KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum The Boot Room & "The Liverpool Way"

'...and if you know your history, it's enough to to make your heart go....'

Dont worry I am not going to turn this into another OOT situation I am just going to try to explain where I think we have fallen down in some parts of our support.
Years ago when you watched old Liverpool videos of the crowd and especialy the singing Kop it was back then a predominantly local support, fans never traveled as much in those days, the Liverpool scene was awash with the Beatles and the Merseybeat and being In Liverpool at that time was a fantastic place to be which was reflected in the happy matchgoing crowds the famous video of the Kop singing " She loved you " by the Beatles is legendery. Then came the success in the 70's which put the football Club firmly on the world map before that we were never a really big Club, deffo not bigger than Everton and certainly not bigger than United.
With success and fame come other supporters, it happend with The Munich Air disaster with United and people wanted to be a part of what was happening at our Club. At the beginning Out Of Town and foreign fans were few and far between and when they arrived they were welcomed then educated in the history of the club and the songs we sang. The problem was things change and never stay the same, Thatcher decimated the North West and unfortunately Liverpool as a City suffered the worst, Strikes, Unemployment and families living below the breadline, life then was perfectly summed up by the play Boys From The Blackstuff. The only good thing we had was that we had the best football team in the world which was the only good thing going for us and is why the club is so important the City and it's people. During this terrible time in the early 80's the crowds decreased purely and simply because people could'nt really spend money on the match and then go home to a house with no food in and this is where the Club changed forever. Peter Robinson and John Smith who were in charge at the time decided to tout the Club abroad and soon the missing locals were replaced with Out Of Town and Foreign fans.
This was never a problem because the club was still predominantly local and still had it's identity intact, OOT fans were still being welcomed and still being Educated in the ways of the Club. Now we fast forward to the way the Club is now and this will explain the whole reason of the post.
Football since Sky took over has gone through the roof it is more popular now then at any time globaly, The Club now has season ticket waiting lists for years, sell out well in advance for games and cant sell merchandise quick enough, people simply cant get enough of Liverpool Football Club. While all this has been going on the local support in numbers has been decimated from being the prodominant support it has gone to a small minority, if you want to see Liverpool fans from the City on a match day you have to go to the pubs around the ground, there is probably no more than 15,000 of us locals in the ground on a matchday, and this is where the education and people not knowing about things comes into the post, it's not there fault it's just that there is simply not enough locals there to teach them about the club, City or the songs we sing and why we sing them.
This as I have said before is not about having a go at Out Of Town and foreign fans, my argument is purely and simply with the Club for allowing us to get into this situation they would rather sell tickets to Thomas Cook and all sorts of Ticket agencies than put tickets around local school's and Youth Clubs which in turn would of enabled the club to keep it's identity and also welcome our Out Of Town visitors and teach them what it means to support such a great Club.
I await the name calling...

if only you posted like that all the time. i dont think there is anythin ya can do about that. its just the way things have evolved. to stay competitive as a club you have to go global, which means reaching outside liverpool, which means making tickets available to the majority. if people outside the city can never get tickets (and god knows we pay thru the nose for them when we do) people wont feel welcome and take their support and money elsewhere.

Just one thing red,Thatcher didnt just [oops] u guys in the north west up, she did a good job on most working class families nationwide.

No arguments there, just trying to explain how the clubs local support suffered during that time as we are talking about the changing face of our club through the years.

I'm absolutely flabergasted that you don't care about the traditions of the club and most importantly it's history. Yes we've all got to look to the future, no doubt about it. But to say you don't care about the past, to me, is basically stabbing all the people that got the club to the status it is, known all round the world. If it weren't for them shankly, Paisley and the players from that ere (60s, 70s, 80s) we wouldn't be the big club that we are today.

As I said. I'm flabergasted and in complete shock. You deserve all the abuse you recurve mate from certain posters. Just be thankful that Im not stood infront of you. I'd be pissing myself in embaressment at you

*receive

I rest my case as this backs up some of my views, this proves my point that not all supporters are the same even though we may support the same club.

It does mate an I agree with most of your posts on topics of late. What kind of supporter doesn't care about are history, not just our achievments but things like how we where formed, hillsborough etc. If we don't look at our past achievements then we misewell throw the towel in and have no ambition as a football club.

One other point, your right. And I'm not tarnishing everyone with the same brush but no one can tell me that that poster is the same as me. Am fuming. Sorry for any offence

At least you're ballsy enough to be honest! What gets me is you went to the boot room on the stadium tour but don't know what it was about. There are only two reasons for this: you weren't listening, or they didn't explain it. Your latter comment seems to suggest the former, but I am concerned that maybe there was nothing to hear. A lot of teaching us OOT people how to behave has to do with quality of information, and one would expect the stadium tour to be absolutely dripping with historical fact and anecdote, but not told in a manner so dry that people switch off. I've never been to Anfield, so I can't really comment other than to say "it might not be his fault alone". Of course, not knowing the club's history and not caring about it are different things entirely.

As for re-instating the boot room, history and tradition are one thing, but simply sticking to them is not a recipe for success. If you doubt me look at China: 5000 years of culture, yet the country has no more than a developing economy. The point is that tradition for tradition's sake is not a worthwhile exercise; there is no secret ingredient other than honest, hard work. If you can't instill that into the squad and the players are not prepared to give everything for the shirt, and let's face it most of them are OOTs themselves, then simply reverting to tradition is not going to turn everything around. It may help some people, but this is not the panacea you are looking for.

What Liverpool has "lost" is the Stevie G's of the world, the one-club kids who come through the youth system into the first team and stay there. For those guys the shirt means absolutely everything. When I look at the prospects we have coming through I know the future is bright no matter our financial situation or the threat of Torres's departure. When you're young, history and tradition mean everything, and you will eat, drink, and sleep the club without question. But when you're a 25-year-old foreign player on a free transfer, does the club really matter more than your salary?