New Years Resolutions

Let it be known, best is Home Grown

In my personal opinion the team in history that I am most admire is the ‘Lisbon Lions’ who won the 1967 European Cup. A well known story, but for those who are not aware, in a nutshell, the 11 players starting that day were all from a 30 mile radius of Glasgow. Wonderful. For me, a club should be a representation of the area that it is in, Liverpool and Everton should show case the best of Merseyside talent, Manchester United the cream of the Salford crop and so on. What I want to see at my club is the shirt to truly mean something, for it to be a badge of honour as opposed to what we have now, a culture of ‘I have always supported this team who offered me more money than any other team’! The ever increasing mercenary nature and franchise forming of modern football is slowly sucking the soul out of the beautiful game.

I am well aware that the ‘Lisbon Lions’ will never be repeated and football is more than ever a global sport but it should be essential for every club to retain a local heartbeat. We have been spoilt at Liverpool for a long time with both Carragher and Gerrard, but this is drawing to a close and for me this is worrying.

So, here is my proposal: each team has to have a minimum of 5 of the starting 11 who have come through the academy. Whilst I am aware the likes of Suso or Sterling are not Scousers they were at least ‘moulded’, as it were. The focus of football should always be the next generation so my kids and their kids and their kids can continue to fall in love with the game. The added bonus of this is that it can help restrict the ridiculous billionaire spending!