SOS to Unveil Billboard in Liverpool

[merlboo]

thought this was worthy of your time folks ...

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2010/03/05/david-prentice-sos-warning-which-all-liverpool-fc-fans-should-heed-100252-25966103/

David Prentice: SOS warning which all Liverpool FC fans should heed

Mar 5 2010 by David Prentice, Liverpool Echo

SOS warning which all Liverpool fans should heed

DEBT. Lies. Cowboys. Whichever statement you analyse, The Spirit of Shankly posters which have sprung up around town this week ring uncomfortably true.

Cowboys? Well it was Texan Tom Hicks himself who proudly showed off his club crested cowboy boots.

Lies? It was pardner George who suggested: “We intend to have a shovel in the ground in 60 days” or claimed “This is not a takeover like the Glazer deal at Manchester United. There is no debt involved.”

Then there’s the biggest four letter word of the lot. Debt.

Liverpool are in alarming hock.

An official UEFA report published this week, The European Club Footballing Landscape, revealed that Premier League clubs owed more than the rest of Europe put together – and Liverpool and Manchester United make up more than 50 per cent of that debt.

That’s a serious, club breaking, Leeds United style debt mountain.

The Spirit of Shankly group is sometimes accused of being zealous, old-style Militants who’d start a fight in an empty room.

But their poster campaign is not just well intentioned, it’s justified, because it highlights a very real threat to the future well-being of Liverpool Football Club. And it’s time everyone took heed.

In 2004, 2005 and 2006 Liverpool’s end of year accounts showed debts of £14m, £15m and £26m.

In the first accounts posted after the American takeover, those debts instantly rocketed into ‘Oh my God’ territory. In 2007 Liverpool Football Club and parent company Kop Holdings owed £288m.

In 2008 it soared £385m into the red.

That startling figure reminded me of a conversation I’d had with that outstanding Anfield administrator Peter Robinson in what seemed like a quainter era, way back in 1988.

After a fixture foul-up left the Reds without a home game for a month, he told me: “We’ve had to approach our bank for an overdraft for the first time I can remember. It’s left us with cash flow problems and we’re in the red.”

That was an era when Liverpool’s financial results were of no real interest.

The club made money, gave it to the manager to spend and they won things.

But that was the good old days.

The way in which Tom Hicks and George Gillet bought Liverpool – “a leveraged buy-out” – means that the club now generates cash to pay off the loans they took to buy LFC.

The Americans have dramatically increased turnover at Anfield since they took over – since the Champions League win in 2005, turnover has increased by around 70per cent.

That’s a stunning improvement, but the major beneficiaries will not be Liverpool – but their owners.

The huge debt on the club means that annual interest payments, from a modest £2m in 2006, are now in the region of £44m.

Compare that figure to rivals for the Champions League spot Spurs, or neighbours Everton, who paid interest of roughly £4m in 2008.

It’s why qualification for the cash generator which is the Champions League is imperative.

If Liverpool don’t finish fourth, the Americans will simply have to sell up to a new owner, or start hawking off the family silver.

No doubt some Reds fans will read this article as scaremongering, accuse me of being a bitter Blue seeking to unsettle a proud football club.

Well sometimes the truth hurts.

Liverpool are in trouble – and the Spirit of Shankly poster campaign is trying to drive that message home

[zimbo]

Just read that. Unusual for the Echo to be so forthright. How come they've started to acknowledge SOS after doing all they could to ignore them up to now (Barrett aside)?

[Craig_H]

Some staggeringly frightening figures in there.

As i've said before, if it meant ridding the club of these two scumbags, and if it was for one year only, i'd take missing out on the CL for one season.

I hope Purslow doesnt find this £100m invesment - if he doesnt, as far as the yanks are concerned, it'll be time; to coin an american phrase, to 'stick a fork in them'. They will most certainly be done.

[merlboo]

Just read that. Unusual for the Echo to be so forthright. How come they've started to acknowledge SOS after doing all they could to ignore them up to now (Barrett aside)?

we had an informal chat with the editors and the upshot of that was for them to finally tell Liverpool fans the truth however hard the truth may be .. don't sugar coat it ... just get it out there and let the good people decide ... i don't think you can seriously debate the merits of that article even if it's written by a blue neither... it could've been written by a martian and it'd still ring true

[merlboo]

another interesting one from our local paper which seemed to of slipped under the radar

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/03/03/spirit-of-shankly-talk-of-their-hopes-for-the-future-of-liverpool-fc-100252-25949934/

Spirit Of Shankly talk of their hopes for the future of Liverpool FC

Mar 3 2010 by Dominic King, Liverpool Echo

The ECHO’s Dominic King looks at the growing fans’ organisation that is demanding change at the top at Anfield:

IN JANUARY 2008 more than 350 Liverpool supporters crammed into The Sandon pub in Anfield, where the club they love was formed some 116 years before.

