Article on Liverpool, Chelsea, history and finances etc.

[Walrus]

Times

 

Chelsea?s critics guilty of switching from the historical to the hysterical

Martin Samuel

 

Whenever Liverpool play Chelsea, the fans sing a song about history. Chelsea have none, apparently, whereas Liverpool, with five European Cups and 18 league titles, have an abundance.

 

This is not strictly true, of course. What Liverpool?s 23 trophies represent is achievement; history is just stuff that has happened, good, bad or indifferent. Every football club has history, even Milton Keynes Dons, and certainly one such as Chelsea that dates back more than a century.

 

Chelsea won a European trophy two years earlier than Liverpool and beat them to the League Cup by 16 years. They have produced an England captain, John Terry, while postwar England captains from Anfield have either been bought in, such as Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan, or in the case of home-grown internationals such as Phil Thompson and Steven Gerrard, have received the accolade only temporarily as a result of injury. Also, Chelsea fought a battle for their very existence when developers wanted to turn their Stamford Bridge home into luxury flats.

 

There is history in London SW6 all right; what Chelsea lack in comparison with Liverpool is sustained success. Liverpool claimed the league title more than half a century before Chelsea and subsequently won it more than any other club. They lead 5-0 on European Cup victories, 7-3 on FA Cup wins. Within the record books, Liverpool?s status as the heavyweight champions of English football is undisputed; why worry?

 

Simple. Chelsea make the Kop hot under its collar because their recent success represents a challenge to the established order. The defence mechanism is to crow about history as if Roman Abramovich and José Mourinho cannot be part of it; as if Kenny Dalglish was not also an expensive import to an already successful club, much the same as Andriy Shevchenko; as if it would be possible for a business to use anything but its bank balance to meet the challenge laid down by Liverpool and their G14 allies, and the privilege and self-interest they represent.

 

The same emotion came to the fore when Lucas Neill chose West Ham United over Liverpool. It was as if the new money had no right to be at the same table. Yes, maybe Neill did go south for the wrong reasons ? certainly West Ham have got about as much from their spending spree as Robert P. McCulloch, the American entrepreneur who in April 1968 paid $2.46 million for London Bridge, supposedly in the belief he was getting the one with the towers. Yet either way there was an awfully arrogant presumption on Merseyside, where it was treated as heresy that Neill should not respond to a click of the fingers, as if the hierarchy of English football should never be subject to change.

 

Arsene Wenger was at it, too, this week, denouncing a system that allows Chelsea to thrive with operating losses of £80 million, while pretending the structure of high-end European football is not the root cause of this problem. Those who despise Chelsea invariably fail to answer one basic question: how else are a team meant to break into the cosy club that is the Champions League, and remain there, without spending beyond their means?

 

There are occasional interlopers, such as Celta Vigo, of Spain, but they do not last without sustained investment. The Champions League is set up selfishly to maintain the needs of a tiny elite ? that, fortunately for Wenger, includes Arsenal, despite their limited success in European competition (two trophies, 24 years apart, since entering the Fairs Cup in 1963) ? and the only way around that is for an emerging club to plunge into debt in the hope their gamble brings reward. Some try and fail, such as Leeds United; others, such as Chelsea, are insured against financial oblivion by the wealth and ambition of their owner.

 

The parvenu nature of Chelsea?s arrival makes the G14 cabal resentful and good old-fashioned jealousy does the rest, but to bleat on about fairness or even history misses the point. What is better for football: that Liverpool win a sixth European Cup, or Chelsea win a first? And, if not Chelsea, then who would we like to see at the top table? Blackburn Rovers? Bolton Wanderers? An efficiently run small club, punching pluckily above their weight? Oh, please.

 

Wenger?s regard for lesser teams was demonstrated on Saturday when Blackburn earned a hard-fought if unappealing draw at the Emirates Stadium in the FA Cup fifth round. Did Wenger congratulate Mark Hughes, the Blackburn manager, that with a fraction of Arsenal?s resources and some of his best players missing, against a team with some of the finest technical footballers in the world, he had conjured a stifling stalemate and reduced Arsenal to a handful of attempts on goal? No, he called for replays to be abolished because they interfered with his Champions League schedule, not to mention Arsenal?s bold and fascinating assault on third place.

