Paul Tomkins is undecided ... 

I used to be undecided; now I'm not so sure ...

I used the think indecision was a sign of weakness. Now I know I'm wrong. There are some issues that are so complex that to simply plump for a straight yes or no is plain barmy (typed 'plain barmby' by habit, but that's clearly not the case. I couldn't spell the word camera correctly after Titi came to us - it was always 'camara').

The new stadium is one such issue. Forgive me if you've heard some of it before. But read what I have to say, and then go back to your existing view. If what I say sways you to think one particular way, then think again. It's really not that simple.

But if you're 100% decided on this either way, I'm surprised. It's like when people categorically slag-off a particular government (without getting political here). I've done it - you will have too. But how can you have an opinion on a government? You can have an opinion on how it affects you (am I richer/happier/healthier, etc, which is, I'd imagine, a selfish attitude - say, hypothetically speaking, 99.9% of the population feels England is a better place, but not you - how would you vote?). But unless you read every paper's political pages and listen to every minute of Parliamentary broadcasts and check out what is going on in EVERY local constituency around the country (isn't there six or seven hundred?), how can you KNOW what the government is like, beyond a superficial level?

This is why the new stadium is not an easy subject to have a clear-cut opinion on - it is a complex situation, involving the views of Liverpudlian Reds, of local non-football fans, of Out Of Town Supporters (OOTS). Then there are young fans, old fans, future fans (will there be more Reds in the year 2010?).

My opinion changes almost on a day-to-day basis. I don't think this makes me a weak person, but a strong person - I can see the merits of both (should that be all? as there are more than two) sides of the argument, and "the fence" seems the only logical, intelligent place to be positioned at times. I thought the stadium was a good idea until I read the superb article by Alan Edge, which is presented on this website. There was I, in love with the idea of a brand new spanking mini-Nou Camp (would we get a 3ft tall mini-Rivaldo as well?), when I read all the pros and cons of the Alan Edge article, and just got very confused! Suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea. So no, I didn't like the new stadium. Boo, hiss...

Then, like a lot of people (it seems), my view changed again at Cardiff. Like a wonderfully sexy woman who is both gorgeous and yet attainable, the Millennium Stadium seduced me. This wasn't Julia Roberts - out of my league. This was like some fit bird from Neighbours - saying she wanted me (okay, fit birds from Neighbours are also out of my league, but it's metaphorical; if I described all the fit women in my life, then a: the wife, Gill, would get the hump, and b: you would have a friggin clue who the hell I was talking about, therefore kinda negating my point).

I was not alone in thinking how great it would be for us - the Millennium Stadium transposed to Liverpool. After all, it was the size of the proposed new Anfield (give or take a couple of thousand). It proved that new seated stadia could possess everything necessary - a good view, and a brilliant atmosphere, at a good price in modern day building costs (if shite infrastructure in Cardiff's case, but that's irrelevant). My seat for the Worthington Cup final (I was on honeymoon for the FA Cup) was about six rows from the back of the top level, and yet the view was brilliant, and far better than my view when standing on a seat in the Olympic Stadium in Rome a month earlier. So there I am - I'm right with the pro-new-Anfield campaign. Where do I sign up?

But then there is the fact that Anfield was recently voted the best ground in the country by fans in general, in terms of history, facilities, atmosphere, etc. Building work on Anfield seems to have gone as far as it can, short of rebuilding the Main Stand, and even then it's not going to add more than a couple of thousand to the gates, so that rules out expansion. But look what the other fans think - they respect us because of our history. They love our home - and last season they didn't love it for the old reasons of the 1990s - i.e. they got three easy points there. We became mean, Anfield was a 'fortress' (cliché - © unknown), and yet they still went away, tails between legs, and voted our home the best around. So that's it - end of story. Anfield Forever, indeed!

But: bear in mind that Everton are planning to move to a state-of-the-art stadium in the Albert Docks. Apparently the plans they've drawn up are pretty special, according to a source in the building trade. Okay, they're never going to have a team worthy of gracing it, seeing as they're crap now, and having to sell their best players (I gather they are getting loads of European funding for the new Stadium, explaining away how they can actually afford it when they are in such massive debt). Can we stand them singing "shitty ground"? Or what about Leicester and Southampton fans singing "shitty ground"? The two worst grounds in the Premiership will soon be replaced by something altogether better. Perish the thought...

But does that mean you throw your heritage away to be up-to-date? Would you sell your soul for a flash new car?

The trouble is that there isn't one type of Liverpool fan, unlike in the 'proper' old days, when a Liverpool fan was a man who lived nearby and walked to Anfield. Football has changed, fans have changed. I travel 130 miles to Anfield for every home game, but I wouldn't expect my views to take precedence over local fans; but it would be nice if they were at least considered, having had a season ticket for four years (Do OOTS views' count? - surely all Liverpool fans views count, especially those that go to the games? And those that don't go still have every right to support Liverpool, even if I can't see that their views on this one topic should count too prominently, seeing as it doesn't affect them directly, only affecting the view they get of the ground on TV. Then again, if we got better/worse results due to improved/impaired atmosphere, then they'd be pretty happy/upset).

