What is Alexander-Arnold on about?
By: Ted Fred Franky, Refuting misinformation, March 17, 2024 4 months ago
What is Jurgen Klopp on about? It means more to us? What a load of tripe.
FACTS: Below I outline six facts why Alexander-Arnold is so wrong on this one.
My first match was when I was 13, in 1983, against Luton and City got relegated. In 2011 City won the FA Cup, it was the first trophy City had won since 1976, 35 years before. I was at Wembley that day, and all the emotion came out, my legs had gone towards the final whistle I could barely stand and I felt so sick inside. After the trophy was presented, I was crying phoning my parents from inside the stadium, they were both so joyous as well.
As I left the stadium, I passed a young Stoke fan who was crying with grief. Loads of City fans, including myself reassured him, patted him on the head/back, and told him Stoke would be back one day. After all winning it after losing it is so much better. It cheered him up, and I think his father was quite taken aback by the kindness of the victorious City fans that day.
Back then, I had been going to watch City for 28 years. That’s 3 years longer than another boy has been alive. I say boy, because someone who comes out with such childish rubbish, like Alexander-Arnold has, cannot be considered a man.
Since my first match and that FA Cup final, City hadn’t got to a semi-final, let alone a final. Well the Full Members Cup, but that’s hardly prestigious! In that time, I watched City get relegated five times, the heartache of those matches against Luton, West Ham, Liverpool, Stoke (City even won this match 5-2) and Chelsea.
Anger, grief, grown men, women and children crying. The humiliation and piss taking from the Rags. The loss of status as a “Top Flight” club is incredible, especially if you have been there for a long time. The total lack of exposure is as if you just don’t exist anymore. It’s a tough place to be, to experience. As they say the bigger they come the harder they fall, and this certainly happened to City fans, in those 30 years.
Has Alexander-Arnold ever experienced this in his short life?
FACT 1: Trent Alexander-Arnold has no idea what it is like to love and support a club and then see them relegated.
He was born on 7 October 1998. Let’s just have a quick run down on what Liverpool have won in his life until Jurgen Klopp arrived and he broke into the Liverpool first team:
- Champions League 2005
- UEFA Cup: 2001*
- UEFA Super Cup: 2001 & 2005
- FA Cup: 2001* & 2006
- League Cup: 2001*, 2003 & 2012
- Community Shield: 2001 & 2006
* 2001 was even a treble year for them.
Liverpool might not have won the Premier League until they did in 2019, but it is still a relatively large number of trophies for any English club in any similar period, especially when compared to the 35 year wait City fans had to experience just to get to a semi-final! In fact, their largest gap between winning trophies in this period was a whopping 7 years!
FACT 2: Trent Alexander-Arnold has no idea what it is like to wait for so long win a trophy.
Bought Success
Trent Alexander Arnold also seems to think City have just bought success and Liverpool have earnt theirs. The period of Liverpool success outlined above, and also from 2001 until 2011 when Liverpool also played in the Champions League every year bar one, was not free of charge. To achieve this they spent more money than they had coming in, and got into enormous debt. Their transfer budget and players wages were out of control. The debt was almost £500m when Nat Wast pulled the plug on them. During this period Liverpool’s pwners had tried to sell the debt ridden club to Sheik Mansour, who chose Manchester City instead becuase it had better potential.
The new owners FSG paid off the £500m debt and have since poured over £750m into Liverpool to turn them into a club capable of winning trophies again.
FACT 3: City’s success is no more the product of being bought, than that of Liverpool
Alexander-Arnold is closer to Liverpool FC, than any City player
He says he has been through Liverpool’s Academy and has supported Liverpool all his life. HIs conclusion is that it means much more to him when Liverpool win a trophy than it does to City’s players. More to him than say, Phil Foden or Rico Lewis? Both support City, have been through the City Academy and reached the first team. Both have families, parents and grandparents who also support City. Is their attachment any different to his? They’ll be joined by many more in the next few years, like Micah Hamilton and co, who are just as much City through and through.
Alexander-Arnold even cited Erland Haaland as an example. This is the same Erling Haaland who by his own admission has supported City all his life. His dad played for Manchester City, there are numerous photos of Erling Haaland in various CIty kits as a child growing up, and various pictures with fans and his father at various City matches. Furthermore, an interview with Uwe Rosler mentions that when his son Colin (both is sons are named after City legends), played for Mold with Haaland, they played a match versus City’s Academy at the Etihad Campus. They both chatted and agreed that their lifelong dream was to play at The Etihad for Manchester City. I suspect Haaland is very much connected to Manchester City as well and living his lifelong dream at the moment.
