Topic: The Liverpool Way

[horne]

using a rafa-ism i would also say its about knowing how to tickle the lady of luck

[Raul!]

Its that classic thing. If you need to ask what it is, you don't have it. Unfair that maybe, but in a way its true. And what Stussy has put is the eternal battle to continue and perpetuate the ways to our children and so on.

This I can agree with.

Given my background, I don't by definition have all the building blocks of it Hinesy but I would like to think that it embodies the ideas of decency, excellence, fun, respect and Shanklyesque collective socialism, in the context of playing and winning football matches that are accessible to many of us from further afield.

I have found that over the years, I have naturally been drawn to others who I think believe in the Liverpool way too. 

By the same coin though, you can usually tell what is not the Liverpool Way and I am afraid our current manager does not follow it - not on the pitch and not off it.  Asking to get rid of him through abuse and chanting is unacceptable and is also not the Liverpool Way but if we want the harm that has been done to it by the past regime who had no clue about it (and got rid of the one man at the club who did) we need to start afresh with someone else who might take us up Liverpool Way again.

[Hinesy]

Fair point Raul mate.

[Barney_Rubble]

Asking to get rid of him through abuse and chanting is unacceptable and is also not the Liverpool Way but if we want the harm that has been done to it by the past regime who had no clue about it (and got rid of the one man at the club who did) we need to start afresh with someone else who might take us up Liverpool Way again.

We should be able to trust that the club will know when to make any decision.

It helps that those at the club understand what The Liverpool Way is though, of course...

[Stussy]

We should be able to trust that the club will know when to make any decision.

It helps that those at the club understand what The Liverpool Way is though, of course...

This sums up to me what the problem is about where we are now.

We've only been liberated for a week now. It was the Friday before last that we got rid of Hicks and the other one. And for two and half years now, there has been no trust in the club. There has been hatred, betrayal, disgust, anger.

If the Liverpool Way takes its cue from the club, it was replaced by venom, poison, avarice, lies, deception over the last three years.

I think something of our spirit and soul has been battered. We are disoriented. And trying to keep the flame of The Liverpool Way going ourselves, when the club itself has been an offence against it, and has spat on it for so long, has left us feeling depressed, dispirited, and wondering about our identity and sense of self.

Re-establishing that trust is something that the club needs to understand, and it will be the most important part in our recovery as a support and as a club.

When we can say, 'They just get it', without having to explain what 'it' means, is when we'll know that the owners and the club are back on the level, that our equilibrium has been found.

Also the fact that this thing called The Liverpool Way exists and is being talked about, shows that we still have a soul after all that has happened and after all that has changed over the decades.

[Juanyboy]

Best post I have on the subject recently:

godfather part 2 frankie five angels mems

"do the right thing"

[RedinExile]

I had my rant in Hinesy's opinion post but it's more about TLW really...

We have seen TLW in action very recently - putting as much pressure as we could to force the yanks out. A lot of that came from the internet crowd and was famously cited by Hicks himself. That some couldn't be arsed to fight is hard to fathom though, that's true.

I dismayed at the booing when we went top of the league, and you do wonder and worry why so many fans bought the bollocks from the club and media about Rafa last season. I also queried the official site and its worst managerial mistakes in our history bollocks; hardly an anthem to get behind in times of trouble.

The reason Rafa is so loved is that he seemed to embody the Liverpool Way to many, and his firing whilst on holiday was the very antithesis of the way we should behave as a club. Oddly, this criticism seems to enrage some dumb fuckers from their slumbering hypocrisy, who insist on the 'give the manager time' bollocks now. The time for that was last season, wakey wakey.

I also read a post from another old timer whose take on Liverpool is that of an underdog capable of giving the odd bloody nose. But I have to respectfully disagree - for me TLW is about straining every sinew to be the fucking best, and we were, then being gracious and modest in victory, before starting all over again.

It's not about where you live either in the absolute sense; someone from Croydon risking the sack by pulling a sicky just to get up in the small hours and travel up for the Northampton game 'gets it' more than someone from Kirkdale moaning about how Rafa fucked the whole club up.

