A History of Awfulness

For most people, the English Football League ends at the Premiership. Academically, they may know of the Championship, and have a dim awareness of a couple of leagues beyond, particularly around FA Cup time, when some half-forgotten name from the past is drawn against one of the giants. Few know of anything beyond the Conference, at which point the national system is discarded in favour of regional leagues. Members of the top eleven tiers (of which the Conference is fifth) are eligible to play in the FA Cup.

And yet the league system goes beyond this. From their lofty perch atop the Premiership, Manchester City look down on twenty-four levels, nearly five hundred divisions, around seven thousand teams and hundreds of thousands of players, staff, youths, etc. Right at the bottom of this pyramid is the Gray Hooper Holt Mid Sussex Division Eleven, the only division in Tier 24 (A true pedant with too much time on his hands, i.e. me, would point out that technically, it is in Tier 23, but as the winners of the Gray Hooper Holt Mid Sussex Premier League, which is technically at Tier 11, get promoted to another Tier 11 division, in practice all the divisions are a tier lower than their nominal position). Right at the bottom of this division, at time of writing, are a team called Scaynes Hill III. Scaynes III are, as a result, the worst team in the English League by league position. In the unlikely event of a Russian oligarch or Arab princeling deciding to purchase the club and invest millions into it, he had better be in it for the long haul, as even with steady promotion, it would take decades for the club to reach the Premiership.

Statistics and information on the Mid Sussex eleventh division are understandably thin on the ground. The current leaders are Ridgewood, though it would appear that AFC Haywards are on a run of form, winning most of their matches by double figures, including a 20-0 drubbing. On the off chance one finds a bookmakers willing to take a bet on such matters, a punt on AFC Haywards to win promotion to the Mid Sussex tenth division might be a good move. The likelihood, of course, is that at these depths, putting eleven men on a pitch is an achievement in itself, and crazy results are as much a product of a difference in quantity of players rather than quality.

The above was illustrated in a tragicomic incident in the now defunct Mining League Division One in 2010. In the hierarchy of leagues, the Mining League Division One was a Tier 13 division based in Cornwall. Newly promoted Madron faced a mass exodus, as any team who punches above their weight has to deal with. In addition, the manager left during the summer, throwing the team into chaos. This led to an unfortunate run of form that saw them concede 227 goals in eleven games and score only twice, culminating in a 55-0 defeat to Illogan RBL Reserves. Only seven Madron players bothered to show up, and the team found themselves without a goalkeeper. Of course, these results are only possible where there is a huge disparity between teams, something that league tier systems are designed to reduce. No such limits apply in international tournaments.

In 2001, Australia faced up against Tonga and American Samoa in qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup. On April 9th, the Aussies demolished Tonga 22-0, setting a record for an international match. Two days later came the turn of American Samoa. In an area replete with minnows, the Samoans were the most minute of all, placing bottom in FIFA's ranking system. In addition, much of their team was blocked from travelling to Australia because of passport problems, though Australia left many of their senior team out. Everyone knew it was going to be a rout, but the scale was astonishing. In the 90 minutes between kickoff and when referee Ronan Leaustic put the Samoans out of their misery, Australia managed to put 31 goals past them without reply. One player, Archie Thompson, scored 13 goals, setting an individual record in an international game. Within the space of three days, Australia had twice broken the world scoring record for international matches. The disparity between Australia and New Zealand on one hand, and the Pacific Islands on the other, was a major factor in the Aussies' decision to join the Asian Confederation in 2006.

Prior to the introduction of preliminary rounds into Cup games, such results were also possible in domestic games. On 12 September 1885 in Dundee, Dundee Harp were playing in the first round of the Scottish Cup against Aberdeen Rovers. The evident disparity between the teams meant that the Dundonians flattened their opposition 35-0, the highest senior result recorded up till that point. So high was the scoreline that the referee was unable to keep track, and reckoned the score at 37-0. However, a tally by Dundee players of their individual goals put it at a more modest 35-0, which they insisted be recognised as the score, a decision they would soon regret.

