As you all know Rafa is fast approaching his 100th consecutive game with a changed starting IX. In honour of that feat LFC Vancouver is starting a ‘Guess the Starting IX Contest’.

RULES:

• Only open to paid LFC Vancouver Members.
• You list the names of the players you think will start the next LFC match.
• You must submit your list to lfcvancouver [at] gmail.com at least 12 hours before kick-off.
• This contest will include every match that LFC plays this season. Starting with Blackburn.
• The member(s) that correctly guess the starting IX will be awarded 5 points.
• At the end of the season the player with the most points will win the prize.
• What is the prize? It is a surprise!
• The standings will be included in each week’s newsletter.

You can send comments or questions to the Andy [at] lfcvancouver.com.

YNWA/JFT 96,

Andy Neumann

By LFC Vancouver member Steven Speed, 02 October 06.

The loss at Bolton last Saturday was our third successive away defeat in the Premiership. Dodgy linesman decisions aside, the manner in which we defended was worrying. Three defeats in seven games is not the form of a team we all expected to be challenging Chelsea and bringing back the title after seventeen years.

Our goal difference currently stands at zero whereas Chelsea and Man Utd have differences of ten and eight respectively. We have yet to score any away goals from open play which is awful. Craig Bellamy has yet to score domestically but just like Peter Crouch last season it’s surely only a matter of time till the floodgates open for him as he seems to be getting in good positions and has been unlucky. Steven Gerrard can usually be relied on to bang in some goals when we need them but he is still waiting to open up his account. Think back to last season when Gerrard was scoring for fun early in the season but this year nothing. I know that Rafa likes to rotate the side, and that has worked fine in the past, but I just cannot fathom leaving Crouch out at the moment. We need to start scoring quickly and he seems to score every time he starts.

GettyImages

Del Piero has found himself facing the likes of Rimini in Serie B.

At the other end of the pitch we are also leaking goals from situations we should be dealing with. The area we seem very susceptible at is with crosses, both Galatasaray goals came from crosses, as did Campo’s goal for Bolton and Hulce’s on the opening day for Sheffield United. We almost came unstuck in similar fashion against Spurs, fortunately Ledley King was unable to take advantage that time. There appears to be a lack of communication at times between Pepe Reina and the other defenders. I’m concerned that Finnan and Risse are getting forward too often and leaving us exposed on the flanks. Bolton had only two chances on goal Saturday and scored two goals and it was a similar story against Everton too.

I think that maybe the time has come for Jerzy Dudek to be given a run in the first team. Reina has not looked anything like he did last season. He looks nervous whenever the ball comes high into the box and he has made some mistakes, the West Ham goal for example. He also should have saved the Speed free kick on Saturday, the wall wasn’t organised properly, although to be fair he probably wasn’t thinking straight after the pathetic decision to award the free kick in the first place.

However it’s not all doom and gloom. We are creating plenty of chances and dominating possession which is a good sign, we just need to start converting it into wins. It’s easy to look at the league table and worry about us being in tenth place but we are only six points away from Chelsea and Man Utd. The game against Man Utd on October 22 is a massive game and one we simply cannot afford to lose. To go nine points behind them (assuming it’s still a six point difference then) would be a big gap to try and close. Chelsea don’t look like the force they were last season with certain big name buys disrupting their game play so I think we can catch them too.

Let’s hope for a fresh start against Blackburn and see if we can play like we did against Newcastle and in the first half against Galatasaray. I want to see us come out positive and go for goals and improve our goal difference while picking up the three points. Thank god we will finally be playing a game at three o clock as I’m sure the early starts haven’t helped either.

There are definitely reasons for concern but it’s far too early for panic.

What do you think? Give Ste your comments at steSpeed [at] lfcvancouver.com.

By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 04 October 06.

What can you say about the decision that we all saw on Saturday? Reina was not even close to being out of his area when he kicked the ball forward. Somehow the linesman believed that he had crossed the line before he let it go, but the video replay showed how wrong he was. Not only was the decision wrong, the linesman himself was several yards forward of the edge of the area and couldn’t possibly have seen it clearly. Mistakes like that just shouldn’t happen in a recreational league, never mind in one of the top professional leagues in the world.

What we can say about it was that as if that wasn’t bad enough for one game, we had to put up with numerous offside calls against us when the replays showed otherwise. Also, a head-butt to Kuyt resulting in stitches being required, that should have seen Faye sent off for a second bookable offence, and a penalty denied when Kuyt was clearly knocked out of the way by Campo. There were plenty of other incidents that were either missed completely, somehow just not called even though clearly seen, or many that were called wrong. Some days it just doesn’t pay to bother showing up; the aggravation can be too much to take.