 

If Wenger had his way, Blackburn?s reward for holding firm for 90 minutes away from home would be to play another 30 minutes at Arsenal?s ground and then, if necessary, take penalties before a partisan home crowd. Sounds fair.

 

Wenger did not suggest that if a single encounter was to decide Cup ties, perhaps a seeding system could operate so that the higher-positioned side on the day of the draw always played away. Nor did he advance the reappraisal of wealth distribution to compensate smaller clubs for loss of earnings, FA Cup revenue clearly being of more importance to those denied the lucrative drip-drip of endless European group games. In fact, Wenger made no attempt to see beyond Arsenal?s point of view at all. Noticeably, he is no advocate of settling Champions League fixtures in such a slapdash manner.

 

He is not alone in this self-absorption. When pushed, he admitted he would not necessarily practise what he preaches given the same opportunity as Chelsea, conceding that Arsenal would have welcomed Abramovich?s millions, too. When tested, very few pass football?s morality test. The Liverpool supporters who mocked Chelsea?s Russian revolution were not so negatively vocal about the arrival of George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks, the new American owners, despite some awkward references to franchises and Liverpool Reds at the press conference. Even Manchester United diehards, while still paying lip-service to the antiGlazer movement, have been forced to admit that the impact on the club has been minimal. Same manager, improved squad, better league position, what is not to like?

 

Yes, it would be lovely if all clubs could be run by the local pork butcher with a lifetime of devotion to the cause and a shrine to some bygone wing half in his office above the shop, but in times when the game makes millionaires in months, not even years, that is not going to happen. History will be written, in part, by gatecrashers from Siberia and if your club are lucky enough to find one that wants to give your best player 100 grand a week, why argue?

 

So much of the antipathy towards Chelsea is hypocritical anyway. Wenger rightly questioned the connection between Chelsea and PSV Eindhoven, but what of Arsenal?s links to Beveren, the Belgian team? ?There is one difference ? they do not play in the Champions League,? he said. The follow-up question surely concerned when Wenger had first been aware of his ability to forecast the future.

 

Right now, it must be said, Beveren show no signs of Champions League potential, lying third from bottom in the Jupiler League. They have, however, competed in the European Cup and Cup Winners? Cup twice each, the Uefa Cup on four occasions, and reached the Belgian Cup final as recently as 2004.

 

The cooperation agreement with Arsenal lasted from 2001 to July 1, 2006 and was considered complex enough to warrant investigation by the FA and Fifa. It was alleged that a loan of ?1.5 million (about £1.007 million) from Arsenal to a company called Goal had helped to secure Beveren?s financial position, representing a breach of club ownership regulation. Arsenal claimed that this was an interest-free loan that had no impact on club administration and the FA and Fifa absolved all parties.

 

Less satisfactory was Beveren?s status as a glorified clearing house for the youth academy founded by the former manager, Jean-Marc Guillou, in Abidjan. The squad contained a majority of players from the Ivory Coast (and still does) who take advantage of Belgium?s loose work-permit regulations to find a shop window in Europe.

 

A recent graduate is the Arsenal right back, Emmanuel Eboué. So while Chelsea?s links with PSV deserve exploration, they have not been alone in requiring the attention of football?s lawmakers. Yet what is this ? all of it, positive and negative ? if not history? Arsenal?s Ivorian production line, Liverpool?s proposed move from Anfield under the auspices of their new owners, the Russian who transformed Chelsea and English football, almost on a whim. Even the theft of Wimbledon FC by an opportunist from 80 miles north will one day be part of football folklore. While stick-in-the-muds such as the one on this page are still spitting out the words Franchise FC, a new generation of supporters in Milton Keynes will be drawing on our disdain to fuel their identity, in a no-one-likes-us-we-don?t-care kind of way.

 

No, it is not 18 league titles and five European Cups, but that was never just history anyway. That was genius. And, for the moment at least, Chelsea, Arsenal, MK Dons and the rest are a long way from there.