A main worry for me is the media - universally loathed once upon a time, you can tell some of our following are wetting their knickers whenever Soccer Saturday rolls out the party line - too many of our support lap-up national opinion of us, whereas back in the day it would have been met with a big Fuck You response.

You also have to ask questions of those who never have to fucking answer for anything, our dear multimillionaire players. They have very little in common with the average supporter - you only have to look at what a big-headed twat Rooney was being weeks after shagging a prozzy and months after slagging his own fans off during his shite World Cup. Perhaps if our own big-name local lads had not left the vocal support and owner fighting to the Spanish contingent I might have more affinity with them; although I suspect they had a large part in bringing Roy - fantastic move there.

TLW isn't, as far as I'm concerned, about unswerving support of a manager performing poorly or a player picked on reputation. Some of the hysteria you get on here when Carragher is rightly criticised is unbelievable; however, there is no excuse for calling the managers/players a c*nt and that kind of thing. All of them are very lucky to be getting paid vast sums for something millions would do for free.

It's time for a thorough cleansing of the wound now the primary infection has been treated; in this period specifically, I think we're all fully entitled to ask difficult questions, yes even of our heroes, and get some fucking honest answers. Then we can set-about uniting, building and conquering once again.

Sorry longer than intended and obviously just mpov.

[Raul!]

We should be able to trust that the club will know when to make any decision.

It helps that those at the club understand what The Liverpool Way is though, of course...

Absolutely.  And that lack of trust which is why people like yours truly are asking for things that they have never asked for in the past.  These are exceptional circumstances Barney and they need special measures. 

[xerxes1]

TLW is now in the hands of baseball and nascar fans hoping to make a profit out of us, cross your fingers and hope.

[CHOPPER]

TLW is now in the hands of baseball and nascar fans hoping to make a profit out of us, cross your fingers and hope.

No it isn't, the 'Way' is held by us the fans. It's how we conduct oursleves that shapes the 'Way'.

[Hinesy]

No it isn't, the 'Way' is held by us the fans. It's how we conduct oursleves that shapes the 'Way'.

hear hear

[Barney_Rubble]

The song You'll Never Walk Alone is an excellent exposition on 'The Liverpool Way'.

[jordiemclfc]

Don't reaally want to bring this up again. But he needs to stay at least until Christmas. He deserves more of a chance and I still believe he can deliver. That's the liverpool way guys.

[BOBSCOUSE]

TLW is now in the hands of baseball and nascar fans hoping to make a profit out of us, cross your fingers and hope.

My god, I could scour the universe looking under every stone or object , beneath the shadow cast by a blade of grass - I still don't think I could find something so far removed and irrelevant to "The Liverpool Way".  You sir, are a fricking genius........

[johnw]

He was appointed as a stopgap by the last owners. His lack of understanding of what we are is unsurprising but seriously irritating. His time is over but as fans, we just need to work out how to ensure this happens quickly without losing our class.
I am impatient and I can't trust myself not to let frustration lead me to open anger at game tomorrow.
Kenny as caretaker through rest of season as soon as possible.

[Rafa_La]

TLW is now in the hands of baseball and nascar fans hoping to make a profit out of us, cross your fingers and hope.

  That's defeatist. Why hand the responsbility to them?

 While there are supporters, there is The Liverpool Way.

Not been here long enough to understand where you are coming from in some of your posts to be honest

[redbyrdz]

The Liverpool Way and supporting the manager.... I wonder if that's the right way to put it, i think people might confuse two things here. It seems to me that 'the Liverpool way' is to support your own. It's an identity issue. Scousers against the rest of the world. And from Shankly to Evans, the managers were always 'our own'. They played for us or were long-serving members of the coaching staff. Then we had two foreign managers who 'got' the club, the fans, and the city, and thus became part of 'us'. Hodgson is the first manager who is not part of us, and does not look like he wants to be. (I know we actually existed before Shankly, and we even had managers. But all these discussion about the Liverpool way seem to start with him.)

