The Kop looks to the future to reclaim Anfield's glorious past
Dec 15 2006
MIKE CHAPPLE reports on a new campaign to retain part of Liverpool FC's illustrious heritage
By Mike Chapple, Daily Post
THE proposed £450m takeover at Anfield may have some Liverpool fans optimistically looking towards the future.
But at grass roots level there's a growing worry that the club's traditions are being swamped by an influx of newer fans ignorant to what has gone before.
This is of particular concern on The Kop.
Always the beating heart of the club, it came to prominence during the Shankly era of the '60s.
Then it was almost exclusively populated by locally-born working class males who prided themselves with introducing innovative anthemic chants to the grounds of the English Football League and, despite their vociferous partisan support, retaining a sense of fair play to any opposition that showed its worth.
But the organisers of a new campaign group - Reclaim The Kop - believe these core values are becoming eroded by a newer generation of fans, many of whom travel to the ground from other areas of the country and who are ignorant of the old ways.
Merseyside-born writer and passionate Liverpool fan Kevin Sampson is widely acknowledged to be one of the founders of RTK.
Matters came to ahead after the home game against Bordeaux, when sections of the crowd taunted the 3,000 French fans in the Anfield Road end with the standardised chants of "who areya?" "eas-eh" and "you're not singing anymore"
"Seasoned heads were shook - it was embarrassing," explained 43-year-old Sampson. "These fans had welcomed travelling Reds for our away game, and here, at Anfield, we were ridiculing them.
This was NOT the Liverpool Way.
We led from the front. We never followed. Take a look now. The Kop is a sad shadow of its former self. From such a unique position of grandeur, it could be argued we are now merely a clone of any other English league team.
"Be it pop music, terrace chanting, fashions; we were pioneers in the British game. This was the breaking point; an indication of the depths to which some of our supporthas sunk. It was time to take a stand and speak out.
"The creeping commercialisation of the game has seen a deliberate attempt to move it away from its roots, and market it as wacky family entertainment. But football isn't entertainment. It's not a night at the multiplex or a theme park. Football is at the very heart of who we are. It's not ac ommercial choice which team you support - at least it should never be with Liverpool.
"And forget all that Local Support v Out of Towners debate. A supporter is a supporter no matter where they come from just so long as they've had their education. This is where were are falling down."
Another popular local writer and ardent Reds fan, Dave Kirby, the man behind Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels, is actively backing the campaign.
"It was 1965 when my dad first took me to Anfield. My abiding memory from that day is of the mass colour and incredible raucous atmosphere that emanated from the Kop. To a six-year old kid it was spellbinding.
"I eventually made the transition from boys' pen to Kopite and spent most of my teenage years standing on a barrier singing in the middle of the Kop before moving nearer to the corner flag with 15 of my mates."
Thirty-five years later, and Dave took his own then six-year-old son Daniel to his first home game, this time against Ipswich Town.
Dave, 47, remembered: "I was hoping my son would take away a special memory like I did all those years before. He did. Unfortunately, it was nothing to do with the match or non-existent atmosphere; it was of Jesters Hats, which had just come on the scene around that time and which for me symbolise the way the modern game has gone.
"Most of my mates now watch the game in the bars around Kirkby. I recently went to the Falcon pub to watch a match and the atmosphere was better than at most games at Anfield. Like most old Kopites, they are the true working class fans who made the Kop so special, but have sadly been priced-out."
There have already been meetings involving Reclaim The Kop campaign supporters in city pubs and this game plan of "education" evolved as Sampson explained.
"I woke up after the Bordeaux game feeling very angry and depressed, but when the anger subsided I realised that there were loads of people who come to the game who literally didn't know what to do," explained Sampson.
"But I think they do want to be part of it; it's just that they need to be told how it should be done. "What we want is to have the Kop the way it was for Chelsea in the European Cup semi final and keep it that way for every game. The Kop became special because it was different. We can make it special again."
The campaign proper will start with a leaflet campaign at the home game against Bolton on New Year's Day.
"2007 is the year of Liverpool's 800th anniversary and we thought that the game on January 1 would make for an appropriate symbolic start," said Sampson, who said that RTK had the full support of Rick Parry and the club management.
There will be a 10-week information series on the club's official website which will include a teach yourself Kop songs karaoke feature, complete with bouncing ball prompter.
"I'd love nothing more than to hear that famous roar again or to stop asking the day-trippers who sit in front of me could they wait till half-time before standing up and taking photos. But my fear is that the days we're all so desperate to recapture were lost forever when football sold its soul.
"I don't think any of us ever dreamed that one day we'd be talking about educating our own."
(Link is very long and don't know how to wrap into a 'click here')
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The tone of this is totally wrong in my opinion. Too much emphasis on OOTs v working class scousers. Doesn't make RTK sound very inclusive does it? It comes across as arrogant. Is this Sampson's fault of the Post's? Seems to be the Post who put in the "many of them come from far away blah blah blah.." but surely Sampson would have approved it before publishing?
I can see many locals now reading this and getting the wrong idea due to the tone of it. Nice to see it getting proper publicity but there's a danger of this being taken the wrong way.
Thoughts?
