Post by QPR Report on Apr 29, 2009 6:29:27 GMT
It's about Hull, but obviously applicable to all club fans, including a club in West London!
The Times - Hull City: Reds under the bed
As a Hull City fan, I am surprisingly happy this evening. We may have been beaten today - 3-1 at home to Liverpool, in case you missed it - but the manner of the defeat pleases me. We played some very, very fine football and more than held our own against a team currently challenging for the ultimate domestic accolade. The goal we scored was a good one - and the ball from Daniel Cousin to Geovanni was possibly the striker's finest touch since joining us. It was, as a friend of mine would call it, a "Pro Evolution goal". If you've played the eponymous computer game, you'll get it. If you haven't - basically it means the goal was akin to the kind of move usually seen on the training ground - or, to put it another way - it was damn good.
Liverpool's goals were of equally high quality, not least Xabi Alonso's opener, when he swung a boot at a rebounded ball from what was actually a poor free kick, but hit that rebound with such sweet timing that Boaz Myhill quite possibly literally didn't see it. Such was the pace on the ball that it's likely Myhill merely felt the air ripple, whilst wondering why the ball had become invisible.
Although I didn't make it to the game today (I couldn't get a ticket), I did - via the miracle of the internet - manage to watch the full game, live. Had I been at the game, I would have witnessed what was a record KC Stadium crowd (just shy of 25k) and I could probably have been forgiven for thinking that I would have been in the company of a record number of Hull City fans. But would I have been right? Possibly not, it would appear.
Strange things have been happening this week. Firstly, our local rag the Hull Daily Mail carried adverts in the classified section where tickets for the match were for sale for over £300 - despite the sale of football tickets being illegal. Tickets were also briefly listed on Ebay (though the offending adverts were quickly closed down), again for sums of money in the region of £300-350 or more.
This was no ordinary game. Everybody wanted a piece of it. Some people, it would seem, were prepared to part with the same amount of money that would have got them a Hull City season ticket had they bought one in May/June - and for what? To see Hull City? To see Hull City play Liverpool? Or... and this I fear may be the reality... just to see Liverpool?
It is a fact that at today's match there were people in the home areas who were wearing Liverpool shirts. This in itself (i.e. away fans in home stands) is not unusual. What is unusual is that some of them were wearing Liverpool shirts UNDERNEATH CITY SHIRTS! So what's going on?
As long as football has existed, there have been those who chose to latch onto whichever team happens to be successful at the time. We have witnessed it for years in these parts - for example, "Hull Whites", those hapless buffoons who decided that, despite being born and raised in Hull, that they would "support" Leeds United. How those particular birds have come home to roost...! Those Liverpool-shirt-wearing people who were taking seats from genuine City fans today, were of the same ilk. Fickle folk who had attached themselves to a successful team, because for some reason, their local side was somehow not good enough for them.
Of course, us real fans are disgusted and outraged by these people.
I was taken to Boothferry Park as a nipper by my Dad, back in the days of Don Robinson in the boardroom, and the likes of Billy Askew and Billy Whitehurst on the pitch. "Glory" was the last thing we were ever going to see, but all the same it was an amazing experience. Without getting all dewy-eyed, one of the things I have to thank my Dad for most, was taking me to see City, every week, without fail. I am so glad that he did. (I returned the favour last Christmas - he now lives down South but I got him a ticket for the Middlesbrough game, his first at the KC - he now boasts that he has a 100% success record at our "new" ground).
Today's kids are not being imbued with the same sense of loyalty. Schoolkids in the Hull area DO support City, or at least some of them do. But equally, just as many support Manchester United, or Liverpool, or Arsenal. Strangely, none of them support Bolton, West Brom or Fulham.
Where are the people like my Dad, who take their kids to their LOCAL football team, and teach them what loyalty is? I am ashamed to think that there are folk in the away stand at the KC who have Hull accents, and people in the Home stands who are not supporting the Tigers. Each and every one of them should be paraded in the streets as an example to those who would follow in their errant ways.
Parents - teach the children. It's up to you.
