JOURNAL: poolfan (Shane H)

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  • Liverpool provide Houllier with perfect tonic ---- Dynamo Kiev 1-2 Liverpool 2001-10-17 14:27:39 Dynamo Kiev 1-2 Liverpool

    For all the heroics that have made Liverpool Britain's most successful football export, seldom have they matched the stirring deeds of Sami Hyypia and his men in the Olympic Stadium.

    The backdrop could hardly have been more intimidating or disruptive, with manager Gerard Houllier in a hospital bed after heart surgery and Phil Thompson trying to exert some authority for a tie Liverpool could not afford to lose.

    Not only did they avoid defeat, they gallantly took the lead twice and held it at the second attempt to become the first British team ever to conquer Ukraine's finest on their own ground.

    In the process, they strode majestically to the top of Group B to make themselves favourites for a place in the next phase.

    Houllier never tires of preaching the virtues of collective output and would have beamed with pride at a team effort that can rarely have been bettered in Liverpool's proud European history.

    There were individual performances worthy of merit, though - not least the defensive resilience of Hyypia and Jerzy Dudek and the midfield industry of Liverpool's two goalscorers, Steven Gerrard and Danny Murphy.

    Away from those in the thick of the unrelenting action, Thompson emerged as a worthy stand-in for the recuperating Houllier and proved himself to be a temporary boss who will not shy away from contentious decisions.

    Thompson opted for a safety-first formation that thrust Emile Heskey into a solitary role up front and left Robbie Fowler even more isolated on the bench.

    With a bitter training ground bust-up between Thompson and Fowler still fresh in the mind, it was a controversial decision that could have had severe repercussions had Liverpool lost.

    But for all Kiev's frenzied first-half efforts, Thompson's side seldom looked like losing.

    Dudek had to pull off exceptional reflex saves from Aliaksandr Khatskevich, whose 14th-minute free-kick could only have been sighted at the last moment, and twice from Valentin Belkevich in one spell of Ukrainian supremacy.

    Liverpool had the perfect answer two minutes from half-time as they went ahead with a goal of stunning simplicity.

    The tireless Gerrard laid it on with a curling cross deep into the Kiev area that coincided happily with Murphy's arrival from deep.

    The one unheralded member of an otherwise star-studded Liverpool line-up watched the ball all the way on to his left boot and steered a first-time volley past Vitaliy Reva.

    Kiev needed inspiration from somewhere to keep alive their slim qualification hopes and finally found it in the 59th minute.

    Belkevich's cross from the left appeared to have eluded everyone until Tiberiu Ghioane slid in at the far post to make scoring contact with an outstretched boot.

    But Liverpool were not to be denied. They threatened another goal in the 62nd minute as Heskey met Gary McAllister's corner with a towering header that beat Reva but was knocked off the line by Florin Cernat.

    The reprieve for Kiev was short-lived, though. Substitute Patrik Berger's 67th-minute cross was drifting out of play until Vladimir Smicer craned his neck to divert it back into the middle.


    “ Gerrard still had plenty to do but accomplished it with customary panache as he brought the ball down and volleyed firmly and unerringly past Reva ”
    —
    Gerrard still had plenty to do but accomplished it with customary panache as he brought the ball down and volleyed firmly and unerringly past Reva.

    There were still some moments of anxiety, notably when Cernat weaved his way into the area on the left and fired a shot fractionally wide of the far post deep into injury time.

    You got the impression that, had it sneaked inside the post, Liverpool would have ventured upfield again and made it 3-2 in the seconds that remained.

    It was that sort of night and no-one could begrudge Thompson his moment as, favouring a tracksuit rather than the manager's customary collar and tie, he leapt from the bench and gave the 300-strong travelling support a clenched-fist salute.

     
  • WHERE GERARD HOULLIER BELONGS 2001-10-17 14:22:23 "It's a funny old game," as someone once famously said. And they were right. Often funny peculiar, and just as often funny haha! But occasionally, something happens and you think: Not funny at all, that's not. Like when your team manager nearly buys it because the stresses and strains of merely watching the game have taken their toll.

    As anyone who has ever felt passionately about any team will tell you, the game does funny things to you. It makes you angry, happy, sad, miserable, frustrated. It can take you from the highs of supreme ecstasy, then just as soon have you crestfallen and utterly dejected. You can be beside yourself with utter glee and delight one minute, only to find yourself in the depths of deepest despair a minute later.

    I well remember the night we lost the title to The Arse at Anfield in May 1989...Christ, what a rollercoaster ride of emotion that was. We had the trophy in the bag, all we had to do was play out the last few seconds...and then...well, the rest is history. Spent two hours calming my nine-year-old son down that night, I did. His head was done in and his heart was broken. Then there was the night we played St Etienne, again at Anfield, when it looked as though we were surely going out of the European Cup (when it was still a trophy worth winning). Pissed off to buggery I was, and there was supersub David Fairclough to send us into raptures and through to the next round.