FACT 4: Alexander Arndold is not closer to Liverpool than City players are to City
Anyhow, we’ve been there, top and bottom. City fans are a different breed to those of two certain clubs fans. It’s actually very difficult to distinguish between the typical plazzy scally whether they are Liverpool or Manchester United fans. They are both abundant and talk a lot of rubbish about football. They both have this sense of entitlement, that somehow by supporting their crap red banner, they are superior to anyone else. It seems Alexander-Arnold has fallen ito this trap as well. Anyone could choose to support Liverpool when they were winning everything and the same is true for United. It’s hardly a badge of honour, “I support this club because they are successful and great, therefore I am successful ad great”. Fans of these legacy clubs don’t like the fact that all the youngsters are now choosing City or Chelsea, for exactly the same reasons they chose Liverpool or United. It is just so hypocritical?
The City fan base is deep and loyal. City are historically one of the biggest clubs in England, they have topped the average attendance list for a season on four seperate occasions. On one occasion in the Second Divsion. For around 20 years, before World War I, City’s average attendance was always in the top 4. Shortly after World War 1, City built Maine Road, “The Wembley of the North” as it was dubbed. City built it because the old Hyde Road could not cope with demand. Based on Hampden Park, its original capacity was 112,000 with a view to expand it. After World War II, City went into decline in the 1950s. However that all changed when Joe Mercer came in the early 1960s. Organic success in the 1960s and 1970s built attendances and the fan base once more. By 1976 City were the 3rd best supported side in England, and remained so until they were relegated in 1983. That relegation against Luton still haunts every City fan from that era. You know that thing, that demise, well Trent Alenxander Arnold wouldn’t know would he?
The Junior Blues
On the back of the success of City in the 1960s and 1970s, City launched the Junior Blues in the mid-1970s. This was the first junior supporters club in England and remained the biggest by far throughout it’s history. It was total indoctrination. A group of parents would set up a Junior Blues club, they’d play another Junior Blues club in a match on a Saturday morning, then go for a meal at a working man’s club, the British Legion, church or the local Con/Lab/Lib club. They’d play games and sing along to The Boys In Blue, learning the words parrot fashion. There would be Christmas parties, visits to the Man City Social Club, they’d meet players past and present and get discounted tickets for matches at Maine Road. It was pioneering, with many other clubs following suit.. The only other club to come close to matching the success of The Junior Blues, was Cardiff City’s Junior Bluebirds in the early 1990s.
“The Boys in Blue” never charted but sold in huge numbers. It was written by City fans Godley and Creme (10cc), and to this date is one of the finest football songs ever recorded. It’s a true anthem, it speaks volumes about City fans, their loyalty and resolve.
At its height, one season the Junior Blues had over 26,000 members, this led to the popular chant, “We’ve got more in the Junior Blues do dar, do dar” when playing smaller clubs away from home. With over 300,000 children passing through its ranks, it is one reason why City’s local support has remained so high, despite the success of Manchester Uinted under Taggart. Virtually every City fan of that era was either in the Junior Blues or jealous that they were never part of it. Today the club has morphed into Junior Cityzens and welcomes members from all over the world.
FACT 5: No Liverpool fan let alone Trent Alexander-Arnold has ever experienced what it was like to be a Junior Blue and the attachement to Manchester City that the The Junior Blues gave them.
Football In The Community
Alongside this in the 1980s, City were one of six founding clubs that started Football in the Community. An initiative providing help and support to the local community. Over 50 professional football clubs now participate in the Football in the Community scheme. When City moved from Maine Road, City continued their work in Moss Side and Rusholme, whilst starting a new programme in the local area of Beswick by the new stadium. For most of this time, former Manchester City goalkeeper and local Moss Side lad, Alex Williams, has been the figurehead of Football in the Community.
One of the few clubs not involved in Football in the Community is Liverpool. Their neighbours Everton are and do so much in the local area. Food banks, mental health suport, you name it they are involved in so much. Liverpool as a club do very little.
Supporters of a club like Liverpool have no idea what Football in the Community was like. I am sure Alex Williams could tell both Alexander-Arnold and Jurgen Klopp why Football in the Community matters and urge them to do something about it in their local area. That is of course of either of them give a shit about the rampant poverty in and around their stadium on Walton Breck Road and Oakfield Road. That is if either of them can tear themselves away from their self absorbed me me me view of the world.
FACT 6: People like Trent Alexander Arnold and Jurgen Klopp are clueless about Manchester City and how Football in thr Commuity has helped turn round the lives of so many people over the last 40 years
If it means more to anyone winning trophies, it isn’t going to be a Liverpool FC branding that only carries the meaning of corporate crap. If it means more to anyone winning trophies, it is the fans of a club like City, who’ve been through the mill.
Look at joy and excitement of West Ham fans lifting the UEFA Conference Cup last season. Try telling any Leicester fan, Liverpool winning the league means more, than Leicester winning the Premier League means to them? Their joy dwarves anything any Liverpool fan has ever experienced. Imagine if Newcastle, Sunderland, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Wolves etc won a trophy?
People like Trent Alexander Arnold and Jurgen Klopp are clueless about how the fans of these other clubs might feel. They’re both self absorbed snow flakes who don’t understand what football actually means to real people.
This means more to Liverpool? The facts prove otherwise.
