Topic: The Anfield Wrap

[Notfromaroundhere]

Excellent interview with Rick Parry. Great stuff.

[TSC]

Parry interview is fascinating. Feel like it could've gone on twice as long and still be interesting.

What did he have to say if it can be summed up succinctly?

[XabiArt]

What did he have to say if it can be summed up succinctly?

He said he can't believe that for just £5 a month with so much to offer, TSC doesnt have a subscription yet.


(I should get a free month for adverts like that)

[red mongoose]

I've just subscribed to the thingie. I was having a look around the website and it seems like we can listen to all the podcasts - pay and free - right on there. Is that right? The podcast part of my iTunes is a bit dodgy.

[Stussy]

listening to the Parry podcast

You guys are doing very important work

Christ, listening to the inside word on all the stuff that was driving us insane and crazy just a few years ago

[Brentieke]

Amazing work with that Parry interview boys. Really impressive. Would love if you could do a follow up with a q/a section.

[kennedy81]

listening to the Parry podcast

You guys are doing very important work

Christ, listening to the inside word on all the stuff that was driving us insane and crazy just a few years ago

Yeah, a fascinating listen. For anyone writing a history of the club in the PL era, that would be gold.

Amazing how close the DIC deal came. Parry seemed disconcerted at the time about how they were dragging their feet when he would have expected them to be more efficient in getting the deal done. According to this article...

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/we-nearly-bought-liverpool-for-360m-reveals-former-dic-boss-562364.html

"What delayed us (DIC) is because everyone knew Sameer was a lifelong fan of Liverpool, including His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. So we did three times the amount of due diligence as I had to prove the business sense and there were very few clubs frankly where you can make a business sense.”


That Robert Kraft story was interesting too. Great show all round.

[RMG]

Is their an option to pay the £60 up front instead of paying a fiver a month like?

Would rather just have it paid for straight away than pay monthly.

[John C]

Tried it on 5 different days. Keeps saying "You cannot complete this action on the card you have selected. Please select another card."

Which is really weird since I used the same card and made a donation to RAWK through Paypal, and it had no issues then. That's the only other thing I've used Paypal for. Am I doing something wrong?

Unless Any confirms there's a problem with certain cards then you must be mate. I don't know the answer .....and you've gone 'n missed the Parry interview!

[John C]

I echo everything everyone has said about the Parry interview, it was quite compulsive listening. Kudos to TAW again for delivering something fantastic and in particular for dispelling the "what are we paying for in the summer" theory.

There's just one thing about the interview that left a gap for me created by the understandable eagerness to ask questions - Parry & Moores where talking to Gillet alone next thing they're arranging the take over press conference with Hicks on board - there was no explanation about how Hicks got drawn in.

To say it was all completely fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable would be an understatement. Excellent stuff.

[thekitkatshuffler]

This week's AFQ did a sterling job of refuting the "middle class TAW" shouts.

Hit the beach and have yourselves a nice game of Kubb, everyone! 

[Iska]

This week's AFQ did a sterling job of refuting the "middle class TAW" shouts.

What 'middle class TAW' shouts?  Anyway, wasn't it recorded at Glastonbury?  It's hardly live from the Jarrow Crusade.

[Stussy]

reminder of admiration due to Rafael Benitez holding the club together during that period of turmoil listening to that Parry interview

[Yiannis]

And how he says `this idea` in every single sentence.

' i.e.'

[Fitzy.]

The Parry interview was arguably the most compelling thing TAW have done. Credit to Parry for giving the interview - a useful exercise for him to get his story out there to fans. It's his version of events which he's entitled to.

Highlights:
- Hicks attitude from the start was alarming
- DIC being awkward and Moores not budging
- Gerrard's u-turn
- The Barry fiasco
- Kraft pulling out

The questioning was intelligent and timely - mostly just let Parry talk.

[number 168]

The Parry interview was arguably the most compelling thing TAW have done. Credit to Parry for giving the interview - a useful exercise for him to get his story out there to fans. It's his version of events which he's entitled to.

Highlights:
- Hicks attitude from the start was alarming
- DIC being awkward and Moores not budging
- Gerrard's u-turn
- The Barry fiasco
- Kraft pulling out

The questioning was intelligent and timely - mostly just let Parry talk.

Also the implied managerial brilliance of Rafa.

[markedasred]

I felt myself doing a U turn on my opinion of Parry as he explained stuff. If we can accept what he said on face value, we as a fan base painted him wrong.