    As a young lad I used to lose it when things weren't going Liverpool's way. There's a council house in St Helens somewhere whose doors no doubt still gape with the holes put there by my angry teenage fists in May of 1976. All we had to was secure a low-scoring draw at Molineux to lift the title; with quarter of an hour to go it was slipping away as time after time we failed to breach the Wolves defence and beat their keeper. The bastards. We did it in the end, though not before my nerves had been shattered and torn to shreds amid the torment of it all. My fists hurt and the door needed a bit of Polyfilla here and there - manifestations of my angst and sheer passion for the game that night.

    I'm not so bothered these days - as an old fart of forty I've realised that such behaviour doesn't do you any good. Not worth getting worked up over a silly game of football. I've seen it all in my time and tend to take things in my stride. But I've got a 19-year-old son who's just as bad as I once was. He swears he isn't, but he's a lair...like his dad before him. He is that bad. And that's why, after each Liverpool defeat, he comes out with the same old line: "I'm not bothering with that useless shower of bastards any more." Though the next time they win he's gloating at the prospect of another Premiership surge. And a nephew of mine, only fourteen, gets so hyped up when watching the Reds on Sky that his mother's already threatening to unsubscribe - no more footy on telly unless he calms himself down and acts his age.

    The only reason she never really will is because she fancies Patrik Berger...but that's another story.

    I knew this bloke, years ago. He was a always too worked up about his team. Villa fan he was. His missus had banned him from going to matches because she was sick of getting calls from Midland General at twenty-to-five on Saturday afternoons. He'd either keeled over in some apoplectic fit, or been punched in the gob by one of his own fellow supporters for being too vociferously agitated during the game. A sad tale. As he was driving along the M6 one afternoon, Tony Daley missed an injury-time sitter in a cup tie. He took his hands from the steering wheel, buried his head in them in the fast lane and promptly careered up the arse end of a Variety Club Sunshine Coach taking Down's Syndrome kids to Alton Towers. Spent six months in a coma, during which time the Villa squad visited him to try and bring him round. But to no avail. When he did finally come to it was thanks to a Bucks Fizz cassette, and by then all he could do was shake, stutter, slobber a bit and mutter the words: "Turn the lights out, Mother, there's rats in the pantry again."

    It's true.

    What I'm saying is that football is bad for your health. Or at least it can be if you don't watch what you're doing. Playing the game obviously carries its dangers and risks to your general well-being, but watching it can be equally perilous. And it must be a hundred times worse for those directly involved. As fans we get worked up enough as it is, but imagine what it must be like when your career, livelihood and reputation depend on it.

    I remember poor Jock Stein. A tough, rugged, hard-nosed Scot hewn from the same stuff as Shanks. A man who had seen and done it all and at every level of the game. Yet a man whose overburdened heart could take no more one evening as he watched his Scotland side take on Wales at Anfield in a World Cup eliminator. He was dead by the time they got him to hospital.

    The stresses and strains, particularly in the modern game, are all too plain to see, as we frequently hear of managers suffering illness and distress. Kenny Dalglish, a man in the Stein mould himself, found it all too much, especially in the wake of Hillsborough. Graeme Souness was another. Barry Fry at Barnet suffered several heart attacks, as did Wimbledon's Joe Kinnear only a couple of years ago.

    And it's not just the game itself that can lead to such personal mishap; it's also a passion for it that can result in downfall and sometimes tragedy. There are those close to the Great Man himself who claim that, following his premature retirement in 1974, Bill Shankly was never the same man again. His passion for the game remained undiminished in his years of self-enforced isolation. He missed football so much, found it so hard to come to terms with having nothing to do but sit and watch, that his life appeared to have little meaning. There are people who have suggested that this lack of an outlet for his passion in some way contributed to his untimely demise in September 1981.

    Who knows?

    I may have questioned him in the past - I've done it enough times - but clearly Gerard Houllier is a man of immense passion and belief in what he is doing at Anfield. He is without doubt a man totally committed to the game of football, to his job and to the players and fans of Liverpool Football Club. Few would argue with that at this moment. In the hotbed of a vital league match the other day, the depth of his passion and conviction almost proved too much for him, and he very nearly paid the ultimate price. Eleven hours under the surgeon's scalpel, as they fought to save his life, is no laughing matter. No game is so bloody important that decent, honest, hard-working blokes like football managers should suffer ill-health because of it.

    Of course, you could argue that what happened to Houllier on Saturday might still have happened had he been a bus driver, roadsweeper, chartered accountant or the top man on the pyramid of a motorcycle stunt team. We'll never know. What I know - and what we should all know - is that no game of football, nor a club like Liverpool FC, is so important that it should endanger the life of any individual. It goes without saying.

    It's right that we should all get behind Phil Thompson and urge the lads to go out there and do the business for their ailing boss. That goes without saying, too. But what's far more vital is that we all offer support for GH and his family at such a time as this. The rest of the season shouldn't matter right now. Let's just back him, send him and his family our best and wish him a speedy recovery.

    Liverpool Football Club can manage quite well without him for a while; but it will be a much better place once he's back in the dug-out, where a fit and healthy Gerard Houllier belongs.

    P.G.


