By LFC Vancouver member Steven Speed, 28 November 06.

Have you noticed the atmosphere at Anfield recently? It's been almost non-existent, especially when compared to the way it was in the post Shankly era. But even during the Roy Evans & to an extent the Houllier era, we were still capable of frightening away teams with a huge wall of sound. We had some amazing European nights at Anfield during the 04/05 season, especially during the Olympiakos, Juventus and Chelsea matches, but since then it seems to of died down rather a lot.

I immediately think of the second leg against Benfica last season as an example of this dramatic change. We lost the away leg 1 – 0 but even though it was a concern, due to the way Benfica appeared to easily eliminate Man Utd in the group stages, I wasn't seriously worried. I assumed that for the second leg the crowd would see us through with one of those famous 'Anfield nights'. How wrong I was, the crowd barely made any noise and once Benfica scored an away goal you could have heard a pin drop for the entire second half and the players themselves were unable to muster any passion or strength. The 'twelfth man' was not there for us that night and unfortunately hasn't been seen very often since.

I noticed a few times last season, when watching games on television, that you couldn't hear much singing or cheering during the home games. I must admit I did not think too much of it at the time, but this season it has really been bugging me a great deal. I don't think a single home game has gone by this season when I haven't turned to somebody in the pub to comment on the lack of noise in the ground. Even on Saturday, when we beat Man City, it took Steven Gerrard's goal to liven things up. I recall just a few minute's earlier asking LFC Vancouver member Lance, "why isn't the crowd getting behind the team?"

I think a big problem is that there are a lot of non local supporters in the crowd lately, the high price of tickets is one of the possible reasons for this. A lot of local fans also cannot get tickets either. There is no real answer as to why the atmosphere has been lacking recently and I'm sure a lot of people have their own theories. Is it the performances of the team leading to apathy or is it the other way round with the players themselves subdued from the lack of atmosphere? We've all seen plenty of great, classic footage of The Kop literally swaying in time with the loud, boisterous singing. In the good old days opposing teams would literally fall apart at Anfield and be thankful if they managed a draw, this doesn't appear to be the case anymore.

On the Radio Merseyside football phone-in with Alan Jackson, after the game on Saturday, there were a few different fans calling in voicing their displeasure at the current state of affairs in the crowd. To quote one caller talking about The Kop, he said "I've never seen so many bald heads in one place at the same time!" What he was of course referring to was the fact that the age of the fans in The Kop are getting older. A very large percentage of the fans in there have been going to the match for over twenty or thirty years and perhaps consider themselves too old for singing and chanting. I don't know about that myself as I know plenty of fella's over fifty who can still give it loads when watching footy, but it is a possibility that older fans are not joining in with the younger fans. When it's a small group singing or chanting then the songs are bound to die out fast.

There are different groups of fans chanting different player's names at the same time before the game and this isn't helping either. Maybe they should start putting names up on the scoreboard to get people chanting in unison? It sickens me to think that's how it's become but we need to do something. Newcastle Utd recently handed d out free scarves to fans before a home game to build up some atmosphere, we certainly don't need to stoop that low but something needs to be done. Rafa and the players, particularly local lads like Stevie and Jamie Carragher need to lead a 'call to arms' to supporters to get behind the team at home and especially at away games.

My uncle, Marty, has been a season ticket holder on The Kop for twenty-two seasons. He was telling me yesterday that at the moment we are being out sung by most away supporters. This is very, very wrong. He was telling me that there are two different factions of supporters within the Kop. These different factions sing different songs at the same time and drown each other out which really kills off the chance of building up a unified atmosphere.

Marty once went on a live televised phone-in to discuss the atmosphere on The Kop after it became all seated. He was asked if he would change it back to standing and he still stands by his answer. His answer was "if it was my decision in the first place then I would have not gone to a seating Kop, but now that we have I would not go back to standing, even though the atmosphere has changed".

Unfortunately I don't have all the answers and I don't know if there is one definitive answer to solve this problem, but I do think that things need to change fast.

Does anybody have any suggestions to how matters can be improved? You can contact me at the e-mail address below or just approach me in the pub. I always enjoy chatting with anybody regarding any matters relating to Liverpool FC.

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

By LFC Vancouver member Lance Litwin, 2 December 06.

When thinking of Liverpool goalkeepers, you tend to think of Grobbelar, Istanbul Hero Jerzy Dudek, Calamity James, and the inpenetrable Ray Clemence. Now, you have to think of Pepe Reina. Washed away in all the disappointing hooplah of another 0-0 draw, Pepe Reina, has quietly beaten Ray Clemence's clean sheet record.

Ray Clemence held Liverpool's cleansheet record of 25 clean sheets in his first 50 matches, a rather daunting record to approach. However, Reina not only bested but he has bettered that record with 26 Clean Sheets in 48 Matches. Of course, we cannot forget the other records he holds with most consecutive cleansheets in all competitions(11). As well as, most consecutive clean sheets in the Premiership(8). Which, yes, were thanks to an amazing effort through last autumn which vaulted Liverpool back into title contention.

Reina may have had a horror start to the season but he has quickly righted his issues and continued his stingy play in the Liverpool goal. We can only hope for more clean sheets from our Spanish stopper especially as we head to the JJB for his 49th match as Liverpool's stopper.. El rey esta muerte, viva el rey.

What do you think? Give me your comments at andy [at] lfcvancouver.com and I'll pass them along to Lance.

Standings as of 01 December 06.

Rank	Member	Points
1	Kevin	16
2	Ste	12
3	Lance	10
3	Glenn Whyte	10
5	Andy	9
6	Dave Curits	7
7	Dennis	5
8	Quentin	4
8	Mark Ashton	4
10	Keith	3
10	Glenn Whitt.	3

Four winners last week! Congrats to Glenn Whyte, Ste, Lance and Andy!

To enter the members contest see the rules below.

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 XI 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.

Scoring System:

• 11 Correct picks = 5 points.
• 10 Correct picks = 3 points.
• 9 Correct picks = 1 point.
• 0-8 Correct picks = 0 points.

YNWA/JFT 96,

Andy Neumann