In the aftermath of the match an Irish player, Tom O'Kane, treated his teammates to a meal and drinking session in the Dundee Arms hotel. Like many teams of the time, Dundee Harp had been formed as a club for Irishmen, and O'Kane had moved there during the summer from nearby Arbroath. Legend has it that, in the spirit of mischief, O'Kane persuaded his club to send a telegram to Arbroath boasting of Harp's record-shattering achievement. If true, this backfired badly, for, on the same day, eighteen miles away, Arbroath had gone one better against Bon Accord in another Scottish Cup first round game.

By rights, Bon Accord should never have been in the Cup. The club's real name was Orion, and due to a mix-up, they had been invited to compete. Unfortunately, the invite, which was meant for Orion Football Club, was instead sent to Orion Cricket club. At the time, anyone could enter a team into the Scottish Cup, and the cricketers, whether out of stubbornness or a belief that seeing as both sports involved a ball and eleven players it couldn't be too hard, gamely decided to compete. The name Bon Accord was adopted after a Scottish phrase from the storming of Aberdeen Castle in the fourteenth century. Forty-five minutes and fifteen goals later, several players reconsidered, possibly after realising that this was not in fact a cricket game. Only seven players returned to the field for the second half. By the time the final whistle blew Arbroath had won 36-0. Only the heroic efforts of referee Dave Stormont, who made extremely creative efforts to disallow several additional Arbroath goals in order to mitigate the humiliation visited upon Bon Accord, prevented the margin of victory going into the forties. Diehard Arbroath fans would suggest that the team were hampered by the lack of goal nets, which both made goals harder to verify and made recovery of the ball a longer process. The ball went between Bon Accord's goals at least forty-one times, but 36-0 is the accepted result.

In a club that hasn't exactly set the world alight before or since, Arbroath's margin of victory has been a major point of pride. The record stood for over a century. It survived a narrow scare in 2001 following a 41-0 victory in Romania, but the Guinness Book of Records held that seeing as said match was not in a professional league, it could not be counted, which was fortunate as Arbroath had just begun a major attempt to cash in on their piece of sporting history. However, all records eventually fall, and so it was that, on 31st October 2002, Arbroath's record was shattered in spectacular style in the most unlikely of places.

Stade Olypique de L'Emyrne Antananarivo (SOE) were, at the time, Madagascar's reigning champions. However, due to a disputed penalty decision in the previous match, they were going to lose that particular crown to arch-rivals AS Adema, the team they would face on that fateful day. As can be imagined, SOE were out to make a statement, which they duly did over the course of ninety of the most amazing minutes the sport has ever known. Calmly, methodically, and precisely, SOE sent 149 goals between their own posts by way of protest. As possession returns to the team who conceded the goal, regardless of whether or not it was an own goal, after each kickoff SOE simply ran the ball back to their own goal and over the line, meaning they finished the match with nearly 100% possession and the biggest margin of defeat in history. As can be imagined, a riot very nearly broke out among disbelieving fans.

Historical it may have been, but the Madagascan Football Federation did not see it that way. SOE's manager, Zaka Be, received a four year suspension for bringing the game into disrepute, and a number of players received varying suspensions too. Still, it speaks volumes about the discipline of the team that they could commit collective sporting suicide in such a manner.

And so, should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself on the wrong end of a football score that looks more like a cricketing one, take comfort from the fact that you are a long way from a new record.

Greg Bowler once tried and failed to sign up for Bon Accord. He is currently applying for citizenship of American Samoa

Time for a Kidney transplant

Sunday past saw Ireland lose to a pretty good Welsh side in their first game of this year’s Six Nations tournament. The score line of 21 -23 suggests that this was a close match in which two teams that were almost evenly matched went hammer and nails at each other with one piece of brilliance or one decision deciding who emerged as victors. To believe that is a fallacy.

Ireland were, in effect, blown off the park by a Welsh side that showed more dynamism, more heart, more guts and much more of tactical nous. The media and public at large have been crying about the injustice of the decisions made by referee Wayne Barnes, most obviously when he showed a yellow card to Stephen Ferris and Bradley Davies for what commentators have taken to calling a “Tip” tackle, despite both incidents being radically different in both their severity and malice. Let’s just get this out of the way, Davies should have been sent off and Ferris shouldn’t have been even penalised. But referees rule on what they see, not what the public want to see, and when a referee is so badly advised as Barnes was at the weekend by touchjudge Dave Pearson then there will always be an outcry. Barnes ruled on what he saw of Ferris’s tackle, ruled it illegal and dished out the mandatory yellow for that type of offence. I am 100% certain had Barnes seen the Davies tackle then the Cardiff Blues man would have seen red. But these issues mask the real problem for Ireland and that is under Declan Kidney this team is grossly underperforming on the Test stage.

