The FOOTBALL Thread (2012-2013)

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Wigan look like they are doing the Great Escape again.......why don't they start trying a little bit before April?? Newcastle, Sunderland and Norwich look like they can all be the 1 to take Wigan's place in the bottom 3.

 

See Wolves have dropped down again

[big-will 7]

Wigan somehow seem to be good at the end of season pressure thing.

going to be exciting for sure, see who bottles.

[Alexander L 80]

Really exciting now.

[brit-gob 9]

Chelsea scraped a win at the end there I see.

[big-will 7]

Sounds like an unlucky deflection.

 

Don't suppose United care all that much really. Job done.

[Thundercat 60]

Everton robbed last night...

[NoFakie 45]

After last week, it was nice to see a bit of defending by a team playing Liverpool, but other than that a bit of a dull one for the neutrals. The disallowed goal looked fine to me.

 

I think its a bit of a shame that ManYoo haven't done the final push for the record points total just to rub it in, but they're worthy champions all the same.

 

Newcastle looking ever deeper in the doo doo. They are very poor, but the way decisions are going against them suggests that Fate isn't on their side either.

[grungy-gonads 54]

I think its a bit of a shame that ManYoo haven't done the final push for the record points total just to rub it in, but they're worthy champions all the same.

 

Well, the possibility of that recoed was gone a few games ago wasn't it.

 

Of course, never good to let a Rafa team beat you, but got to admit I'm hardly that bothered.

 

[rach 1]

Wasn't it when City beat us that the record was out of reach?

 

Not an entertaining game over the weekend.

[Alexander L 80]

the draw 4 games out when on 84 with another possible 12 to give 96. Not anymore.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

Interesting bit on Anfield

 

In the blighted streets around Liverpool's Anfield stadium, residents are packing up and leaving their family homes, so the football club can have them demolished and expand their Main Stand. In the six months since the club scrapped their decade-long plan to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, and reverted to expanding Anfield instead, Liverpool city council has been seeking to buy these neighbours' homes, backed by the legal threat of compulsory purchase.

 

People's farewells are bitter, filled with anger and heartbreak at the area's dreadful decline and at the club for deepening the blight by buying up houses since the mid-1990s then leaving them empty. A few residents are refusing to move, holding out against the council, which begins negotiations with low offers. These homeowners believe they should be paid enough not only to buy a new house but to compensate for the years of dereliction, stagnation and decline, and crime, fires, vandalism, even murders which have despoiled the area. Their resentment is compounded by the fact that they are being forced to move so that Liverpool, and their relatively new US owner, Fenway Sports Group, can make more money.

 

On Lothair Road, which backs on to the Anfield Main Stand, one man who lived next door to a house Liverpool own and have left empty, shuttered – "tinned up" as the locals call it – shook his head. "I'm not moving out," he told the Guardian, "I've been driven out."

 

Residents' bitterness derives from when the club started buying houses in Lothair Road, without saying they were doing so or making their intentions clear. The club used an agency to approach some residents, while some houses were bought by third parties then sold on quickly to the club. That left residents with the belief, which has endured ever since, that Liverpool were buying up houses by stealth, to keep prices low.

 

The club have never publicly explained in detail what they did, and declined to answer the Guardian's questions about their historic behaviour and current plans. Neighbours, many of whom have lived in Anfield for decades, remembering a vibrant, flourishing area, believe Liverpool bought and left houses empty to deliberately blight the area, intending it would prompt people to leave and drive house prices down.

 

Howard Macpherson, now 52, was the first to sell his house on Lothair Road to the club, in 1996. He had lived there, at No 39, a four-bedroom end terrace, for 10 years. Macpherson says it was a fine home, which he had spent money refurbishing, but after Liverpool bought it they always left it empty – now for 17 years.

 

"Anfield was a good area, all the houses occupied, nothing like it is today," says Macpherson, who runs a garage, Aintree Motors. "The area started to decline in the early 1990s with the city's economic problems. But Liverpool football club accelerated the decline, by leaving good houses empty and boarded up. It wasn't a natural decline; it was engineered."

[BagOfCrisps 24]

The involvement in the process of a notorious solicitor, Kevin Dooley, acting for the club, did not encourage confidence. Dooley, who acted for several Liverpool players and the convicted drug baron Curtis Warren as well as the club before he died in 2004, was struck off by the Law Society in 2002 after it found him guilty of being involved in fraudulent purported bank schemes.

 

Liverpool were motivated to buy neighbouring houses by a fear of losing pre-eminence in English football after their mighty playing success and financial dominance of the 1970s and 80s. The club felt bruised by having been delayed in building the new Centenary Stand because of two elderly sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, who refused to leave their house at No 26 Kemlyn Road, until November 1990. Manchester United entered the super-commercialised Premier League era by floating on the stock market in 1991, raising £6.7m to seat the Stretford End, and with Old Trafford's ceaseless, lucrative expansion and Sir Alex Ferguson's team-building, Liverpool fell behind United's money-making capacity.