[Ozredman]

The Liverpool Way, to me, is about unconditional support, adoration and respect for Liverpool Football Club. For me, the term 'The Liverpool Way' has become a guise for fans with alternative agenda and a term whored by the media that creates a perception that Liverpool fans know and flaunt their superiority as followers of their club. We don't need to flaunt it, because we know it in our hearts.

Take Istanbul: if anyone can tell me that any other set of fans would have stood there at halftime, defiant as a fucking beer shit on the side of the bog bowl, scarves aloft, belting out their famed anthem, then they are a more knowledgeable and worldly person than me. Because I sure as fuck can't think of any.

The Liverpool Way, to me, is not about unconditional adoration and respect for individuals - be it the manager or the players -  it's about absolute, wholehearted and unconditional respect for our beautiful club, through the wind and the fucking rain, through the bad times and the good. It's about respecting tradition, understanding culture, appreciating rituals.

Don't let any fucker tell you that you are not following 'The Liverpool Way' if you diss Roy or diss Poulsen, you're Liverpool through and through and you've earned that right. Because at the end of the day, those players play for you. You do not support for them - not sure if that makes sense to anyone, it does to me.

Above all, The Liverpool Way is about knowing that whatever happens both on and off the pitch, every fair dinkum Redman across the globe Will Never Ever Walk Alone.

[xerxes1]

That's defeatist. Why hand the responsbility to them? While there are supporters, there is The Liverpool Way.

I agree with you in part. TLW  means different things to different generations of supporters. How those supporters behave, and react, does become TLW, I agree with you, in part.

But I do not think that it is defeatist to point out that the Ownership of the Club equally defines what TLW is about. The Shankly Era presaged a period of continuity, British players whom the fans could identify with, and community with mass employment still the norm- and success through good management on and off the pitch.

The LW in the 90's were characterised in M&P by inertia, and poor decision making, the consequences of which still resonate today. We got lucky with Houllier, then Rafa on the Managerial front, but underneath the corrosion continued.

The period of mismanagement is now about as long as the golden era of Shankly, and the run on itself - so which is THE LW?

Many of the posts on RAWK live out the battle for the clubs soul. Does £43 to sit on the Kop have anything to do with TLW? Does staying at Anfield and surrendering commercial advantage represent TLW? Does abandoning our spiritual home for a new one for Commercial advanatge on our own, or with Everton, represent TLW? Is calling for a managers head after 8 league games TLW? Is a Board with no knowledge of football, England, LFC as a club, Liverpool as a City TLW? I ask those questions acknowledging that the answers to them may be contradictory.

I am NESV neutral, although I see little to suggest that good will come, I see little to suggest that bad will either. I genuinely believe that though that TLW IS in their hands.

[HiTs]

Pretty good but sound like a "Mission statement for a historic franchise" 

[storey1]

Lots of good posts here on what TLW actually is, so people get it, it is the carrying out of these all conquering all knowing acts that cause the debate. Some think it's fading, some disagree...maybe time to merge this and the dilution of TLW thread?

[Brown Bomber]

Other clubs have mottos, often in Latin which they may or may not know the meaning of, we seem to have inherited a living motto, it's the Liverpool Way.

I hope we all know what it means even it's deep down and in these cynical times it may be harder to define than it ever was, but it will always be there.

You see it when many ex players are interviewed, they know that their time with us was as good as it gets. Not all of them are like that of course, but every once in a while a player comes along and you think to yourself "He just gets it" The way they comport themselves when they do something on the pitch. For example Torres when he scores, he celebrates like mad but there's no arrogance just a pleasure in a job well done. You know that in that moment in time he wouldn't choose to be anywhere else and those watching him wouldn't either.

Look at the players and ask yourselves does he get it (the Liverpool Way), Carra does, wierdly so does the Greek, Sami got it, it almost took him over.

Then read some of the comments here and do the same exercise. Is this really the platform for sticking the knife in on the manager?

The Liverpool Way will be here long after Roy, Rafa, Kenny, Barney_Rubble and Brown Bomber are gone. And if you don't believe that you may as well jack it in now, because you're not getting as much out of this as you really could.