Although Tom Hicks and George Gillett were the catalyst, they discussed not only the custodianship of the current owners but the wider issues which affected them as supporters.

Issues which were discussed by fans for decades, issues where almost unanimous desire for change is consistently met by indifference from the club – all these were aired and, on an historic and emotional night, Spirit Of Shankly, the Liverpool supporters’ union, was born.

Since that date, SOS was set up as an Industrial and Provident Society and a set of aims for the short, medium and long term were established.

Over that period, it has also kept up vehement and public opposition to the football club’s owners, underlining their alleged broken commitments to the public time and again.

It has also made telling interventions on such issues as the campaign to free jailed fan Michael Shields and providing cheaper travel for its members to away games.

It now has a management committee elected by its members and established itself as an organisation the club cannot ignore.

SOS spokesman Jay McKenna believes the reasons for Liverpool supporters to join them are compelling.

He said: “In a nutshell, if we stand together and speak with one voice, regardless of language or accent, we can make a genuine difference to our football club, the city of Liverpool and indeed the wider footballing world.”

SOS’s stated long-term aim is fan ownership of the club, something they acknowledge is a long way off.

Mr McKenna said: “We recognise the economic reality that this cannot be achieved in the short term.

“But we do believe we can work with the wider fan base to build a position from which it might be achieved.

“In the meantime, we will campaign to represent the best interests of supporters of Liverpool FC and hold whoever owns it to account.”

The organisation now boasts more than 4,000 paid-up members.

With a further 18,000 supporters on the online social network Facebook, it is well on the way to achieving another of its short-term aims – engaging with Liverpool’s global supporters’ community.

SOS has also stated its desire to work with the community to ensure the area around Anfield gets the attention and regeneration it desperately needs.

SOS’s regeneration officer Peter Carney said: “We owe it the people of Anfield, whose neighbourhood we invade every other weekend, to ensure they share the economic and social benefits of being the home of such an important global brand.

“That is why it is vital the club ends the damaging uncertainty over the new stadium.

“We believe they should also look at possibly revamping the existing stadium, which could be part of a wider football quarter in the area.

“It could be much more cost effective, better for the environment and preserve our spiritual home.”

The supporters’ union, of course, takes its name and inspiration from Bill Shankly, the man rightly acknowledged as the founding father of the modern Liverpool FC.

His granddaughter Karen Gill is the organisation’s president.

She is delighted the union honoured her grandfather’s name, but added: “For me, it is more than just honouring his name.

“In these times of corporate gluttony, I am truly heartened to discover there are still so many people who embody my granddad’s spirit.

“It is an Olympic spirit – passionate, pure and true. It is a dream of greatness and glory which comes from dedication, hard work and integrity. In this dream, money is only a means to an end – it is not the end itself.

“My granddad had a dream for Liverpool FC and SOS is helping keep that dream alive.

“It is the people with dreams who achieve things in the end because they have vision driving them on.”

Mrs Gill is in no doubt she speaks for the whole family in voicing her backing for SOS.

She said: “We know Bill Shankly made the people happy. But I know the supporters’ union would have made him happy were he alive to see this legendary support today.

“I speak on behalf of the Shankly family when I say we are whole-heartedly behind The Spirit Of Shankly.”

[MrMichael]

Merlboo - thank you for your contributions to this thread mate, it makes an interesting read and I have to say your representation of SOS through reasonable discussion of people's concerns reflects a more positive light upon the group than many other things have in the past.

Personally I've always been quite ambivalent about SOS, for reasons well espoused by others in this thread. I don't think any fans I've come across wouldn't welcome seeing the back of Hicks and Gillett, however people will always disagree over methods, and will always react badly if they feel their representation is claimed without their input or agreement. Nobody likes feeling they are being told what to think.

I'm not sure Liverpool fans have ever been one cohesive unit, but if they once were, those days are sadly long gone; you only have to start a debate about something like crowd noise at Anfield on some fan forums (which ends up in an inevitable and unpleasant discussion of OOT'ers) to see what I mean. Unfortunately, in part due to some poor public PR, and in part due to a perceived attitude of what could be called elitism, or more accurately perhaps that you're either with us or against us, and "true" lfc fans are with us, SOS has come in some minds to represent division rather than unity.

Constructive debate and engagement with the concerns of those who also love the club, but are not currently involved with or in support of SOS, is crucial in my opinion to beginning to bridge that divide.