[Notfromaroundhere]

The Parry interview was arguably the most compelling thing TAW have done. Credit to Parry for giving the interview - a useful exercise for him to get his story out there to fans. It's his version of events which he's entitled to.

Highlights:
- Hicks attitude from the start was alarming
- DIC being awkward and Moores not budging
- Gerrard's u-turn
- The Barry fiasco
- Kraft pulling out

The questioning was intelligent and timely - mostly just let Parry talk.

Also, the decision to not sign Dani Alves because €12m was deemed to expensive in relation to the budget and other business Benitez wanted to do. Sounds crazy today - especially since we know how much Barca paid two years later. But as Parry more or less says in the interview, it's pointless to judge these types of decisions now several years later.

[Pistolero]

I felt myself doing a U turn on my opinion of Parry as he explained stuff. If we can accept what he said on face value, we as a fan base painted him wrong.

I'm sure the £3M golden handshake helped to ease his pain....

[Raaphael]

Very interesting. Very, very interesting. And Parry sounds like a decent guy to be fair.

[Steele_uk]

If you subscribe, do you get access to the previous month? Would quite like to hear the parry and the Journo interviews.

[Kopenhagen]

If you subscribe, do you get access to the previous month? Would quite like to hear the parry and the Journo interviews.

Yes, it's all archived.

[Don Vito Corleone]

If you subscribe, do you get access to the previous month? Would quite like to hear the parry and the Journo interviews.

Yeah, all previous shows accessible.

[RMG]

Is their an option to pay the £60 up front instead of paying a fiver a month like?

Would rather just have it paid for straight away than pay monthly.

Anyone?

[Iska]

As I recall there deliberately isn't that option, basically because they're taking a flier without knowing for sure that it's going to be sustainable.  Signs are good I gather, but quite rightly they won't allow people to pay a year upfront for something that might not last.

[RMG]

As I recall there deliberately isn't that option, basically because they're taking a flier without knowing for sure that it's going to be sustainable.  Signs are good I gather, but quite rightly they won't allow people to pay a year upfront for something that might not last.

Fair enough, hopefully in the future they could have 1 month, 3 months, 6 months and a years option.

Seems to be doing really well.

[thekitkatshuffler]

What 'middle class TAW' shouts?  Anyway, wasn't it recorded at Glastonbury?  It's hardly live from the Jarrow Crusade.

Just to be clear, I'm not having a go at them IN ANY WAY.  I love TAW and most of its participants.  Just thought AFQ was funny after reading that tweet convo. 

And by the way, Glasto at £200 a ticket (£565 in total spent per person on average for a long weekend) is hardly working class.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Just to be clear, I'm not having a go at them IN ANY WAY.  I love TAW and most of its participants.  Just thought AFQ was funny after reading that tweet convo. 

And by the way, Glasto at £200 a ticket (£565 in total spent per person on average for a long weekend) is hardly working class.

Half of Liverpool is in Glasto!!!!

[Fitzy.]

TAW is often pretty erudite and cerebral in comparison to much of the football parlance we are subjected to across the media. Not sure that should tie it to a social class; it simply means it's leaving other outlets in their wake - the ones that are fuelled by speculation, sensational headlines and froth. 

[kennedy81]

I don't get all this nonsense about TAW being 'middle class', whatever that it these days. Seems like a ridiculous criticism to me.

[JamesG L4]

Anybody who thinks the fact that Neil and the lads are actually engaging with football on a level above grunt-grunt-regurgitate-Sky-soundbite-bullshit means they can be dumbed down as "middle class" is fundamentally betraying the concept of an educated working class and needs to read some Gramsci.

Engaging with football the way TAW does, for me, fundamentally takes the middle class hegemony of Sky Sports and exposes it as the click bait drivel it is - and, for me, that should be what an educated working class should be doing.

[vivabobbygraham]

Anybody who thinks the fact that Neil and the lads are actually engaging with football on a level above grunt-grunt-regurgitate-Sky-soundbite-bullshit means they can be dumbed down as "middle class" is fundamentally betraying the concept of an educated working class and needs to read some Gramsci.

Engaging with football the way TAW does, for me, fundamentally takes the middle class hegemony of Sky and The Sun and exposes it as the click bait drivel it is - and, for me, that should be what an educated working class should be doing.

Good lad. You don't post nearly enough

[Alf]

Is their an option to pay the £60 up front instead of paying a fiver a month like?

Would rather just have it paid for straight away than pay monthly.

Likewise, anybody know?