It would be 'good' if the ground was closer to the motorway - on a purely logistical level, for me personally (selfishly?) - but I don't want to have the ground moved just to suit me (do you think that's possible? Excuse me Rick, I can't be arsed driving all that way, so stick a new stadium by the M6, or, even better, in Leicester. There's some waste ground down the road from me, if that's okay?)

Sure, It's a pain at times getting near the ground to park, but I like the hubbub around Walton Breck Road on a matchday; I like the 'greasy spoon' café of Eileen's (which went up in class last season, with it's new, clean green-door decor). I'd probably like the pubs if it wasn't for the fact that having ME means I can't drink alcohol without serious side effects (what? you're supposed to get blurry vision and stagger? - I KNOW, I mean other stuff...). And having a southern accent and going into a matchday pub and ordering a Coca Cola (or worse - Diet Coke) is not my idea of a good time - especially seeing as I travel to the games with two mates, one of whom had a pulmonary embolism after a long haul flight and the blood clot would have killed him if it got to his heart - to cut a long story short, he has to take a drug called warfarin (a type of rat poison, apparently) to thin his blood, and cannot drink either. And the other guy is the driver! Yes, we are a merry band of hard-partying fans! Let's just say that we go for the love of the game and the banter and the crack and the bacon butties - not the drinking.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, it all very well relocating, but I hate 'new' stadia, such as Derby and Bolton and Stoke, where there's no soul to the surrounding area, just a big car park that takes three hours to get out of. I've yet to find anything resembling life nearby to one of these places, let alone a decent caff or alehouse.

One of the issues is the capacity. I've tried to imagine Cardiff's Millennium Stadium 95% full of Reds - and it's an impressive vision. But how often would we see it full to capacity? The Mancs, Everton - maybe Arsenal, Leeds and a team such as the Geordies if we're going well in the league and so were they, and they brought a few along, as they tend to. If we already had a 70,000 capacity this year, only Roma and Barcelona, from all the many cup-ties, would have played to a packed house. Most would have been played to less than half that. But if the 'lower bowl' was full, then that should guarantee an atmosphere, no? But for league games against teams of the stature of Southampton you will have season ticket holders dotted upper and lower, and lots of spaces elsewhere; including spaces where season ticket holders who pick and choose games decide not to bother.

If prices were lowered then maybe you could fill it easily on a regular basis - but (looking at it purely from the club's point of view) what is the point of building a 70,000 capacity stadium if you only make the exact same revenue from it? (i.e. more people at a reduced price), having paid £30 million or whatever to build it. Result: £30 million out of pocket.

It would be brilliant to have a packed stadium with cheaper tickets, but why would the club spend a fortune to do that? It doesn't make good business sense, and after all, football's a business - always has been, to some degree, seeing as players went for big fees (in real terms) even 100 years ago. If Parry and co. merely wanted the kudos of having the best stadium, then that is commendable - use the new place to attract the world's best players, and to give the fans and players something to be (even more) proud about. It's a positive thought, to enable more people to get to watch us - both due to there being more seats available, and those seats being more affordable. For me, it's all guesswork, though. Anfield usually sells out when we're going well in the league, whoever we're playing, and when we're not doing so well there might be one or two thousand empty seats. There were loads of empty seats on New Years Day against Southampton. There were empty seats on other days. Still, they must know from ticket demand what the potential audience is. I just hope they're not going on the season ticket waiting list, where most people have their name down about ten times, in various guises, and at various family and friends' addresses.

But 500,000 people turned up to the cavalcade (no, not the one where JFK got shot - keep up to date). But where are these people on matchdays? Are they really all kept at bay buy the inadequacies of both the ticket phone lines and the organisation of ticketing itself? If games are categorised, so that for the Mancs you pay a top tier price and for Southampton you pay a tenner, then surely you could fill the ground, make more money than having empty seats, and get a full-house atmosphere? So a new stadium with more people able to afford it - genius. I'll have some of that.

But Anfield is a special, special place. Regardless of what goes on around it. With stands and terraces coming and going over 100 years, that rectangle of pitch has always been in that very same spot. THAT area of the pitch is the exact spot Davie Fairclough slotted to make it 3-1 against St Etienne - you could mark it out today, it's still there. The turf - regardless that it is replaced annually (or bi-annually) - will always be laid over the same mud on God's earth that Kenny (God's finest) graced, or where God (Robbie, not the Big Man) curled a free kick past old Peter Red Nose in December 1995.

Those 6,000 square feet of land (or whatever it works out at), trapped within four painted touchlines, are where the legends of the past 100-odd years - the Anfield ghosts - still play after dark, when the stadium is empty and deathly silent. So if we were to move, that land would HAVE to remain one-hell of a special place (and not just become a block of flats). It should be a park (were the move to happen, and I'm not, of course, necessarily advocating that) - but a park with a hundred bronze statues: Bob, Bill, Joe, Kenny (no, not Joe Kenny! - make sure that comma's in there, Ed!), Rushie, Digger, Jockey, Robbie, Tosh, Keegan, Yeats, Hunt, Liddel, Clem, Stubbins, Ronnie Moran, and on and on and on. These guys should always inhabit that specific area of this world: L4. For that is their home. And you don't bulldoze a great man's home - not if you can help it.

© Paul Tomkins 2001. This article originally appeared at Shankly Gates