09 Jun 2024 11:44:11
Itstrue has written an article entitled, A Liverpool fans' stance on being Scouse not English
09 Jun 2024 12:56:19
Itstrue, a thoroughly enjoyable read, thanks very much, mate. I think I started the debate. I fully understood the feeling that people from Merseyside had towards the rest of England, it was the feeling of other English born people that I can't quite understand regards to not supporting England.
Once again, thank you for educating me further.
09 Jun 2024 13:19:13
Thanks for the excellent article, Itstrue.
09 Jun 2024 13:34:01
A great read mate, sound that. Keep them coming :) .
09 Jun 2024 13:34:47
Great write up. Really appreciate you taking the time to explain from a locals perspective.
I personally don’t support England with much passion (despite living down South) because I find it hard to want to fit in with a crowd down the pub that spent most of the year calling me a “victim” or a “dipper”.
09 Jun 2024 14:00:02
I'm like you, MK, I don't support England with much passion, but I want us to win in tournaments (couldn't care less about friendlies) .
For the record, due to our deficiencies in defence, I don't hold out to much hope for us. I will be on holiday in the south of France, for some of it, so that should be interesting.
09 Jun 2024 14:16:14
*too much.
09 Jun 2024 14:46:48
From an American-didn’t thatcher basically single out liverpudlians to treat like crap back in the day? I always assumed it stemmed from that this and the other thread has been an enlightening read.
09 Jun 2024 15:16:50
Great read and think your last part sums me up perfectly! Trouble is, Liverpool could never play England in a competitive match, as I know which team would get my support!
09 Jun 2024 15:23:55
100% with you there, Keith. Though, to be fair, anyone who has an allegiance with a team would feel the same, be it Stourbridge or Liverpool. Your club always comes first.
09 Jun 2024 15:40:12
Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast have always been the most deprived under Tory rule. Very easy to figure out why.
09 Jun 2024 15:53:10
For me it’s separate. The hatred towards the Government comes from the Thatcher era closing all the pits, covering up Hillsborough, driving the city into poverty etc
The football side of it comes from hate from the terraces etc sure.
But I’ve always felt like England football team isn’t really for Liverpool or Manchester Utd fans. I’ve always felt like it’s more for the smaller clubs fans. The two giants in this league, it just doesn’t really feel like it’s ours to enjoy. It’s for “the rest” of the country.
09 Jun 2024 17:21:49
Thatcher and Bernard Ingham can rot in hell. That managed decline thing was absolutely shameful and disgusting. You know the only problem with urinating on Thatcher’s grave? You’d eventually run out of urine.
09 Jun 2024 17:36:53
Spot on Itstrue.
My family are from the North (Derry) and South (Cork) of Ireland. So religion was always a big thing growing up. None of the sectarian stuff happens in Liverpool, like it does in Belfast. The matter doesn't revolve around religion in the slightest. All religions and races are welcome in Liverpool, not like other parts of the country with racisim is rife.
As for politics, we all have this hatred for the Tories. Thatcher didn't help that with the managed decline and saying "if we break Liverpool, we can easily break the rest of the England". Guess what, they didn't break us. Just made us closer and stronger. Take a look around England and you will see many a broken City or Town. I ask what has the government ever done for the city of Liverpool? Funding nope, they would rather give it to Manchester.
As for the royal family. People did still sing the anthem for the Queen but now she is gone, you won't hear many singing it at all. The fact is you have this incestuous family, pilfering millions from the country to pay for their lavish lifestyle. Yet millions of hardworking families struggle to provide for their families, a homeless epidemic and a crumbling NHS. The money the siphon off every year could be used to fix these things.
Anyway enough ranting haha.
Yours,
A truly passionate Scouser.
09 Jun 2024 17:47:16
One thing which Thatcher did do that benefitted Merseyside, was nationalise the museums and art galleries on Merseyside in 1986. Totally going against type (her government privatised everything else), National Museums and Galleries Merseyside (now National Museums Liverpool) was saved from being run by councils.
As to everything else I agree. I'm from Wallasey, but have been Red since 1976. She, her government and subsequent Tory governments, pummelled this region, particularly Liverpool. There are other politics involved and if you live in Woolton, West Kirby etc. you probably escaped the worst effects.
09 Jun 2024 19:58:51
Here’s a piece from the Spectator from the 16th October 2004 (it was written in the wake of the brutal execution of Kenneth Bigley, who was scouse, by Islamist extremists) . Worth remembering the editor of the Spectator at the time, and whose direction this was published, was a certain Boris Johnson and perfectly encapsulated what so many in the UK believe to be true about the city:
“The extreme reaction to Mr Bigley's murder is fed by the fact that he was a Liverpudlian. Liverpool is a handsome city with a tribal sense of community. A combination of economic misfortune — its docks were, fundamentally, on the wrong side of England when Britain entered what is now the European Union — and an excessive predilection for welfarism have created a peculiar, and deeply unattractive, psyche among many Liverpudlians.
They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it. Part of this flawed psychological state is that they cannot accept that they might have made any contribution to their misfortunes, but seek rather to blame someone else for it, there by deepening their sense of shared tribal grievance against the rest of society.
The deaths of more than 50 Liverpool football supporters at Hillsborough in 1989 was undeniably a greater tragedy than the single death, however horrible, of Mr Bigley; but that is no excuse for Liverpool's failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon. The police became a convenient scapegoat, and the Sun newspaper a whipping-boy for daring, albeit in a tasteless fashion, to hint at the wider causes of the incident. ”
The above explains in part why the Hillsborough fight took so long, the S*n can print whatever it wanted but so many in the UK where happy to believe it and some, despite all evidence to the contrary, continue to believe the lies to this day.
It’s hard to feel a sense of community when large parts of the country think you are scum.