Ireland’s record since winning the Grand Slam is appalling, pure and simple. The record reads – played: 31, Won: 16, Lost: 15 Drawn: 1,so a record that is slightly better than 50% isn’t great but it’s not too bad, but if you then strip out the games against tier two countries like Samoa, Fiji, Italy, Canada and the United States the record is worse. Against the top nations since that famous day in Cardiff in 2009 Ireland have played 21 games and won just 6. That is a truly shocking return for what many people would say is the most talented and best prepared team we’ve ever had. It’s plain and simple; this Ireland team is no longer a top class international test rugby side. The reason for this in my opinion lies squarely at the feet of Declan Kidney.

Kidney has many virtues as a coach, he is renowned for his man management and motivational skills, he also has the wisdom to surround himself with top class coaches and back up personnel. What he lacks though, is an appreciation for the tactical side of the game. On Sunday it was baffling how many times Irish players kicked the ball, the most obvious being when Conor Murray kicked out on the full after the forwards had won a turnover and should have been looking to run or pass the ball and catch the Welsh defence cold. It was a stunning mistake to make, but one which typifies how this Ireland side plays. They are conservative, cautious and unadventurous. What Murray did though, was in my mind, exactly what the coach would have wanted – he kicked, that it went out on the full was unfortunate and costly.  Tactically Kidney got it atrociously wrong at the weekend. The gameplan was the exact same as the one which had failed miserably at the World Cup against the same opposition except with a different out half. Any fool could see that Wales couldn’t believe their luck when Ireland perpetually and aimlessly kicked the ball back to them. The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. There is a real issue here and that is that Ireland are tactically ill advised by their head coach. What’s worse is that Kidney has proved that he is incapable of watching a game unfold, incapable of reading how it is going and incapable of making changes. Compare this to Leinster coach Joe Schmidt, if Leinster aren’t going well as has been the case in many games, Schmidt gets them into the dressing room at half time, knows exactly the changes that need making, personnel, tactical or otherwise and more often than not the team will emerge from the break a different beast. Witness the Heineken Cup Final 2011, he hauled of Kevin McLaughlin and brought on Shane Jennings which had the result of Northampton no longer ruling at the breakdown, that is the most obvious case but there are numerous other instances I could list where the coach has analysed trends and patters in a game and then made the necessary changes in order to change the flow of a game. Kidney’s plan B is to merely change his fly half with the instruction to do the same as the other lad but better.

Another area where Kidney has continually failed is to get the best out of a very talented backline. Since he took over in 2008 we have been subjected to turgid and feeble back play from players who when with their provinces regularly create and score tries in abundance. Alan Gaffney, the former backline coach, is now gone but he’s not been replaced. Les Kiss, the defensive coach, had now taken over offensive duties in addition to his primary role. But the suspicion is that no matter how talented a coach takes over as backs coach the Kidney philosophy of conservatism would win out. Compare the Irish backs to their welsh counterparts at the weekend, man for man we should have been at least on par, yet we made the welsh look like the Harlem Globetrotters

So here we are, we play World Cup finalists and Six Nations favourites France on Saturday in Paris. Our record there is abysmal. We have a team which seems to have no plan but to kick the ball back to the opposition, a team whose backs are now firmly against the wall and I fully expect them to come out fighting in another grand heroic failure that Irish sport does so well. Ireland will lose and the only good thing to come from it will be that we should be one step closer to getting a new head coach. Sad, but that’s where we are.

PS. When will RTE ever grow up and stop focusing the camera on Ronan O’Gara if Johnny Sexton misses a kick or vice versa. It’s a crass, unfair and childish way for a national broadcaster to behave. It does a disservice to two great Irish players, serves no one good and someone needs to tell them that these two guys are actually teammates.

