Listened to a lot of podcasts about Liverpool over the last week or so and one of them was talking about the negatives at LFC at the moment (think it was the Guardian one).
The obvious issue they brought up was the Women's team.
I haven't ever followed the Women's team before as I have also felt I watch too much football anyway and need to cut back if anything, not add more to my life.
However, it is very jarring at the moment that the men's team is doing so well but then the women's team is getting relegated. Looking at some of the teams in the second division, it is embarrassing that a team of our size is playing in that league.
The talk on the podcast was how do we make this a wake up call for the club as a whole and how do we use the fanbase to force through change.
They mentioned on the podcast that we have been so successful in changing the owner's minds with the ticket price rises and the furlough issue. I think if the fans and SOS got behind the issue we could really get some change. The amount of money required to change it is a drop of the ocean in terms of our overall budget for the club.
I think it is shocking that we can't incorporate them at Kirby.
Also with all the Liverpool fans in the city who can't get to games regularly and the amount of women interested in football in the City, it would be great if we could be the best supported club in the country. There is no reason for us not to be apart from the fact we can't even find a ground in the city.
What can be done, other than just going to the games, to get a campaign going on this issue?
I know the likes of SOS will already have their own lines of communication with the club which they could just go right ahead and use as they would for any other matter they wished to see addressed - but it's vital that any action taken over the women's team involves the fans of the women's team who have been around for years, and seen their own attempts to make the club change tack repeatedly fall on deaf ears.
The likes of SOS need to use their platform to amplify the voices of those fans and get their aims over the line - rather than have an entirely new effort start, led by someone else; who to some extent, is only doing it because they feel they should as opposed to acting out of a deep-rooted, personal passion for the cause.
Those fans will better understand the landscape of the sport. Will also know our backstory far better than anyone else and will be able to provide all kinds of insight, a lot of which the club probably doesn't even realise they have been privy to, such is the grapevine nature of the women's game. And they are known to the club too (or the women's side of it, at least), so it would be a double-pronged attack if they are involved. More than anything else, after seven years of being fobbed off, they will spot further bullshit a mile off.
It's a shame covid derailed as much as it did, because had that not been the case - once the men's team had wrapped up the league, there would have been little to no reason not to acknowledge the plight of the women's team during at least one remaining Anfield match. They could have been spared five minutes and a banner, just to kick things off.