 

The club turned their attention to expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, although they did not announce this intention or discuss it openly with residents. The Main Stand backs tightly on to the terraced row of odd numbers on Lothair Road. Liverpool began buying houses in 1996, mostly leaving them empty. Land Registry records reveal that between January 1996 and March 2000, Liverpool bought 10 houses on Lothair Road.

 

Most were on the odd side, closest to the Main Stand: Nos 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 33, 35 and Macpherson's No 39. In March 1999 Liverpool made their first purchase across the road, on the even side, No 16. That row is not needed for a bigger Main Stand itself, but the residents, and those in the row behind on Alroy Road, would have their right to light blocked by it, a major obstacle to planning permission. In March 2000 Liverpool bought No 10 Lothair Road. That house, like most Liverpool bought, was never again occupied, has been empty for 13 years and is "tinned up".

 

Liverpool also bought houses on Anfield Road: grander Victorian piles with front gardens, backing on to Stanley Park; almost the whole row opposite the stand, Shankly gates and Hillsborough memorial: 51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 69 and 71. These houses were also left mostly empty and allowed to fall into disrepair.

 

With houses empty and demand for them falling in a city struggling to recover from its 1980s economic decimation, the Anfield area collapsed into dramatic decline. Alongside Liverpool football club, family homes and private landlords, the main other property owner was Your Housing, a large group of housing associations, then called Arena. It also began to leave properties "tinned up" – 265 were empty in the wider Anfield area by 2011. Residents complain that as the area was blighted, problem tenants moved in, bringing crime and antisocial behaviour.

 

Liverpool's secret plan to get houses knocked down and expand the stadium, which the residents had suspected from the beginning, was exposed by a local free newspaper in September 1999. The club, with the council and Arena, had produced Anfield Plus, a plan to demolish both rows of houses on Lothair Road, the one on Alroy Road backing on to Lothair, and those on Anfield Road, for two enlarged stands. In the wider area, 1,800 properties were designated for demolition. A food, drink and retail area was planned on a cleared corner across from the Kop and Centenary Stand. New social housing, shops, a supermarket and community centre were also envisaged.

 

More

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2013/may/06/anfield-liverpool-david-conn

[NoFakie 45]

Manyoo got a new record with 25 wins out of the first 30, but have only eight points from the last six games. The record points total in itself mightn't be that important but they were very well placed for it and it would have rammed it down the throats of their doubters and critics this year. The only recent ManYoo game I've seen was the Citeh one, and for a derby they were a bit standoffish in it.

 

On a personal level I would have liked to see ManYoo beat Arsenal because I'd like them to fall out of the CL and have an actual mini-crisis they could kick on from. With their ground, their academy, their ticket prices, and the pull of London, they should be more competitive than they have been the past few years.

[NoFakie 45]

Oh, and David Conn writes good stuff. For the situation he's described, I've a bit of sympathy for Liverpool because they haven't just moved out of town to some soulless industrial park like some clubs. As a building, Newcastle's ground is a lopsided mess hemmed in on one side by some listed student flats, but it's fantastic that its ten minutes walk from the station or pretty much most of central Newcastle. Away fans don't get a very good view, but it's still a great day out if you ever get the chance to go.

[scouser 4]

Very good read that.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Was indeed.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Whoah, something afoot re: Sir Fergie by the looks...

 

[grungy-gonads 54]

Sorry to see Wigan lose, pie-eater.

[pie-eater 207]

Damn

I was getting to think we might wriggle out of it again.

Still could, but not making it easy!

[pie-eater 207]

Whoah, something afoot re: Sir Fergie by the looks...

 

 

Last time didn't Ferguson say that next time he wouldn't make it long and drawn out like last time.

Perhaps it is about to happen.

[HighlyTrainedNovaTeacher 2]

In other football news

 

GERMAN football fans have been living up to their countrymen's reputation - by putting down beach towels to reserve their seats at Wembley for the Champions League final!

 

With more than 90,000 Germans set to descend on London for European football's showpiece, tickets are in high demand for the clash between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich on May 25.

 

But one sneaky supporter has tried to nab his seat early - by using the Germans' age-old tactic for reserving sun-beds.

[big-will 7]

The Ferguson thing is everywhere.

Though hard to know whether it's just because of the viral nature of "news" now being copied over everywhere.

Latest is that United are to make some statement at 10am today UK time. So that's 6pm here.

[BagOfCrisps 24]

It will definitely either be true or not true, that's what I reckon.

 

Moyes to take over? Surely not.

[NoFakie 45]

Time for Mourinho?

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Wonder who'll get the nod when he finally does go