Ross McGuinness

You can follow Ross on twitter @rossmcguinness

A tale of two kickers - The bedtime story that keeps me awake at night

Two Sundays ago (I'm very late on this blog!!) both Billy Cundiff and Lawrence Tynes woke up in hotel rooms in strange cities. They, unlike 99% of the population, would have been excited about working on a Sunday. Especially a Sunday this late into the winter. It's not hard to assume that both men would have had similar first thoughts when they rolled out of bed on Championship Sunday - Please God give me the opportunity to kick a field goal that catapults my team to a Superbowl. By days end, both men would reflect on their day's work with startlingly different views.

Bearing in on the end of the fourth quarter, in an enthralling AFC Championship game, Billy Cundiff was the first to have his prayers answered. His Balitmore Ravens side had managed to claw their way back into the game and to be within three points with 11seconds remaining on the clock. The ball stood on the 25 yard line and after three failed scoring attempts, Cundiff was called into action. A field goal ties things up and brings the game to overtime. A familiar scenario no doubt but with one peculiar twist - minutes earlier John Harbaugh had turned down giving Cundiff the shot at glory by not sending him to attempt a 50 yard field goal. While this distance is to the extremity of Cundiffs distance, it is by no stretch a long shot. Harbaughs' lack of confidence in Cundiff undoubtedly put extra pressure on his kicker. By the time Cundiff steps forward not only is he trying to fire his team into overtime but he's also trying to prove his coach wrong for not having faith in him.

Over in San Francisco, coaches and players underwear weren't much cleaner. Like their AFC counterparts, the NFC championship game was turning into a cracker and had in fact reached overtime. Lawrence Tynes had seen it all before. Back in early 2008 his Giants team had traveled to Lambeau Field to take on the heavily fancied Green Bay Packers in the Championship game. With the game in overtime and the ball on the 40 yard line Tynes stroked over a field goal to take the Giants to the Superbowl. History has a funny way of repeating itself and so it came to pass that Tynes had another chance to kick the Giants into the Superbowl. I wonder had word of Cundiff made way to the Giants sideline because back in New England the kicking fraternity was about to collectively put their head in their hands.

After you strike a field goal - much like a soccer penalty, or golf shot - you know without looking up whether it was successful. However when it is not, you generally won’t give up hope until that ball drops left, right or short. As much as Billy Cundiff willed that ball he knew he'd hooked the ball left. With 0.04 left on the clock Cundiff had seen fate present itself in front of him, only for an over extension of his right boot to snatch victory away. As the Patriots celebrated, Cundiff was swarped by the media. Credit to him that later in the day he fronted up to the media and took the blame (consquently letting Lee Evens off the hook for dropping the game winning catch minutes earlier).

For Tynes, there were no such worries. Field goal kicking is no different to other aspects in American Football, in that it’s a team effort to get the ball over the bar. There is a kicking team made up of snapper, holder and kicker. If any one of that clog breaks down, the ball doesn't end up going through the sticks although its generally the kicker who ends up with egg on his face. The holders' role is crucial as the snap is very often not straight to his hands. At the Spartans I'm blessed to have one of the best, Touchy, holding for me. We struck up an instant comradery and I know when I start my run up he'll have the ball on the spot. Having this amount of confidence in your holder is key. Tynes clearly has this confidence in Steve Weatherford, his holder. The snap to Weatherford was manky at best but he managed to control it and place it perfectly for Tynes to kick them to the Superbowl. Nobody gave Weatheford any credit for this but to a kickers eye, he made that play not Tynes.

Two weekends ago highlighted how pivitol a kicker can be and how slim his margins are between being praised and being picked on. While I'm playing with smaller stakes, my efficency is still going to be judged by 45 team mates and a coaching staff and front office team. Let's hope I'm more Tynes than Cundiff.

Post by Seamus McDaid
Post by @fbspecial 

Six Nations 2012 Preview

And so it is here it is, the lines have been drawn, the tickets have been sold, the teams have been announced and now, we wait, the quiet before the storm if you like. The Six Nations is upon us and this year’s renewal is being keenly anticipated throughout the contesting nations and the wider, global rugby audience. This tournament, certainly in rugby terms, has no equal. The southern hemisphere can bleat on about their Tri Nations (soon to be, god help us, the Rugby Championship when Argentina join this year) being a superior competition in playing terms, which it may well be, but for shear excitement, passion, history and atmosphere the Six Nations is like no other. The competition’s structure whereby teams play against the opposition at home on alternate years adds a unique dimension because if a defeat is dished out at home you must wait two years for a shot at redemption.