 

Samuel raises a few interesting points in that article, some of which are difficult to argue with to be honest.

[Leo No.8]

What a pile of steaming old sh*te.

[Walrus]

What a pile of steaming old sh*te.

Really? Why?

[honourablegeorge]

What a pile of steaming old sh*te.

 

 

Samuel writes good stuff at times. And there are times when he has absolutely nothign to say.

 

See also Richard William's guardian article today. Utter muck.

[Andyjandy]

pile of gash

[Knox_Harrington]

See also Richard William's guardian article today. Utter muck.

That today was just f***ing filler. It stank of churning one out.

[Coyler]

Yep, a few good points all right. The crowing about 'history' and any-club-with-less-than-5-EC-is-smalltime can get a little bit overbearing, in truth.

 

Not enough in the article about how Chelsea have acted the horrible f*cking arrogant c*nts so much that absolutely nobody can have any goodwill towards them, though.

[Leo No.8]

Really? Why?

 

Where should I start?

 

Questioning that we expected Neill to come here rather than go to West Ham, as if what was wrong about that really needs explaining. Kenny Dalglish an expensive foreign import - he's f*cking Scottish for God's sake, what a ridiculously contrived comparison. Plus we hadn't got our money from some Billionaire crook.

 

The whole article is totally pointless, and seems nothing more than an exercise in getting at Liverpool whilst lauding Chelsea and saying how unfair and nasty all us howwible other clubs are to them.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Leo No.8

[Knox_Harrington]

Yep, a few good points all right. The crowing about 'history' and any-club-with-less-than-5-EC-is-smalltime can get a little bit overbearing, in truth.

It's a semiotic point though isn't it? While I doubt anyone is really denying that history is things-what-happened and everyone has an equal amount of it, History in World Football terms has come to mean tradition and trophies (rather than just either).

 

I don't think any of us would say that Everton/Arsenal is a club without a history in the same way we'd say it about Chelsea.

[honourablegeorge]

I think it's important to note that Samuel is a big fat cockney t*** with a beard.

[bazz]

What Liverpool?s 23 trophies represent is achievement; history is just stuff that has happened, good, bad or indifferent. Every football club has history, even Milton Keynes Dons, and certainly one such as Chelsea that dates back more than a century.

 

Chelsea won a European trophy two years earlier than Liverpool and beat them to the League Cup by 16 years.

 

 

 

Talk about clutching at straws!!! I mean, seriously did he re-read this before he sent it off to his editor. Did the editor not read it.

 

Is this mumbling "article" not just a tirade of abuse or a rant that has been printed.

 

The journalist should be ashamed of himself for that tripe.

[Coyler]

Times

What Liverpool?s 23 trophies represent is achievement; history is just stuff that has happened, good, bad or indifferent.

True, even if it is semantics.

 

Chelsea won a European trophy two years earlier than Liverpool and beat them to the League Cup by 16 years.

True, and a salient point. What's the difference in football beginning in 1993 and football beginning in 1977? Or 1965?

 

They have produced an England captain, John Terry, while postwar England captains from Anfield have either been bought in, such as Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan, or in the case of home-grown internationals such as Phil Thompson and Steven Gerrard, have received the accolade only temporarily as a result of injury.

A stupid point to be making but it's true.

 

There is history in London SW6 all right; what Chelsea lack in comparison with Liverpool is sustained success. Liverpool claimed the league title more than half a century before Chelsea and subsequently won it more than any other club. They lead 5-0 on European Cup victories, 7-3 on FA Cup wins. Within the record books, Liverpool?s status as the heavyweight champions of English football is undisputed; why worry?

Good question...

 

Simple. Chelsea make the Kop hot under its collar because their recent success represents a challenge to the established order. The defence mechanism is to crow about history as if Roman Abramovich and José Mourinho cannot be part of it; as if Kenny Dalglish was not also an expensive import to an already successful club, much the same as Andriy Shevchenko; as if it would be possible for a business to use anything but its bank balance to meet the challenge laid down by Liverpool and their G14 allies, and the privilege and self-interest they represent.