     
  • The interview is a SUCCESS !!! 2001-10-16 10:22:14 It wasn't so bad after all. The manager is a frenly guy...it was almost like a chat rather than an Interview but hey i'm now a Insurance Advisor (agent thingy is a thing of the past) of Prudential. Now the tacky part of juggling it with my studies.
    The guy (ok he's now my manager) made some interesting comments abt Engineering students doing esp well with selling policies...hiak...i saw thru his trick right away...He's just trying to instill the 'if others can do it, i must not fail' kinda thinking into my mind
    No way i'm fallin for the "those pple are selling 50 policies a month , you shld be selling at least 20" crap

    ya rite.. 50 per month.. hey HELLO !!???
    its policies , not burgers yo are toking abt. Anyway , when I was telling him 20 per month is an impossible task esp in a recession. He shot back " we are a strange industry...we love a reccession ..we thrive in a recssion .."

    He's a strange guy all right.
     
  • Liverpool 1 - 1 Leeds United 2001-10-13 11:48:57 Robbie Fowler produced the moment of sublime skill to ensure Liverpool took a point from their Premiership clash with Leeds.


    Harry Kewell lashes in his 27th minute goal
    Fowler managed to find just the sort of magic moment that has been eluding him to set up the equaliser.

    Receiving the ball on the edge of the box, he spun to plant a delicate chip over Nigel Martyn the ball came back off the bar for Danny Murphy to gleefully head home.

    Leeds had earlier shown just why they are still unbeaten and setting such an impressive pace at the head of the table.

    They took a firm grip on the first half and took a deserved lead through Harry Kewell, although a deflection off Stephane Henchoz certainly helped.

    Robbie Keane saw one fierce drive deflected inches wide before Kewell gave Leeds a deserved lead.

    A 27th-minute corner swirled beyond the far post, Rio Ferdinand knocked it back into the danger area and Gary McAllister's poor header out fell for Kewell to rifle back a drive which deflected off Henchoz and crashed past Jerzy Dudek.

    For the rest of the half, Leeds stifled Liverpool's punchless attacks as the Anfield side struggled to find a balance in midfield.

    But after the break, Jari Litmanen, who had replaced Emile Heskey, provided much needed guile.

    Leeds were pushed back for the first time in the game, but apart from a fierce drive from the outstanding John Arne Riise, Martyn was not tested.

    That was until Fowler found the sort of skills which have been absent for much of the campaign.

    But even after Liverpool had pulled themselves level, it was Leeds who showed their character and class.

    They stormed back, forcing Liverpool back into their own box and Robbie Keane went close before Lee Bowyer fired over in the dying minutes.

    A cloud was cast over the match when Gerard Houllier was taken to hospital with chest pains.

    The Liverpool boss is believed to have experienced some discomfort during the first half.

    Houllier saw a doctor during the half-time period, and, as a precaution was taken to hospital.

    The 54-year-old was reported to have being sitting up and talking in the ambulance on route to hospital.




     
  • 3rd grade 2001-10-07 12:26:14 This is cool......I was thinking of something else =p


    A first-grade teacher was having trouble with one of her students.
    The teacher asked, "Harry what is your problem?"
    Harry answered,"I'm too smart for the first-grade. My sister is in the third -grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the third-grade too!"

    The teacher had had enough. She took Harry to the principal's office.
    While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told the teacher he would give the boy a test and if he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the first-grade and behave. The
    teacher agreed.

    Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agrees to take the test.

    Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"
    Harry: "9".

    Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"
    Harry: "36".

    And so it went with every question the principal thought a third-grade should know. The principal looks at the teacher and tells her, "I think Harry can go to the third-grade."

    The teacher says to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions?"
    The principal and Harry both agree,

    The teacher asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"
    Harry, after a moment, "Legs."

    Teacher: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"
    The principal wondered, why does she ask such a question !
    Harry replied, "Pockets."

    Now no reactions or special face symbols on Harry's face. He was so cool!

    Teacher: "What does a dog do that a man steps into?"
    Harry: "Pants"

    Teacher: What's starts with a C and ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and contains thin whitish liquid?
    Harry: Coconut

    The principal's eyes open really wide and before he could stop the answer, Harry was taking charge.

    Teacher: What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?
    Harry: Bubblegum

    Teacher: What does a man do standing up, a woman do sitting down and a dog do on three legs?
    Harry: Shake hands

    Teacher: What is that a woman has two and a cow has four?
    The principal's eyes open really wide and before he could stop the answer,
    Harry: legs

    Teacher: Now I will ask some "Who am I" sort of questions, answer me.
    Harry: Yep.

    Teacher: You stick your poles inside me. You tie me down to get me up. I get wet before you do.
    Harry: tent

    Teacher: A finger goes in me. You fiddle with me when you're bored. The best man always has me first.
    Principal was looking restless and bit tensed.
    Harry: wedding ring

    Teacher: I come in many sizes. When I'm not well, I drip. When you blow me, you feel good.
    Harry: nose

    Teacher: I have a stiff shaft. My tip penetrates. I come with a quiver.
    Harry: arrow

    Teacher: What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of excitement?
    Harry: "Firetruck"

    The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I missed the last ten questions myself."

     
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