Nick Boldock
timesonline.typepad.com/fanzine_fanzone/2009/04/hull-city-reds-under-the-bed.html
The Times - Hull City: Reds under the bed
As a Hull City fan, I am surprisingly happy this evening. We may have been beaten today - 3-1 at home to Liverpool, in case you missed it - but the manner of the defeat pleases me. We played some very, very fine football and more than held our own against a team currently challenging for the ultimate domestic accolade. The goal we scored was a good one - and the ball from Daniel Cousin to Geovanni was possibly the striker's finest touch since joining us. It was, as a friend of mine would call it, a "Pro Evolution goal". If you've played the eponymous computer game, you'll get it. If you haven't - basically it means the goal was akin to the kind of move usually seen on the training ground - or, to put it another way - it was damn good.
Liverpool's goals were of equally high quality, not least Xabi Alonso's opener, when he swung a boot at a rebounded ball from what was actually a poor free kick, but hit that rebound with such sweet timing that Boaz Myhill quite possibly literally didn't see it. Such was the pace on the ball that it's likely Myhill merely felt the air ripple, whilst wondering why the ball had become invisible.
Although I didn't make it to the game today (I couldn't get a ticket), I did - via the miracle of the internet - manage to watch the full game, live. Had I been at the game, I would have witnessed what was a record KC Stadium crowd (just shy of 25k) and I could probably have been forgiven for thinking that I would have been in the company of a record number of Hull City fans. But would I have been right? Possibly not, it would appear.
Strange things have been happening this week. Firstly, our local rag the Hull Daily Mail carried adverts in the classified section where tickets for the match were for sale for over £300 - despite the sale of football tickets being illegal. Tickets were also briefly listed on Ebay (though the offending adverts were quickly closed down), again for sums of money in the region of £300-350 or more.
This was no ordinary game. Everybody wanted a piece of it. Some people, it would seem, were prepared to part with the same amount of money that would have got them a Hull City season ticket had they bought one in May/June - and for what? To see Hull City? To see Hull City play Liverpool? Or... and this I fear may be the reality... just to see Liverpool?
It is a fact that at today's match there were people in the home areas who were wearing Liverpool shirts. This in itself (i.e. away fans in home stands) is not unusual. What is unusual is that some of them were wearing Liverpool shirts UNDERNEATH CITY SHIRTS! So what's going on?
As long as football has existed, there have been those who chose to latch onto whichever team happens to be successful at the time. We have witnessed it for years in these parts - for example, "Hull Whites", those hapless buffoons who decided that, despite being born and raised in Hull, that they would "support" Leeds United. How those particular birds have come home to roost...! Those Liverpool-shirt-wearing people who were taking seats from genuine City fans today, were of the same ilk. Fickle folk who had attached themselves to a successful team, because for some reason, their local side was somehow not good enough for them.
Of course, us real fans are disgusted and outraged by these people.
I was taken to Boothferry Park as a nipper by my Dad, back in the days of Don Robinson in the boardroom, and the likes of Billy Askew and Billy Whitehurst on the pitch. "Glory" was the last thing we were ever going to see, but all the same it was an amazing experience. Without getting all dewy-eyed, one of the things I have to thank my Dad for most, was taking me to see City, every week, without fail. I am so glad that he did. (I returned the favour last Christmas - he now lives down South but I got him a ticket for the Middlesbrough game, his first at the KC - he now boasts that he has a 100% success record at our "new" ground).
Today's kids are not being imbued with the same sense of loyalty. Schoolkids in the Hull area DO support City, or at least some of them do. But equally, just as many support Manchester United, or Liverpool, or Arsenal. Strangely, none of them support Bolton, West Brom or Fulham.
Where are the people like my Dad, who take their kids to their LOCAL football team, and teach them what loyalty is? I am ashamed to think that there are folk in the away stand at the KC who have Hull accents, and people in the Home stands who are not supporting the Tigers. Each and every one of them should be paraded in the streets as an example to those who would follow in their errant ways.
Parents - teach the children. It's up to you.
Nick Boldock
timesonline.typepad.com/fanzine_fanzone/2009/04/hull-city-reds-under-the-bed.html