So how are the teams shaping up for this year’s competition?

Pretty well in fact, there seems to be no concensus amongst the mainstream media about who is actually the best team and which team is the most likely victor. Even the bookies can’t seem to decide, okay France are short odds at 5/4 but for me that doesn’t reflect the real situation, Wales are second favourites at 10/3 with Ireland and England at 4 and 5 to 1 respectively. For me, and yes I am biased, Ireland represent great value at that price. If Ireland put in a good performance and get a win this Sunday against the Welsh they will be well set up for a tilt at the title.

Wales and France will pose serious threats, the French in particular as they have the strength in depth to allow them to withstand all bar the most serious of injury crises. Any side which can start with a back three of Maxime Medard, Vincent Clerc and Julien Malzieu with Maxime Mermoz in reserve has to be taken seriously. This attacking threat is allied with a pack which, on it’s day, rivals the world best. Journalists have been raving about the Irish backrow but for me the French one is the best in the championship. The trio of Louis Picamoles, Julien Bonnaire and Thierry Dusautoir appears more balanced and sure if there’s a problem they only have Imanol Hari’flippin’nordoquy on the bench! Whatever way you look at it France will be in the shakeup come the business end of the championship.

The Welsh have the look of a side that is about to really gel, they had a relatively good World Cup where they played with a vigour and joie de vivre that the Wales sides of old would have been proud of. The influx of young players into the side has paid massive dividends. George North, Rhys Priestland, Toby Faletau, Dan Lydiate and Sam Warburton have grabbed their Test careers by the scruff of the neck and look set to be fixtures in the side for the next decade. In the recent past Welsh teams have arrived into the championship under clouds and then sprung into life after a good first result and have gone on to with Grand Slams, the expectation is completely different for this side. There is an expectancy now which this team won’t have had to deal with before and how they cope will decide if they can win the title or fall flat on their faces. If they win in Dublin this weekend then the rest of the team’s best be on their guard.

Ireland come into the championship in optimistic mood, even in the absence of the great one Mr. O’Driscoll. The provinces have been flying and confidence is high. However this is Ireland and this is Declan Kidney. Kidney has been living off the 2009 Grand Slam win, yes there were some good perfomances in the World Cup but last year’s six nations was a disaster. The win against the old enemy, England, at Lansdowne put a gloss on events which masks the true events. Make no mistake, if Ireland do not get at least four wins out of five then the knives will be out for the head coach. On a positive note, guys like Cian Healy, Paul O’Connell, Stephen Ferris and Andrew Trimble have been in great form and if the team get a good start against this weekend they can challenge for the title which really should be the very minimum this group of players deliver.

As for the other sides, England are going through a period of transition and much will depend on how well interim coach Stuart Lancaster can get his young and inexperienced players to adjust to the rigours of Test rugby. The tournament represents a real step up in class for a lot this England team, the Premiership lags behind the quality of the other club competitions in Europe, as evidenced by the poor showing of the main English clubs in the Heineken Cup, and it will be interesting to see if Lancaster can get these players to rise to the occasion of Test rugby. The Scots and Italians will spring a surprise or two and push the top teams all the way but in reality they will dog it out to see who gets the dreaded Wooden Spoon.

So all in all it promises to be a great few weeks of competition, sit tight!

Post by Ross McGuinness
Follow me on twitter @rossmcguinness

Don’t Look Back into the Sun

Liverpool fans have a reputation of sticking by the club through thick and thin. Indeed, the same can be said for the club as a whole, that it is very loyal to its own. Two decades after Hillsborough, the Sun still sells extremely poorly in Liverpool as a result of an inflammatory (and fabricated) article about the conduct of the fans in the disaster and an ensuing boycott. Kenny Dalglish's conduct during the aftermath earned him a place in fans' hearts, and was a major factor in his return to the club in 2011.

This loyalty has its roots in several places. Liverpool's success in the 1970s and 80s, which saw the club lift four European Cups in eight years as well as numerous league titles, led to them being the team of choice for a generation of fans on both sides of the Irish Sea. Then there was the bunker mentality that took effect after the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters, where Liverpool bore the brunt of the media and official ire. The season before Heysel was probably Liverpool's high water mark. Joe Fagan led the team to their fourth European Cup. Following the events of Heysel, Liverpool were banned from European competition indefinitely. In all likelihood, had they been allowed to compete, they would have added more European silverware to their collection.