But, we also have to say that we lost because we didn’t deserve to win. We had plenty of possession and were easily dominating the play in the first half hour. The unjust call against Reina resulted in a goal from the ensuing free kick, following poor defending on our part as much as it was a result of luck on theirs.

Kuyt’s collision with Faye was worrying as there was obviously blood coming from a head wound that was turning Kuyt from a blonde to a redhead as he was lying on the grass. Fortunately, a few stitches did the trick and Kuyt was back out there ready to get revenge with an equaliser. But how many chances do we need before we put one away? At one point I was thinking that we should be asking for a different ball to be used – this one just wasn’t bouncing our way.

Campo’s goal early in the second half effectively put an end to the match. We never looked like coming back; even to come away with a single point. That’s four away games, one point earned, one goal scored (from a dubious penalty), and seven conceded for a goal difference of minus six. Minus six after four games!

Some will say that the title race is over for us now; but I would beg to differ. It’s been a very disappointing start to what promised to be a much improved showing after last year’s slow start. But there’s still a long way to go and a lot of ground can be made up with a string of wins, just like we did last year. In fact, let’s think back a moment to last year. We lost away to Charlton, Fulham, Chel$ki, Man Ure, Arse-nil, and could only earn a point each at Middlesbrough, Tottenham, Birmingham, and Bolton. That was only four points from a possible twenty seven from those games, but fortunately we still had enough to see us through to third place, only a handful of points behind the leaders. We were hoping to have improved on that this season, but so far it’s not looking too promising.

One consolation may be that we’ve already played some of our toughest away games in our first few weeks. We haven’t beaten Bolton at the Reebok for something like ten years, Chel$ki are almost impossible to beat at the Bridge, Everton always give us a tough physical match that can go either way, and Sheffield United have given us problems at Bramall Lane for decades. The early starts don’t help, and Rafa has made his feelings known on that several times recently. We should be back to our normal Saturday 3PM schedule immediately after the international break, so things should be looking up.

I’m always optimistic and I’m sure that Rafa will have things sorted out soon. If we watch each match closely, we can see that we are generally the better side, except for the odd costly mistake. We have to improve our defending and get back to where we were last year (second lowest goals against, most clean sheets) or better. At the same time we have to find ways to score goals away from home, even if it means grinding out the wins whichever way we can. It’s great if we can look slick and entertaining away from home, but results are more important. We should also remember that the squad has a lot of new players that have not yet settled in, and may still take a little time to adjust to their new team-mates. We started slow last year, but were able to finish strong. We have to hope that it will be all that and more this year.

What do you think? Give Keith your comments at Keith [at] lfcvancouver.com.

By LFC Vancouver member Steven Speed, 29 September 06.

Unfortunately I am too young to remember Bill Shankly but growing up on Merseyside it was impossible to avoid the legend of the great man. There are a great many stories in Liverpool of his generosity and character and I thought I would share a personal one with you today that I was told a couple of years ago by a former co-worker.

When this guy was a kid in the 60s his dad worked for on the London to Liverpool service for British Rail and often he would take his son with him at the weekends. On one particular Saturday evening they happened to be traveling on the exact same train home with the Liverpool team. What a fantastic coincidence as my mate was one of the biggest Reds fans I've ever met. So upon hearing the news of their famous fellow passengers his dad managed to get into the carriage with the players by pretending he was there on official British Rail business.

When he got in there he went round the players, Ian St John, Roger Hunt, Ron Yeats etc and got them to sign autographs for his lad. When he got to Shankly he was asked where his son was today. As soon as Shanks' heard that the young lad was waiting in the next carriage he insisted he was brought in to meet the players. He ended up riding the entire journey back to Liverpool with all his heroes who posed for pictures with him & signed various mementoes for him. I know this story is true cos I went to the guy's house and saw the pictures all framed & the mementoes on display still in perfect condition from being lovingly looked after over the 30 years since the incident.

It was a gesture that cost absolutely nothing to Bill Shankly but it gave my mate something that no amount of money could ever buy & you could see in his eyes when telling the story just how much effect it had on his life.

I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of people in Liverpool who have similar stories of Bill Shankly. He was a man who gave everything he had to "make the people happy" and without him who knows what might have happened to Liverpool Football Club.

