Author Topic: Symphony Number Six?  (Read 5473 times)

Offline Garstonite

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Symphony Number Six?
« on: May 22, 2007, 06:00:43 pm »
The great Bill Shankly is responsible for many great quotations, which are still perfectly relevant today, despite the alterations football has undertaken since the days he traipsed pitch-side at Anfield with his desires to develop his Liverpool side into ‘a bastion of invincibility’.

Thousands of fans who have made the pilgrimage to the Olympic Stadium, as they did to the Attaturk two years ago, would happily agree with perhaps his most quote of all, that ‘football in not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important that that’. Football loses people jobs. Splits marriages. Bankrupts them for life. It puts people on an emotional roller-coaster, from the lows of relegation, to the highs of unmatched life experiences such as Istanbul. You ask people who were there that night whether it was worth it. They’ll say you bet your bloody life it was!

Such a perfectionist as Benitez won’t put up any arguments over his philosophy that, ‘first is first, and second is nothing’, either. Win, lose or draw in Athens, Benitez will come home just as determined to plan a proper assault on the Premiership title next campaign. Many of you will have seen the video from Spanish television that displays the technological set-up Benitez possesses at Anfield and Melwood, and read the quote from Paco Lloret’s book on the Spaniard’s time at Valencia, saying ‘he would lose track of time’ scrupulously studying opposition tactics. You'll recognise this dedication as being akin to Shankly’s. It may be an old cliché, but if ever there were men that ‘breathe football’, it is Benitez, and it was Shankly.

Indeed, the quote from Tommy Docherty on Bill Shankly appears to be equally applicable to our modern-day manager: ‘If he [Shankly] had been paid overtime, he would be a millionaire’.

For me, though, the greatest Shankly quote of all time is one that will forever be appropriate to football. Even in the year 2900, when managers select their players’ attributes from a database to convey into metal androids internal storage capacities in preparation for the inter-galactic Championship, I have absolutely no doubts that this will remain relevant:

‘If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden I’d draw the curtains.’

I have no doubts at all.

OK, in seriousness, here is the quote I really had in mind: ‘Football is like a piano. You need eight people to carry it, and three people to play the damn thing!’ I feel this is so true, I believe every manager, at every level, should use it as a platform to work from. You need grafters, but you also need a small number of players that prove the difference between winning and drawing or losing.

Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean the eight people carrying the piano play like a toddler on Prozac: they can be Rick Wakeman’s or Keith Emerson’s, leaving the Joplin’s and Liberace’s to flaunt more extravagantly.

It’s a basic rule of thumb that has helped significantly in securing our past successes in Europe. Rome ’77, our pianists, I’m sure many would agree, were Case, Keegan and Heighway. Wembley ’78, we had Case and Heighway again, with Dalglish replacing Keegan. Paris 1981 is an intriguing one, for we didn’t particularly have any stand-out ‘pianists’ with the exception, of course, of Dalglish. Case played a smaller role which left the responsibility on the shoulders of Souness and McDermott, who played key roles, scoring frequently in the rounds leading up to the final to make the transition into more adventurous forces. In Rome ’84, we had Dalglish, Rush and Whelan (with an honourable mention to Craig Johnston) and, eventually, Istanbul ’05, the responsibility fell to Garcia, Baros and Kew… er, Smicer.

So who will it be today? With Rafa’s infamous rotation policy, who knows? Kuyt, Crouch, Bellamy, Kewell, Pennant… perhaps we will even see the transition of Gerrard into one of these, just like, in my humble opinion of course, McDermott and Souness did in ’81.

People argue that winning the European Cup is a tougher test of a team’s mental resolve and it is no real surprise that Benitez has kept a core of seven or eight players throughout the European campaign. Reina, Finnan, Agger, Carragher, Alonso, Gerrard, Sissoko/Mascherano, Kuyt… Players that are well-drilled tactically and know precisely what is required of them from the manager.

Next season, with the financial investment and the pulling-power that a European Cup brings, we can add serious quality to our team. Last time round, in 2005, perhaps squad rebuilding stood in the way of the possibility of adding Chopin’s and Beethoven’s to our squad, but we are in a position to bring them in now and the key to sustaining our hopes is to keep allowing the unsung and undervalued amongst our squad get on with their business quietly and when possible, they can have a go on the grand piano that is this club, LFC.