The problem is that this event, followed by Hillsborough, contributed to a growing sense of persecution among Liverpool fans. The punishment that UEFA meted out as a result of Heysel was severe in the extreme, particularly given that the disaster was as much a product of a decrepit stadium as it was of unruly hooligans. 

Similarly, Hillsborough was an accident waiting to happen, and only the abolition of terraces has prevented a recurrence. The problem for Liverpool is that these events have engendered a profound feeling of distrust for the rest of the world among its fans.

That Liverpool have achieved great things is undeniable. The problem is that they are no longer a great club, or at least no longer genuine title contenders. Their last title win was two decades ago, and barring the odd second-place finish, they haven't threatened to repeat it since. Trophies have been few and far between, barring the 2005 Champions League which, while memorable, was far more the result of hubris on the part of AC Milan than Liverpool truly being the best team on the night. Since then, the Reds have found themselves squeezed out of the Big Four by both Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, and despite what their diehard supporters think, they are unlikely to be playing Champions League football for the next few years.

And yet, to the consternation of both rival fans and neutral observers, Liverpool fans enter every season with the bullish confidence that they can repeat the events of 1991, simply on the basis that they did it twenty years ago. Never mind the fact that they were long ago eclipsed by Manchester United's stunning run of form, and more recently by Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, never mind the fact that since the mid 1990s their revenues have grown at only a fraction of the rate of the other big Premiership clubs, and never mind the fact that they look set to finish sixth again this season, the assumption that Liverpool remain genuine title challengers persists among their fan base, a fan base that has never really managed to expand beyond the shores of the Irish sea.

Conversations with men in pubs can be illuminating affairs, though usually one learns more about the speaker than the subject. Two such conversations I was involved in recently seem to me to highlight the mentality of Liverpool. The first was with a non-Liverpool fan who, when I suggested that a spell of mid-table mediocrity might lower Liverpool's expectations to a more manageable level, retorted that they were now so detached from reality that relegation might not affect their expectation. The second was with a Liverpool fan who asserted that, given the amount of times they have struck the woodwork this year, the team's goal difference should by rights be at least twenty goals better than it is. It is entirely possible that Liverpool might have had more narrow misses than most teams this year, but to suggest that this is having a major effect on the course of the league is laughable in the extreme, and serves to demonstrate the dislocation from reality that some fans experience.

The above 800 or so words is a rather elongated introduction to the main point of this article, namely Liverpool's abject mishandling of the recent controversy surrounding star striker Luis Suarez. The whole lamentable business is best viewed as another manifestation of the "us against the world" mentality that pervades Liverpool. Clubs, to a degree, have a duty to stand behind their players. In the days before professional football was one of the most lucrative careers on the planet, the club itself mattered more than the money. Liverpool, with its reputation of fierce loyalty to players, became correspondingly a good team to play for. In this respect, the decision of the team to back Suarez is understandable.

The problem is that Liverpool have now taken this far beyond the bounds of reason. In signing Suarez they knew there would be a lot of baggage. Gifted and all that he is, Suarez is also responsible for two of the worst fouls of modern times, the first being his intentional handball against Ghana in the quarters of the 2010 World Cup which cost them a place in the semis, the second being when he bit the shoulder of PSV player Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax. The fact is that he has demonstrated a winning-above-all-else mentality that has led to a number of regrettable incidents.

Racism is unfortunately widespread in football. Granted, much of it is simply a form of gamesmanship rather than any genuine ill-feeling. The problem is what constitutes an insult depends on who it is said to, and how they take it. In the Liverpool-Manchester United game that kicked off this whole mess, the likelihood is that Suarez was trying to unnerve Patrice Evra to gain an advantage. However, that's not how Evra saw it, and a complaint of racial abuse was sent to the FA.

It was at this point that Liverpool made their first big miscalculation. A swift apology and an internal disciplining of Suarez would have gone a long way to salving things. Instead, the club decided to focus their defence on impugning the character of Evra, who admittedly has had a dubious history himself and only a nodding acquaintance with honesty. As a defence, everything hinged on Suarez sounding more credible than Evra.