On the whole 'making the club look bad' front, I can't help thinking that the pair of odious ****weasels in charge have cornered that particular market.

Sadly, I think you're spot on as usual Zimbo.

[EwarWoo]

Just read that. Unusual for the Echo to be so forthright. How come they've started to acknowledge SOS after doing all they could to ignore them up to now (Barrett aside)?

Difference is but someone else takes over and they're gone, however the fans with the bad rep remain.

To be honest I don't give much of a **** what the media, my dog, the queen or anyone else for that matter thinks of the club other than myself, fellow fans and sadly at this stage potential investors.

And potential investors surely must think twice with the knowledge they'll have to take on SOS and the associated media storm the second they make an unpopular decision?

I really don't think fan protests makes a blind bit of difference to G&H, they clearly don't give a **** about the fans, so I just don't see it serving anything other than a negative purpose.

[zimbo]

Difference is but someone else takes over and they're gone, however the fans with the bad rep remain.

To be honest I don't give much of a **** what the media, my dog, the queen or anyone else for that matter thinks of the club other than myself, fellow fans and sadly at this stage potential investors.

And potential investors surely must think twice with the knowledge they'll have to take on SOS and the associated media storm the second they make an unpopular decision?

I really don't think fan protests makes a blind bit of difference to G&H, they clearly don't give a **** about the fans, so I just don't see it serving anything other than a negative purpose.

Whilst we can only speculate that the protests have no effect on them, what is certain is that if the fan base show no form of disapproval or discontent, offering by extension tacit acceptance of the situation, it only serves to help their cause. It's a damn sight easier to carry on screwing a club / business into the ground when there's no-one to hold you accountable for your actions.

SOS have, to my knowledge, stressed that the protests are directed solely at the current owners and that they would welcome responsible investors working in the best interests of the club. Any potential investors put off by the thought that their actions will be closely scrutinised are perhaps not the kind of investors we should be looking to attract anyway, lest we end up in a similar mess further on down the road.

[squaddie]

Whilst we can only speculate that the protests have no effect on them, what is certain is that if the fan base show no form of disapproval or discontent, offering by extension tacit acceptance of the situation, it only serves to help their cause. It's a damn sight easier to carry on screwing a club / business into the ground when there's no-one to hold you accountable for your actions.

SOS have, to my knowledge, stressed that the protests are directed solely at the current owners and that they would welcome responsible investors working in the best interests of the club. Any potential investors put off by the thought that their actions will be closely scrutinised are perhaps not the kind of investors we should be looking to attract anyway, lest we end up in a similar mess further on down the road.

Good point.

[Will]

The Yanks or should i say locals in Dallas are not to pleased.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2010/03/tom_hicks_gets_a_billboard_in.php

[CJ]

some of that is hillarious.

[merlboo]

Merlboo - thank you for your contributions to this thread mate, it makes an interesting read and I have to say your representation of SOS through reasonable discussion of people's concerns reflects a more positive light upon the group than many other things have in the past.

Personally I've always been quite ambivalent about SOS, for reasons well espoused by others in this thread. I don't think any fans I've come across wouldn't welcome seeing the back of Hicks and Gillett, however people will always disagree over methods, and will always react badly if they feel their representation is claimed without their input or agreement. Nobody likes feeling they are being told what to think.

I'm not sure Liverpool fans have ever been one cohesive unit, but if they once were, those days are sadly long gone; you only have to start a debate about something like crowd noise at Anfield on some fan forums (which ends up in an inevitable and unpleasant discussion of OOT'ers) to see what I mean. Unfortunately, in part due to some poor public PR, and in part due to a perceived attitude of what could be called elitism, or more accurately perhaps that you're either with us or against us, and "true" lfc fans are with us, SOS has come in some minds to represent division rather than unity.

Constructive debate and engagement with the concerns of those who also love the club, but are not currently involved with or in support of SOS, is crucial in my opinion to beginning to bridge that divide.