He may no longer be with us in person but the spirit of Bill Shankly will never fade away & will always run through the hearts of everybody associated with the club, staff, players and the fans.

What do you think? Give Ste your comments at SteSpeed [at] lfcvancouver.com.

By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 02 February 06.

Have you ever seen one of those newspaper puzzles where there are two pictures (comics) side by side or one above the other that at first glance look the same? The puzzle of course is to find as many differences as possible from the first picture to the second. The differences are only slight such as in one picture the kid is wearing a striped sweater and has eye glasses, while in the other picture the same kid is wearing a plain sweater and no glasses. The two pictures here look like one of those puzzles, since they are definitely very similar. But, take it from me that there are some minor differences and one major difference.

Okay, so the one on the left looks like it still has a cellophane wrapper with wrinkles while the one on the right doesn’t. Also, the liver bird on the one on the right is more orange with a darker red background while the one on the left is more yellow with a paler red background. I’ll give you both of those minor ones for free, but can you spot the major difference?

To be honest, I couldn’t either. So let me give you a big hint. The one on the left is taken from the amazon.co.uk website where it is advertised for sale for £19.99 (approx. $40) plus postage. The one on the right is from amazon.ca and can be yours for a mere $26.99. If you place a combined order worth $39 or more, then the postage is free. So which deal would you go for?

Last summer I borrowed the Official History DVD from my good friend Kev, which was the UK version. One of the reasons for borrowing it was to test out my new multi-region DVD player (see the Adventures in DVD Land article for the complete story). That worked fine and so I ordered some DVD’s from amazon.uk. That’s an expensive way to buy them, and it’s much better to buy them from amazon.ca or amazon.com if you can get them.

Since the Champions League final last May, Liverpool DVD’s have been more in demand in North America and so amazon.com, and others, decided to stock some of them. First there was the Champions of Europe: 2004-05 Season Review, then The Road to Istanbul, and later No Heart as Big and Liverpool FC: The Official History, 1892-2002. Soccervideos.com also has a fairly good selection on their website, but specialise in soccer coaching videos and DVD’s.

I wasn’t originally going to order the official history, I reasoned that there would be a new updated version released in a year or two, but then I had a $10 coupon for amazon.ca. That was too good to resist and so I ordered it, along with a Simple Minds CD, giving me free postage, and waited for it to arrive. It came about a week later, and that’s when I spotted the major difference between the UK and USA versions. Simply put, the USA version is released by soccervideos.com and is the identical DVD but with no extras. What? That’s right, the same 3 hours of the official history, with scene selection to be able to jump to any era, but nothing more. Surely all DVD’s come with extras! Apparently not. Not only does this one not have any, it seems like a major rip-off considering what’s available on the UK version. And what would that be? Well let me tell you.

First we have a series of “Derby Day Classics” with highlights from five derby matches 1970/1976/1981/1990/2001. These are only the goals from each match, but still it’s always worth seeing us beating the blues.

Next up is a “Memorabilia Photo Gallery” which has still pictures of program covers from way back, player cigarette collector cards, Billy Lidell dolls, and so on from the Anfield museum.

“Shankly’s Words of Wisdom” comes next, made up of a series of clips of Shankly through the years from early 60’s to late 70’s, and of course includes his famous “more important than that” comment, and his description of the Kop as an institution. That takes up about 4½ minutes, which is not a lot but still well worth listening to.

A “weblink” is included to give direct access to the official website if the disc is being used on a pc.

The best piece of all though is a 1966 Granada TV documentary “The Kop Flies East” which is the story of 120 or so Liverpool supporters flying off to Hungary in March of 1966 for a Cup Winners Cup match against Honvéd. The film crew travelled with the players and with the supporters and followed them there and back. One of the highlights of this gem has to be seeing Ron Yeats doing the twist in the Budapest hotel ballroom at the after match dinner. By the way, for all you film buffs out there, this was directed by Michael Apted who went on to direct “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, “Gorky Park”, “Gorillas in the Mist”, and the Pierce Brosnan Bond film “The World is Not Enough” as well as the “7 Up” series.

Finally, a series of about 10 pages shows the club records in their entirety (up to 2002).

That lot would be enough for a small DVD of its own. It’s bewildering why none of these extras are included on the USA version, and really disappointing that not even some of them are included. Still, that’s a good explanation for the difference in price. “You pays your money and you takes your choice!”

What do you think? Give Keith your comments at Keith [at] lfcvancouver.com.