A number of problems are apparent with hindsight, and Liverpool should have seen them beforehand. Firstly, Evra's complaint had merit. Suarez even admitted to using the word "negro", though denied that it was intended to be pejorative. The second issue was that if the tribunal upheld Evra's complaint, then they would punish Suarez all the harsher for attempting to deceive them. In the event, that's exactly what happened.

The FA made one mistake in the affair. By failing to release the full report at the same time as handing down the eight-match ban Suarez received, they allowed Liverpool fans' imaginations to run wild. Had the report come out, the punishment would have looked more justified and a lot of difficulty would have been avoided.

It was at this point that the two aforementioned Liverpool traits, namely the sense of loyalty to their players and the perception of a hostile world came to the fore. Liverpool could still have walked away from the whole sorry affair and grudgingly accepted Suarez's suspension (In the event, that's what they later did, but by then it was too late). They had gambled that Evra's testimony could successfully be denied, and it had failed. Luis Suarez had received an admittedly hefty ban, but the whole affair could have been let go.

Instead Liverpool did something absurd. They rejected the finding out of hand, questioned why the report wasn't released, and stood full square behind Suarez. The problem is that, in the eyes of many, standing behind the man is also standing behind the deed, and Liverpool were implicitly condoning Suarez's acts. This culminated in the team wearing T-shirts with Suarez's photo on it before a game against Wigan. Meanwhile, the club were waging a propaganda campaign against the FA, insisting the whole thing was a stitch-up and that their player was the victim of a witch hunt. At this point, the club had moved beyond supporting a player to a) implicitly defending racism, and b) attacking the moral integrity of the FA.

Of course, when the report came out, it was clear that Suarez's testimony simply had no credibility. Even his teammates had delivered inconsistent statements. Evra, on the other hand, stuck to his story, and the independent commission accepted his claims over those of Suarez. It appears that sometime in the previous week Liverpool realised they were out on a limb, and they sensibly declined to appeal, but the damage has now been done.

As a result of Heysel, Liverpool have since had that unpleasant tinge of hooliganism about them. In reality, their fans are probably no more racist than those of any other Premiership team, but perception is what counts, and Liverpool have created a perception of being a club that's soft on racism. Already, there is increased focus on racial issues involving the club. In a subsequent match against Oldham, a fan was arrested in connection with racially abusing Tom Adeyemi, an Oldham youngster of Nigerian extraction. No doubt every such incident in the near future will attract more media attention than Liverpool would like.

A more worrying aspect is the extent to which this insularity pervades the club. The decision to wear T-shirts in support of Suarez was not the act of a single individual. It had to have been signed off on at multiple levels, and at no point does anyone seem to have thought how inflammatory it was, or how the FA might react to having its decisions questioned so publicly. Clearly, the culture in the Liverpool is dangerously introverted.

This introversion has two negative consequences. Firstly, it creates a tendency to blame all the club's issues on external factors, rather than any internal failings. Even internal failings, most recently the debacle of the Hicks/Gillette ownership, are turned into external, by characterising the American owners as outsiders. The fact that they sold out to another set of Americans is, of course, not a problem, at least until there are any issues with them, at which point they will no doubt become outsiders again.

Secondly, it blinds the club to events beyond Anfield. This whole unfortunate business has left Liverpool looking like a group of sulking children. Having played every card wrongly, and persisting in denying any liability, they then backed out of an appeal, presumably because anyone with a modicum of common sense knew that the FA was hardly likely to be better disposed to them after weeks of impugning their judgement. That animosity is not going to go away. Barring heroic efforts on the part of Liverpool, the FA Cup Fourth Round match between Manchester United and Liverpool is going to be a charged affair. Should he play, Patrice Evra is going to come in for a lot of abuse, some of it no doubt racial in nature. And, to make matters worse, the eyes of the world will be watching. Then, to make matters worse, when Luis Suarez finishes his ban, he will be playing United in the league. Once again, expect an explosive situation. Liverpool have only days to make sure that their fans don't exacerbate it.

Liverpool have had a great history. However, in order to have a better future, the team, the management, and the fans have to recognise that this is in the past. The sad reality is that, as of now, they haven't.

Post by Greg Bowler