One down, three to go, say angry Liverpool fans after Tom Hicks Jnr resigns from board

11 January 2010 20:14
Even in an era when supporters are left feeling like little more than cash-cows, milked by remote foreign owners, with no say in their club's future, the departure of Tom Hicks Jnr from Liverpool's board after sending an obscene email to a fan which read, "Blow me, ----face. Go to hell. I'm sick of you", the general public can have an effect, it seems. [LNB]Just as the Premier League has given rise to a sense of impotence among supporters, so it has mobilised them as never before. Fans left feeling isolated from increasingly distant clubs have organised themselves. The internet has spawned volumes of rebel groups, none more so than at Anfield. [LNB] Related ArticlesTom Hicks Jnr resigns over obscene emailTom Hicks Jnr under pressure to resignTom Hicks Jnr sends Liverpool fan abusive emailLiverpool Transfer TalkTransfer TalkSport on televisionIt is here that some distress enters the equation. Hicks Jnr's departure was not engineered by a mass show of strength from the stands. Rather, it emanated from Spirit of Shankly, the club's supporters' union, a highly organised group who picked up Hicks Jnr's slip of the thumb, alerted the media, prepared statements and quickly brewed the storm. Within hours, the fans had spoken. [LNB]Or so it appeared. To many Liverpool fans, SOS no more speak for them than knee-jerk callers to television and radio phone-ins. They are the mouthpiece for the vocal minority. They only presume to echo the thoughts of the silent majority. Their leaflets are ignored. Their protests attract, at most, a few thousand. [LNB]At Elland Road this season, the travelling fans cheerfully baited Leeds fans with the name of Peter Ridsdale. The irony was lost on them. The majority of fans, like Liverpool's owners, dismiss SOS as an extremist hard-core, unelected, unaccountable, and one that has no mandate to demand the resignation of directors or the departure of owners. All that matters to most, as elsewhere, is what happens on the pitch. Anyone who disagrees is viewed as an obsessive crank. [LNB]That is always the perception of fans' groups, whether at Newcastle, Brighton, Leeds or Manchester United. All of those clubs, though, would attest that, sometimes, the vocal minority needs to be heard. Long after the prospectors, trying to mine the seam of gold supposed to run beneath all clubs, depart, the fans endure. SOS and their ilk simply seek to ensure they do not need to endure more than necessary. [LNB]

Source: Telegraph