...wrong answer. But a good point in passing about the provenance of our greatest-ever player, even if the comparison with Shevchenko is w*nk.

 

The same emotion came to the fore when Lucas Neill chose West Ham United over Liverpool. It was as if the new money had no right to be at the same table. Yes, maybe Neill did go south for the wrong reasons ? certainly West Ham have got about as much from their spending spree as Robert P. McCulloch, the American entrepreneur who in April 1968 paid $2.46 million for London Bridge, supposedly in the belief he was getting the one with the towers. Yet either way there was an awfully arrogant presumption on Merseyside, where it was treated as heresy that Neill should not respond to a click of the fingers, as if the hierarchy of English football should never be subject to change.

There was indeed more than a bit of arrogance on here in the (ludicrous) decision from Neill to go to West Ham for the money.

 

When tested, very few pass football?s morality test. The Liverpool supporters who mocked Chelsea?s Russian revolution were not so negatively vocal about the arrival of George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks, the new American owners, despite some awkward references to franchises and Liverpool Reds at the press conference.

The Yanks might be Republicans but they aren't morally comparable to Abramovich and his peasants' money; but we did fail the morality test a little bit, maybe just on the criterion of hypocrisy.

 

History will be written, in part, by gatecrashers from Siberia and if your club are lucky enough to find one that wants to give your best player 100 grand a week, why argue?

Because of what they did in Siberia.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Coyler

[Woodsyla]

What about all the stuff on Wenger, I thought that was bang on the money, it really is a case of the have's not wanting to offer any help to the have nots

[Coyler]

Our membership of that poxy G14 surely flies in the face of what we claim the club to stand for, as well.

 

Honourable club doing things the right way with a great community connexion with the working-class and socialist of the city at the same time as sitting around the table with the fat cats and generating more income solely for the top élite is some trick to be pulling.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Coyler

[Guest Scot]

Don't forget the programmes. And the floodlights.

[Mike]

Don't forget the programmes. And the floodlights.

 

no not floodlights, corner flags

[Knox_Harrington]

Chelsea won a European trophy two years earlier than Liverpool and beat them to the League Cup by 16 years.

True, and a salient point. What's the difference in football beginning in 1993 and football beginning in 1977? Or 1965?

 

Simple. Chelsea make the Kop hot under its collar because their recent success represents a challenge to the established order. The defence mechanism is to crow about history as if Roman Abramovich and José Mourinho cannot be part of it; as if Kenny Dalglish was not also an expensive import to an already successful club, much the same as Andriy Shevchenko; as if it would be possible for a business to use anything but its bank balance to meet the challenge laid down by Liverpool and their G14 allies, and the privilege and self-interest they represent.

...wrong answer. But a good point in passing about the provenance of our greatest-ever player, even if the comparison with Shevchenko is w*nk.

I don't think it is a good point. We were able to buy Dalglish, the best player in Scotland, because we sold Keegan. Who Shankly had bought years previous and had built himself a reputation, along with the football club as being a very good player. Just as we bought Barnes, Beardsley and Houghton off the back of selling Rush who we had bought years previous and who had built himself a reputation etc. We had, in short, done it the hard way. Dynasties were created, clubs were run well, tradition was instituted, teams were well coached and developed over time.

[johngibo YPC]

"Our membership of that poxy G14 surely flies in the face of what we claim the club to stand for, as well."

 

If it has to exist i'd rather we we in it than we weren't. We can't all be moral bastions like Everton and refuse to join.

 

"Liverpool?s status as the heavyweight champions of English football is undisputed; why worry?"

 

Indeed

[Knox_Harrington]

Our membership of that poxy G14 surely flies in the face of what we claim the club to stand for, as well.

 

Honourable club doing things the right way with a great community connexion with the working-class and socialist of the city at the same time as sitting around the table with the fat cats and generating more income solely for the top élite is some trick to be pulling.

This evening's opponents have (and are perhaps the only other top side who have as much) claim to your second paragraph and manage the same trick. It's the nature of football.

