http://football.fanhouse.co.uk/2010/09/27/skys-jeff-stelling-comes-out-on-the-wrong-side-in-liverpools-u
Comrades! On Saturday afternoon, two brave left-wing struggles were played out in front of the nation. These ideological battles weren't held on the nation's streets – these were no poll-tax riots, no Jarrow Marches – but instead they occurred on Sky Television. They were very revealing, all the same. The first brouhaha raged on Sky News. As 'Red' Ed Miliband won the leadership of the Labour Party, the channel's commentary team spluttered in disbelief. How did the anointed Blairite wonk David Miliband fail to win, they wondered? This didn't correspond with the gossip in the Westminster village! What were these people doing?! It didn't seem to cross their minds that the leadership of a party which grew out of the trade-union movement might be influenced in some way by, er, votes from workers in trade unions. Over on Sky Sports News, there would be a similar detachment from reality on display. After Liverpool and Sunderland's annual circus act – that free-kick farce wasn't quite the comedic tour de force the beach ball was, incidentally, on account of it being totally legitimate – thousands of fans stayed behind on the Kop to register their wish for Anfield co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr to up sticks and bugger off. Back in the studio, one of the club's most famous sons had been moved to impassioned oratory. Phil Thompson, the man who picked up the 1981 European Cup for Liverpool, popped his head above the parapet and stated that RBS, to whom Hicks and Gillett owe hundreds of millions, "cannot allow them to refinance this football club". Referring to the demonstration as "a huge thing", he made a "plea for anybody who makes decisions not to allow the refinance to happen because ... it will kill Liverpool Football Club and it will kill football." Thompson then suggested that boycotts might be the way forward, albeit obliquely: "People say if you go and support the club, purchasing tickets, then you are supporting the owners, so no, I won't do it, I am not going to go because the more money I put into the club the longer I could possibly keep them there." Excellent stuff. But as the cameras swooped across the famous one-time terrace, and mics picked up the protest songs, a Sky presenter once again missed the point spectacularly. "Maybe they should concentrate on what's happening on the football pitch," opined Jeff Stelling. Exactly why Liverpool's fans should remain silent while their club runs up over £200 million debt simply for the pleasure of Hicks and Gillett's company went unexplained by Stelling. But the implication was clear: the common supporter, just like the union member, should leave well alone and sit on the sidelines quietly, as the big boys get on with playing their big-boy games. To be fair to Stelling, a genuinely nice man who usually positions himself on the side of all that is good and righteous, he seems guilty here of little more than lazy thinking. Folk in the media love to paint football fans as mouth-breathing numbskulls standing outside the stadium cheering as a new player is signed; as groups of testosterone-fuelled morons leering lasciviously at scantily clad "soccerettes"; as obsessive knowledge freaks answering questions about Derby County's 1969 promotion-winning side for a massive £15 cash jackpot. But they're not so comfortable when the fans mobilise and challenge the status quo. Instead of painting them as bolshie troublemakers who can't love their club if they act up like that – which was effectively Stelling's unthinking angle – they should spend awhile discussing the issues, and questioning exactly how it's come to this. Happily for Sky Sports News viewers, Thompson was on hand to grab the mic, because financial chicanery affects fans across the board. As he explained, the minute the good results stop, Manchester United – nearly £800 million in debt – will be flailing around just like Liverpool. And of course implosion has already occurred at giants such as Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle United, and two-time European champions Nottingham Forest – as well as at smaller clubs across the land for decades now. Yet – rightly or wrongly – it's going to take a behemoth to topple before attention is paid. Liverpool and Manchester United are the two best-supported clubs in the country. Both are in a parlous financial state. Yet television all but totally ignores their plight, the odd filibuster from the likes of Thompson excepted. Instead of patronising the protestors, television should allow them to proselytise. Because the way things are going, unless their voices are heard loud and clear, in ten years time there'll be precious little left on the football pitch for Stelling to concentrate on.
