Plenty of Liverpool fans continue to rue the club’s decision eight years ago to commission Being:Liverpool, a behind-the-scenes documentary lifting the lid on certain aspects at Anfield.
Today in The Athletic, James Pearce wrote about the inside story of the fly-on-the-wall Fox Sports series, with ex-Reds player Jamie Carragher telling him that he felt it was “a bit embarrassing” and that “everyone was cringing a bit watching it”. The journalist tweeted a link to the piece via @JamesPearceLFC.
The inside story of 'Being: Liverpool' from the show’s US creators and the #LFC players, staff and fans who featured in it.
How did it come about? What control did LFC have on the content? And how do those who starred on the small screen look back on it?https://t.co/S2Gmuqr77E— James Pearce (@JamesPearceLFC) April 20, 2020
Among the clips featured in Being:Liverpool are ex-Anfield managing director Ian Ayre travelling through the Merseyside city on a Harley-Davidson motorbike, newly-installed manager Brendan Rodgers threatening to evict a teenage Raheem Sterling from a training camp in the USA over a moment of insubordination and the ex-Reds boss telling the squad he had envelopes which contained the names of “three people who will let us down this year”. [via The Athletic]
At the time of the documentary’s filming and release, Liverpool had finished a lowly eighth in the previous Premier League season and would end the 2012/13 campaign only one position higher. Since the release of Being:Liverpool, several clubs have released fly-on-the-wall series on platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, including Sunderland, Juventus, Manchester City and Tottenham.
These Liverpool fans on Twitter insisted that the decision to sanction such an idea at Anfield in 2012 was wrong, with one Kopite labelling it a “PR disaster“:
It was a shambles and we were a laughing stock. That’s all there is to it
— adam (@lfcads2001) April 20, 2020
Totally ridiculous and unnecessary. Luckily we’ve got Klopp now and he’d never allow this to interfere with footballing matters. Steady now.
— Jan Rye Hansen ? (@janrye72) April 20, 2020
It was a PR disaster
— avtar s (@aman_avtars) April 20, 2020
Rodgers thought it was cringeworthy.
I tend to agree.
It seemed to have been developed mainly for the US audience once FSG took over.
— Abdul M. Ismail (@AbdulMIsmail) April 20, 2020
Everything about this was just so wrong. We deserved to be a banter club when this came out
— IrishScouser (@irish_scouser) April 20, 2020
Klopp I reckon would leave if their asked him to do it
— Ahmir Amin (@Mahnoor39727590) April 20, 2020
Did you think the Anfield club erred in commissioning the Being:Liverpool documentary in 2012? Does it still make you cringe now? Comment below with your views!