[Coyler]

I don't think it is a good point. We were able to buy Dalglish, the best player in Scotland, because we sold Keegan. Who Shankly had bought years previous and had built himself a reputation, along with the football club as being a very good player. Just as we bought Barnes, Beardsley and Houghton off the back of selling Rush who we had bought years previous and who had built himself a reputation etc. We had, in short, done it the hard way. Dynasties were created, clubs were run well, tradition was instituted, teams were well coached and developed over time.

Of course, and that's one of the things that Liverpool can be immensely proud of. But the fact remains that hardly anybody could afford Dalglish apart from us, a perfectly-formed player and scorer of 100 goals, and almost everybody needed him more than we did, even if we were recently bereft of Keegan. He was Celtic's 'history' and we splashed our (legitimately won) cash to rewrite him into ours from that point on.

 

The tenuous connexions he's drawing all the time to Chelsea don't hit the mark, but the holes he picks in our general holy carping are pretty valid. It sometimes goes beyond your usual supporters' boastfulness and becomes a bit manic and desperate. Maybe it is insecurity, like he hints.

 

When we win the league it'll all calm down...

 

This evening's opponents have (and are perhaps the only other top side who have as much) claim to your second paragraph and manage the same trick. It's the nature of football.

Too true. But it is a legitimate source of self-loathing that we shouldn't be afraid of wallowing in when the opportunity arises.

 

We are not perfect and we don't have to pretend we are. The G14 is f*cking disgusting and it filthies us and smears us with hypocrisy.

 

We're mostly great, though, thanks be to God.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Coyler

[Red_Rob]

Why people are even bothering to waste a few minutes arguing with that hateful, fat sack of shi*e is beyond me.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Red_Rob

[Coyler]

Knox is making a few good points, to be fair to him.

 

Edited February 21, 2007 by Coyler

[Magic8Ball]

What Liverpool?s 23 trophies represent is achievement; history is just stuff that has happened, good, bad or indifferent. Every football club has history, even Milton Keynes Dons, and certainly one such as Chelsea that dates back more than a century.

 

Chelsea won a European trophy two years earlier than Liverpool and beat them to the League Cup by 16 years.

Talk about clutching at straws!!! I mean, seriously did he re-read this before he sent it off to his editor. Did the editor not read it.

 

Is this mumbling "article" not just a tirade of abuse or a rant that has been printed.

 

The journalist should be ashamed of himself for that tripe.

He's technically correct, chelsea do have history, they just dont have a glorious history full of achievements to be proud of

[Walrus]

Don't know the author at all, but I still think the article undoubtedly raises some really good points.

[Knox_Harrington]

The tenuous connexions he's drawing all the time to Chelsea don't hit the mark, but the holes he picks in our general holy carping are pretty valid. It sometimes goes beyond your usual supporters' boastfulness and becomes a bit manic and desperate. Maybe it is insecurity, like he hints.

 

When we win the league it'll all calm down...

I don't really know how, beyond loons on websites, this "holy carping" manifests itself though. There isn't really a mainstream example that seems manic and desperate. We sing that to Chelsea because it really winds them up, hits a genuine achilles heel - all they do in response is wave notes. We have the banners because we've always had banners and they've always mocked the opposition/rivals while praising Liverpool to the skies. We are seen as custodians of a certain sort of tradition because of nights like that semi-final against Chelsea. We've earned those spurs collectively.

 

That's what always gets me about this sort of stuff - of course Liverpool FC is going to take pride in its past. That's precisely where much if not all of football's own oral tradition comes from. Part of why we do this, or perhaps I'm antiquated now, is because our fathers did. And their fathers did. The greatest sadness that resonates for me of my grandfather's death was that he never got to see the fifth (and I couldn't wind him up about Biscan, who he hated, being integral within it).

 

However where there's enough of it, from bonafide Liverpool fans in the mainstream that Samuel feels he's offering some sort of response to is beyond me. I think that there is the essence of an interesting essay in what Samuel is saying and if it were another writer I'd possibly even consider offering the benefit of the doubt and say he's struggling to make his points within a word limit even if you do have to do most of his thinking for him. But instead it's big brushstrokes from a man who has shown himself pretty consistently to be a writer who enjoys any boot into LFC.