If you live in Liverpool, you may well regard your self as Scouse rather than English. If you do, you will find yourself on the horns of a dilemma during the World cup in Brazil this summer.
“We’re not English we are Scouse” procalims the Kop in both banner and song. Why should Reds fans in the city feel this way? The reasons are many and complex. They owe as much to demographics, geography, politics and sociology as they do to football. You will probably be pleased to know that I won’t be going into all of those here. Suffice it to say that many of us (admittedly not all) feel we’re really citizens of an Independent Republic.
Growing up, I was never that bothered about the international football scene. England didn’t really inspire me, and as the years went by I began to see them as a distraction to the main business of club football. In short Liverpool FC was and still is the world to me. Besides our players seemed to always get injured turning out for the national side.
Now that same pride in our city threatens to turn all of that on its head. Today Roy Hodgson stood in a car factory somewhere in England’s industrial heartland, and announced that no less than a quarter of his squad were Scousers. This is a remarkable turnout, given the size of our population. In fact if you add in Sturridge, Sterling, Johnson, and Henderson into the equation, then Liverpool FC and the city of Liverpool combined contributes 50% of the overall squad.
So will those of you who march under the Liver-bird rather than the Union Jack switch allegiance this summer? Not for me to be honest. I hope our lads have an injury free tournament. I’d even be happy for them if they pulled off a shock, but not out any sense of patriotism. I won’t be putting the cross of St George in my window. If I celebrated, it would be more out civic, rather than national pride.
Now just before you prepare to hammer your keyboard, slating me for not supporting my country, think about this. Am I really any different to a West Ham fan here? To this day most of them claim that they actually won the World Cup in ’66. Mind you they only contributed three players to that team, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Bobby Moore. If England go on to win it, Scousers should be entitled to dine out on it for years to come. Of course I am sure we would also be the toast of a grateful nation……. we would, wouldn’t we?
When Liverpool players play for England they are not liverpool anymore they belong to someone else’s family how can you hate Rooney,terry, lampard etc every week then cheer them when they plat foy England. Come on uruguay
I don’t think there’s anything in this article that I DON’T agree with. This city has been created from cultures arriving and settling here from all over the world – That surely gives us reason enough to announce “We’re NOT English we ARE SCOUSE”.
Can’t wait for the World Cup to start but mainly for:-
a) No Liverpool players get injured for the start of the season
b) It’s football and as Liverpool aren’t playing I’ll watch – unless there’s a good film on!!!
c) It’s a showcase for potential talent
d) I’m not to interested in England although I’d like to see them do well (and Uruguay/Brazil for some strange reason) plus see a)
I feel exactly the same. Don’t want anything to do with England and would happily see them never qualify for a tournament again if Liverpool were to win the league next season… The thug fans and the dreadful anthem all make for unpleasant patriotic camaraderie that is nothing like Merseyside pride
There are many reasons why we in Liverpool don’t feel (or don’t want to be) English.
Politics is one. Not enough space here to go into it but we all know anyway.
Then there’s the fact that we Scousers just happen to be the best at most things:
footy, music, boxing, the arts, entertainment etc; etc. The list goes on. So this makes us proud to be who we are. Add the fact that we have our own accent, despite being surrounded by Lancashire – sounding tongues, and this gives us more ground to feel unique.
As for our boys: all that matters is that they come back injury-free from their international commitments.
I stopped watching England many years ago I’m not patriotic at all I think it stem from the way Liverpool and it’s people are classed as liars cheats self pity city and I couldn’t as a matter of principle cheer my national side on knowing the majority of England supporter from other clubs hate our city with a passion whether you are red or blue
Id rather see lfc win the title than england win the world cup but every club fan says that now.