And so it goes on, with the good folk at Sky Sports totally unable to help themselves. Last week, this column told the sorry tale of Jeff Stelling, whose man-of-the-people reputation took a serious dent when he launched a broadside at Liverpool fans protesting against the ownership of the club by the Duke brothers from Trading Places. To Stelling's eternal credit, during the following weekend's Soccer Saturday, he didn't duck the controversy. Keen to clear up any confusion, he insisted his comment was merely clumsy, that fans have every right to protest, and he was simply suggesting that such protests might be counter-productive when the team's doing so badly on the field. Politically naïve maybe, but a viewpoint that can be justified in debate nonetheless. And hats off to him for attempting to clear it up. At the end of the show, when Liverpool – who hadn't played that afternoon – slipped into the relegation zone, he laughed and teased professional Scouser Phil Thompson. "I'm not laughing at Liverpool, Phil," explained Stelling, "I'm laughing at you." The colour drained from poor Thommo's face. A hilarious moment, and a reminder that no club, however big or well-supported, is above a good old shoeing when they're down. Schadenfreude, after all, is the yang to love and passion's yin: half of what being a football supporter is all about. But what followed on Sky Sports News the day after was an egregious disgrace, far removed from clumsy rhetoric or taproom banter. On Sunday, Roy Hodgson's Liverpool Pub XI failed to climb out of the relegation zone, capitulating at Anfield to a vastly superior Blackpool side. A couple of hours after the result, the channel wheeled in a representative of Liverpool supporters union Spirit of Shankly. Hoping to broadcast a 606-style phone-in rant from a fan incredulous that the 2005 European champions could lose at home so comprehensively to a club whose last major trophy was the 1953 FA Cup, Sky instead received something altogether more measured. "It's an understatement to say it was disappointing," began Spirit of Shankly spokesperson James McKenna, "but it was fully deserved by Blackpool ... Roy Hodgson is Liverpool's manager and we're not going to turn on the manager. Fans see the problem as going beyond what we see on the pitch and extending to the boardroom." Jim White, the silver-haired Sky Sports News host, immediately launched the Stelling Defence. "Doesn't this continued protest have a detrimental effect on matters on the field?" he asked. "I wouldn't say our protest has an effect on the players on the pitch," came the reply. "What I would say has an effect on the pitch is the crippling interest repayments that we never wanted in the first place, that Tom Hicks and George Gillett told us we wouldn't have. The players are professionals, we support the team, but we also know when we have to fight for our football club, which is what we're doing now." It was on. White immediately launched an attack. "You can't blame Hicks and Gillett for defeats to Blackpool and Northampton!" he spluttered. "That ownership has now began to effect the on-the-pitch situation," came the calm reply. White's face went red with heat. "Yeah, but I put it to you again," he frowned, his pen jabbing at the camera, "you don't need reminding of this, it's Sunday night in October, Liverpool are third bottom of the Premier League. Hicks and Gillett don't have anything to do with that ... do they have anything to do with where Liverpool sit in the Premier League tonight? Yes or no?" "Yes they do." "WHY?" demanded White in withering, sub-Paxman tones. "The crippling debt and the filter-down effect that it's had. The club needs overhauling from the very top. It's all well and good talking about being in the bottom three of the Premier League, but off the pitch it's all about whether we have a football club to talk about in the near future." "But of course you'll have a football club!" This wasn't questioning now. It was hectoring. "Liverpool will always be there, you know that. I put it to you, nothing you can do will speed up the sale, they won't be removed until the time is right. Nothing you can do will change that. Do you not concede that?" The union rep kept his equilibrium under fire, and delivered the coup de grace. "I disagree. Hicks, when he put the club up for sale – interviewed on this very channel – said the pressure fans have put on him has told." White had used up nearly all of his ammo. All that was left was a suggestion that fans should know their place. "Why should they hurry up a sale because supporters are protesting that they should do so? It's not up to you to tell Hicks and Gillette when to sell!" "A football club is not the person who owns it. A football club is the people who pass through the turnstile week in, week out. Us supporters. Anyone can owe the deeds. Without us, if we do decide to walk away, who will pay their debt? We're paying it through tickets and merchandising. Without us, nobody's paying their debt. Without us, the football club doesn't exist. We say no to refinance, the banks should engage with the supporters, we can offer solutions to the problems." McKenna having failed to snatch at White's bait, the anchor brought a quick end to what had been a very revealing interview, in more ways than one. Now you could say White was merely asking the hard, challenging questions. But you do wonder what happens to this vigorous journalistic approach when it's Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger or indeed Roy Hodgson on the other end of the line. Why was White so annoyed at mere fans having their say? After all, he was notoriously over the moon for supporters to have their voice when Newcastle United signed Michael Owen back in 2005, when a section of the club's support turned up at St James' Park to chant like compliant chumps at the greatness and perfection of big-money football. That day, hosting a Premier League love-in live from St James' Park, a grinning and over-excited White couldn't get enough of their happy jabbering. When things aren't going so well for a fanbase, though, and the natives get militant, White's red mist appears to descend. Only two conclusions make any sense. Either he believes groups like Spirit of Shankly are wrong and debt-loaders such as Hicks and Gillett are good for football, in which case he's a dumb fool, or he thinks fans should sit down and shut up and accept whatever loaded hand is dealt them, and that they're fair game to attack if they have the temerity to complain, in which case he's coming at this subject from somewhere altogether more unpleasant. You decide. We didn't make these rules. Actually, maybe, come to think about it, White just doesn't like Liverpool. Which is fair enough, he'll find plenty of allies there. But then this isn't just about what's happening to Liverpool. It's also about what's happened to Leeds, and Nottingham Forest, and Newcastle, and Rangers. It's about the £800 million bomb that's ticking at Manchester United. It's about what's happened to countless lower-league clubs across the land over the years, from Chester to Gretna. It's about what might happen to Chelsea or Manchester City if the big boys decide to take their ball home. As one very eloquent observer put it, with reference to Liverpool's current plight, on the blog of the Guardian newspaper: "Manchester United fans should ease up on the crowing, as this is merely a read through, not even a dress rehearsal, for the immediate post-Ferguson regime." Whatever, it would be nice if, like Stelling before him, White came out and apologised for his bombastic approach, and promised to deal with the paying fan on the street – whose money is paying off these debts, after all – more sympathetically next time. Over to you, Jim.