Come on Redmen!

© Garstonite 2007
« Last Edit: May 23, 2007, 10:29:25 am by Rushian »

Offline CalvinMalteseRed

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2007, 07:31:53 pm »
Is right Garstonite. Really good piece lad.
OH CAMPIONE
THE ONE AND ONLY
WE'RE LIVERPOOL....

THEY SAY OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED, WE'RE NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE
BUT SCOUSERS RULE THE COUNTRY LIKE WE'VE ALWAYS DONE BEFORE...

Shankly built a football team that shook the spion Kop!
We've conquered all of Europe and we're never gonna stop!

*****
JFT96
Free Michael Shields!
Don't buy the s*n

Offline KopJemma83

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2007, 08:11:13 pm »
Eto, Alves and Gamst-Pedersen???

Great philosophy, let's see who are Beethoven and chopin turn out to be???

At a football club, there’s a holy trinity, the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don’t come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques - Bill Shankly

Offline Merlock

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2007, 08:59:29 pm »
Let's just hope the scenes are pastoral (Beethoven) rather than pathetic (Tchaikovsky) let alone tragic (Mahler).
I made a post.

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2007, 09:00:49 pm »
Great read G, but admit it...






































































you meant to post this tomorrow didn't yer ;D

So who will it be tonight?
Please take a look at my latest blog for theredmentv "Dispelling the Rodgers/Martinez myth" http://www.theredmentv.com/blog/p/263 All other blogs can be read at www.theredmentv.com/blog Let me know your thoughts

Offline Garstonite

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2007, 09:09:48 pm »
Great read G, but admit it..







you meant to post this tomorrow didn't yer ;D


I was testing you. You passed. I can safely say it's the first time I have ever been premature in my life. Honest.

Offline woof

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2007, 09:10:51 pm »
You've got SIX appeal

Offline Rossie

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2007, 09:40:11 pm »
"Some people cannot see a priest on a mountain of sugar."  Rafa Benitez, 01/Nov/'10.

Offline John C

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2007, 10:09:36 pm »
Superb

Offline Garstonite

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2007, 10:15:06 am »
I'm also convinced Garcia's a Stevie Wonder. Capable of brilliance but his blindness makes him partial to the odd error.

Offline hooded claw

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2007, 10:16:43 am »
I wonder who is on Rafa's Chopin list.

Offline Garstonite

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2007, 10:17:53 am »
I wonder who is on Rafa's Chopin list.

Don't you mean his Chopin Liszt?

Offline hooded claw

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #12 on: May 23, 2007, 10:19:38 am »
Don't you mean his Chopin Liszt?

'And he tucks it away beautifully!'

 ;)

Offline WOOLTONIAN

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Re: Symphony Number SIX
« Reply #13 on: May 23, 2007, 10:28:19 am »
Symphony Number SIX - PASTORAL wasn't it
and it was LUDVIG Camper-VAN BEET

heres a link to the five sections

http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym6.html

Think the Fifth movement will be the one most recognise.
Fifth as in "V" as in Victory

Number SIX when I was a lad were the cheapest fags and sold loose
1p each
FUCK I'M OLD !!
« Last Edit: May 23, 2007, 10:36:50 am by WOOLTONIAN »
Living descendant of Sir Thomas Brodrick, Vice Admiral of the Red in the 18th Century

Offline mercury

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Re: Symphony Number Six?
« Reply #14 on: May 23, 2007, 10:34:44 am »
Great read! 

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Re: Symphony Number Six?
« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2007, 07:37:24 pm »
so what would Shanks have thought about a European Cup pre-match extravaganza including dudes in black t-shirts and sunglasses, worn at night in a nod to Corey Hart, I suppose, banging on trash cans, sorry, dustbins, with day-glow orange drum-stick thingies?

must be said, i'm bricking it... :P
Since haste quite Schorsch, but Liverpool are genuine fight pigs...

Offline Garstonite

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Re: Symphony Number Six?
« Reply #16 on: May 23, 2007, 11:41:30 pm »
Will someone tell whoever wrote this he is a jinxing bell-end?  :no

Offline kesey

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Re: Symphony Number Six?
« Reply #17 on: May 24, 2007, 06:43:37 am »
Will someone tell whoever wrote this he is a jinxing bell-end?  :no




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