whatever) drop us a line.

P Gill

send us an email if you have anything to announce, sell, or would just like a rant/rave.