The Battle for the Perch

There are certain events in life that when it comes down to it, it makes you sit up and say “What’s bigger than this?” For example an India vs Pakistan encounter, or the Aussie vs South Africa one. You know it coming when someone says it just a match and nothing more. Personally the latter has been a bigger one for me, but now I have given up on cricket and prefer to sit out of the NSW vs T&T kind of matches, which is exactly the opposite of what I am talking about. I don’t know who Keiron Pollard is or what the smug-face Lalit Modi’s next evil plan is. For me the biggest thing in life is still 11th ‘E’ section vs 12th ‘F’ (i.e. when I was 11th). And then the North West Derby.

“I hate the Scums”. I don’t exactly remember when it happened. I am sure I enjoyed watching a match at night when Henry put two past Barthez. I hated them more for a certain David Beckham. I remember Murphy’s goal. But those days it was more of a hate like when I do for every opponent now. What is going on now is the real deal. Just before things got bad at bigfourza I even supported Arsenal for their rivalry against the United. Like the ad in Mastercard says it’s just priceless to watch them lose and am sure the feeling is pretty much reciprocated as could be seen in the past few days.

Truth is I have more United mates than Scousers. In fact the ratio goes something like 542:1, so everytime this event occurs I am usually busy either bragging with them or answering their sombre calls. The past few meetings have been good to me. And Winning 4-1 is simply up there just a notch below Istanbul. But before that I had to endure some tough times as well. Like the one where Mascherano got sent off for abusing the referee in two words one of which is “What” and the other is “happened”. And then the Tevez backheel at Anfield. They called me up and said “Anfield is like our second home da”. That for a 1-0 win.

Daglish and Fergie

When you look back at history it’s fantastic how it all started. I mean it was there for ages but definitely more so since Fergie arrived. Funny to think about one of the things he said about refs being intimidated at Anfield after a 3-3 draw at 1988.

The managers have to leave here choking on their own vomit – biting on their tongue, afraid to tell the truth

And the reply from King Kenny was

You would get more sense out of my six-week old daughter.

Nice and funny. The Great Sir talking about the Refs. Perhaps he wrongly misintepreted about the drummer from Spinal Tap(who also choked on his vomit, for the uninitiated).

Then came the Perch comment. Which he almost but not quite and not yet accomplished. Full credit to him actually. Had it been the other way around and say United hadn’t just won all their titles, will tomorrow’s match matter anything to me. Would there have been any Rafa vs Ferguson post. I mean without United there would have been a big black hole in my life. Simply.

It’s 18 all now. It doesn’t get better than this, even though Liverpool are losing their grip. But remember last time the roles were reversed and United were losing. So there’s no reason why the Scousers can’t pull themselves back into the race. It has to be either us or them. Arsenal and Chelsea can please sit back and watch the entertainment.

The build up to the game has a special twinge to it due to that Owen lad. It’s all about how the Anfield faithful will look up to him. But what do you expect? Sing his name. Maybe, with hate chants. I think the Kop should just forget about him. I like the way Owen keeps building up for the moment. His first dig at us started a week back when he spoke about his new employers.

“It’s probably the biggest club in the world. Everything right down to the kit man and the canteen girls through to the manager, it is just first class.”

“People talk about loyalty in football, and for a football supporter it’s easy to preach about that. As a father and a brother and a son there’s no one more loyal than me. But when you’re a player, you’re not a fan. I’ve got to earn a living, provide for my family. I supported Everton as a kid. I never supported Real Madrid, but I played for them. It’s a job opportunity, just like anyone else’s work.”

Interesting how a footballer who earned 140,000 pounds a week for staying put at the hospital is talking about earning his bread like normal people do.

Michael Owen is 6/1 to score at Anfield. Beach ball is “all the goals scored in the league for a century and so” to 1 to score at Anfield. So am told anything could happen. My prediction : 2-1 to us. Same as last time.

Come on ye mighty reds.