[Don Vito Corleone]

Likewise, anybody know?

Not yet mate, possibly/likely in the future, relatively soon

Simple reason we don't now is because we didn't want to take people's money and then fold after a few months.

[kennedy81]

Anybody who thinks the fact that Neil and the lads are actually engaging with football on a level above grunt-grunt-regurgitate-Sky-soundbite-bullshit means they can be dumbed down as "middle class" is fundamentally betraying the concept of an educated working class and needs to read some Gramsci.

Engaging with football the way TAW does, for me, fundamentally takes the middle class hegemony of Sky Sports and exposes it as the click bait drivel it is - and, for me, that should be what an educated working class should be doing.

Very well put.

[Paul-LFC]

Not yet mate, possibly/likely in the future, relatively soon

Simple reason we don't now is because we didn't want to take people's money and then fold after a few months.

Glad to hear it's likely, because I assume we can infer from that that the subscription model has been successful enough to mean the survival of TAW is assured long enough for a yearly subscription to be viable to offer? If so then very glad to hear that as the level and amount of content has been fantastic.

The one small bit of feedback I have is that on some shows, particularly ones where there are guests on the phone, the sound levels can sometimes seem a bit unbalanced - anyone in the studio will sound much louder than those on the phone, for example the Honigstein Firmino interview (which was great by the way, more of those whenever possible please). It's possible this is just the speakers / headphones I was listening on though and not the audio itself.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Glad to hear it's likely, because I assume we can infer from that that the subscription model has been successful enough to mean the survival of TAW is assured long enough for a yearly subscription to be viable to offer? If so then very glad to hear that as the level and amount of content has been fantastic.

The one small bit of feedback I have is that on some shows, particularly ones where there are guests on the phone, the sound levels can sometimes seem a bit unbalanced - anyone in the studio will sound much louder than those on the phone, for example the Honigstein Firmino interview (which was great by the way, more of those whenever possible please). It's possible this is just the speakers / headphones I was listening on though and not the audio itself.

No mate, you're absolutely spot on in regards to the phone issue.

It frustrates the life out of me as the production is my bag but its not something I can get involved in as its not our ADSL line and I don't control the technical aspects of anything done in the studio we use for phone interviews.

Unfortunately, at the moment, it is what it is but without going into too much detail, we'll have a solution to this fairly soon(ish).

[armchair-fan]

I finally had a chance to listen to the Parry interview.  Fascinating stuff.  I actually began to feel for him a little bit, prior to that I'd always bought into the idea that he was a clown.  Likewise, since '07 when I first read in the papers about the prospect of DIC buying the club, I had the idea in my head that had they bought us then, it would have seen us sailing off into the stratosphere, Man City style, but assuming what Parry said was close to the truth, it sounds as though they really fucked about, and that they wouldn't have been the dream owners I imagined them to be.  It's always good to hear a different perspective.

I had feared that TAW Player might prove to be too much of a good thing, but the shows seem to be going from strength to strength.

As for the 'middle class' shout, that's about the last thing that springs to my mind about the Wrap crowd.  It's funny that being called 'middle class' is regarded as such an insult anyway.  I couldn't really care less if Neil grew up in a leafy suburb or if Rob Gutmann went to Eton, as long as the shows provide the insights they do right now.

[Crosby Nick]

I finally had a chance to listen to the Parry interview.  Fascinating stuff.  I actually began to feel for him a little bit, prior to that I'd always bought into the idea that he was a clown.

I know what you mean. He sounds disconcertingly like an older Michael Owen though which was hard to shake off.

Hard to imagine how it must have felt to go from being probably quite a close little working unit to having Hicks and Gillett and their respective entourages suddenly calling the shots.

[Fitzy.]

Really enjoying the 95/96 shows in terms of the approach they have taken. Unlike the recent seasons where a lot of focus has been given to details of the games, players and managerial tactics these shows have been broader in their scope. They have offered more analysis around the changing nature of football in this era and how it was intrinsically linked to cultural influences of the early to mid-90s.  By presenting the shows in this way they're not so much analysing the football of a particular season but rather they are offering an historical evaluation of why Liverpool find themselves in 2015 without a trophy in 25 years; pulling together the reasons why United pulled away from us in the early Sky era - the reality of which stings a little.

That's not to say the football chat is redundant (there's some great stuf on the likes of Fowler and Macca), it's just that the reality of talking about 20 year old football matches is a bit less interesting than offering broader analysis that the modern day listener can hang their hat on.

Great work.