Sadly, I think you're spot on as usual Zimbo.

firstly ... thank you for the sensible discussions ... after all ,as was mentioned earlier ,we're all liverpool fans and i never lose sight of that fact no matter how lively a debate can get ! .... secondly ,i think to get the cause off the ground initially, we needed individuals with clout [be that in the media or otherwise ] and as always, all struggles start from humble beginnings ... it was very much off the cuff from the start and, in all honesty i had no real grasp of the enormity of what we'd achieve from the outset ... my personal drive was confined to making life as hard as possible for the said ' custodians ' and to this end getting Liverpool back on the 'back pages'..
its been a major struggle , theres no question of that ... and it's not been a picnic for any of us mate [we are to all intents rebelling against something we dearly love, it doesn't come naturally] thirdly .. the cohesive point is a good one ... we are a city of individuals but, i believe when there's a common conflict ,then the common people will unite [history tells us that, the wars ,recessions and thatcherism to a degree] its the way we react to such adversity...
we are faced with it again here in many respects ,and we'll carry the fight until they're gone ... lastly, i'm only too aware of the perception's of how we're viewed in some quarters ... we're trying to change that with a number of measures ,the first being a now democratic organisation with a yearly AGM and ballot papers to vote as such , you can forward motions at any meetings, anyone can get involved and if you need me to hold your hand then you'd be most welcome...the union is a fledgling entity ,a work in progress, i hope the good people of the Liverpool FC family can get used to us .... we're gonna be around awhile

[redstaralex]

mr merlboo, I am an open doubter of sos but you have stirred my interest and I decided to look at the sos webpage looking for the next couple of meeting dates and was considering attending to view proceedings as a non member if that was possible but couldn't find any calendar displaying any of this information

whilst there I noticed that the accounts are posted and had a quick look, not being an accountant I took everything at face value but I have a question, there was a substantial figure attributed to travel, is this towards subsidising travel to away games? if so I would like clarity on the justification for this and the reason I am asking is that in order to qualify for a ticket for the vast majority of away games you need to have been to a substantial number of previous away games and so this is essntially the same people going each time (I'm basing this on experience from years ago when I used to go to away games), therefore if in the main, the sos committee and the original group of members are common away game attenders are the sos committee essentially using subscription fees to fund cheap travel to away games for themselves and their friends? I do realise that this sounds overly critical but I believe that if you can justify any and all points (not just mine mentioned here) then the integrity of sos will grow and more doubters will consider becoming members

[vlahka]

mr merlboo, I am an open doubter of sos but you have stirred my interest and I decided to look at the sos webpage looking for the next couple of meeting dates and was considering attending to view proceedings as a non member if that was possible but couldn't find any calendar displaying any of this information

This is the thing I dont understand very well. Are you suddenly interested and agreeable with SOS because of the things merlboo has been saying here, or have you had a change of heart and decided all the things they did or said before, which you evidently werent impressed with, is suddenly good?

[merlboo]

mr merlboo, I am an open doubter of sos but you have stirred my interest and I decided to look at the sos webpage looking for the next couple of meeting dates and was considering attending to view proceedings as a non member if that was possible but couldn't find any calendar displaying any of this information

whilst there I noticed that the accounts are posted and had a quick look, not being an accountant I took everything at face value but I have a question, there was a substantial figure attributed to travel, is this towards subsidising travel to away games? if so I would like clarity on the justification for this and the reason I am asking is that in order to qualify for a ticket for the vast majority of away games you need to have been to a substantial number of previous away games and so this is essntially the same people going each time (I'm basing this on experience from years ago when I used to go to away games), therefore if in the main, the sos committee and the original group of members are common away game attenders are the sos committee essentially using subscription fees to fund cheap travel to away games for themselves and their friends? I do realise that this sounds overly critical but I believe that if you can justify any and all points (not just mine mentioned here) then the integrity of sos will grow and more doubters will consider becoming members

to take your first question alex ,we attempt to have quarterly mass meetings in the Olympia ... this is were you can suggest any motions to the admin on the committee ,and engage the floor, if you so wish, the website will advertise as such some time nearer the date... on the second point of travel subsistence... the only coaches this season which ran at a loss were arsenal,chelsea and fulham [spot the link] ... all the others ran at a healthy profit to significantly counter those losses ... we're substantially cheaper than all of the other coach companies and this allows us to pass those benefits onto our members ... we're not a charity .. but we can't preach about being the peoples champions if we overcharge ... we keep it as close to the bone as we possibly can, whilst being mindful of any profits /losses that are incurred and we can adjust our prices accordingly [ie to generalise games down south, some losses and all games in the north, profit] lastly,on the ticketing issue i'm not aware that all of the committee attend all of the away games ... off the top of my head i would say that half may attend a no of away games and the others may struggle like most of us to get tickets and not attend any under the current 'LFC Loyalty Scheme' you rightly pointed to ... speaking for myself ,i've been a regular attendee of aways for some time though lazily i've often gone on friends tickets thus not getting 'higher' up the loyalty ladder myself of which you're familiar ... as you stated and to that end , i wouldn't want to be part of anything which garnered anything underhand- tickets or travel, so rest assured from what i can see ,everythings above board...we're very much all folk of principle

i hope i've explained that clearly