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Archive for May, 2010

• Tottenham favoured to secure services of Cole
• Liverpool reject opening £4m Benayoun bid

Chelsea have paved the way for Joe Cole’s departure from Stamford Bridge by formalising their interest in the Liverpool midfielder Yossi Benayoun, with the Israeli confident a transfer can be completed over the next week.

An opening bid of £4m is understood to have been knocked back by the Merseyside club, though they have offered Chelsea encouragement that an improved offer of about £6m will secure the 30-year-old. Carlo Ancelotti is keen to sign the Israel international after talks with Cole’s representative over a new deal reached an impasse, with the midfielder now expected to leave under freedom of contract next month.

Tottenham Hotspur, with a potential Champions League campaign ahead, remain favourites to secure Cole under the Bosman ruling, ending his seven-year stay in south-west London since a £6.6m move from West Ham United. The 28-year-old had hoped to gain an increase on his weekly wage to £100,000, but Chelsea are set upon restructuring financially and did not offer him improved terms.

Cole has not had a regular first‑team place at the Double winners under Ancelotti, and Benayoun will have to accept life as a squad player as well. His own fortunes at Liverpool dipped somewhat towards the end of last season to mirror those of the team, with his relationship with the manager, Rafael Benítez, steadily deteriorating to the point where Liverpool effectively sanctioned his departure in the closed season.

The move is surprising given that Benayoun, who had also attracted tentative interest from his former club West Ham United and Spurs, is two years older than Cole in a squad that is already considered to be ageing, though he does have pedigree in the Premier League.

The Israeli anticipates the completion of his move to Stamford Bridge over the next few days having indicated last week while on international duty that Chelsea were keen to sign him. “Ancelotti wants me for next season and now everything depends on Liverpool,” he said. “Chelsea will have to pay some £6m, but I believe that, in the end, I’ll be moving there.”

ChelseaTransfer windowLiverpoolDominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk

My friend and former colleague Ray O’Brien has died aged 74 after years of declining health. He bore the physical incapacity this brought with the bravery that was the outstanding hallmark of his character. I saw his intellectual courage in a variety of settings, notably during the eventful years we shared at Nottinghamshire county council between 1969 and 1978.

Ray joined the authority in the treasurer’s department. When the position of deputy clerk became vacant it was suggested by senior people at county hall that I should approach Ray to persuade him to apply. He was initially very reluctant to take the idea seriously. His appointment paved the way for the new county council, after Edward Heath’s local government reorganisation in the 70s, to make him its first chief executive in 1973.

The authority had hitherto run on a bipartisan basis, though the Conservatives had an overall majority. This came to an abrupt end in 1973 with a massive Labour majority. There were all sorts of issues to deal with, but Ray never once flinched and never lost his sense of humour. He kept that until the end of his life.

He was born in Liverpool and educated at St Mary’s college in Crosby, from where he won a scholarship to study classics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. Following his time in Nottinghamshire, the opportunity to return to his native and beloved Merseyside proved irresistible. In 1978 he became chief executive of the newly created metropolitan county council, where he was soon engaged in quite different battles. It was the time of the Toxteth riots, with the greater Liverpool area in serious need of economic regeneration, for which he became an insistent and important voice.

Later he was chief executive of Severn Trent Water and Fimbra, the financial services watchdog, before returning to Merseyside in semi-retirement. He became chairman of Liverpool Land, which played a major role in redeveloping the city, once again taking up the cudgels for much-needed investment. For this he was appointed CBE in 2000 and a deputy lieutenant of the county.

Sport was one of his abiding passions. He was a lifelong supporter of Liverpool FC and played rugby to county standard. He was captain of Chester RUFC for three years in the mid-60s.

He is survived by Wendy, his wife of 51 years, and their four children, Martin, Jacqui, Neil and Kathryn.

Local governmentSevern TrentLiverpoolguardian.co.uk

It felt as if Liverpool had let English football down, when for 20 years they had been its finest ambassador

Phil Neal can recall arriving at the Heysel stadium 25 years ago tomorrow and being distinctly underwhelmed by its appearance. “My first thought was that it barely stood comparison with Wembley or Rome or other grounds where Liverpool had won the European Cup,” he says. “The game would have sold out any stadium in Europe, yet instead of Barcelona or Madrid we got Heysel with its frail-looking fence. I would still like to know who made that decision and on what grounds, because the tragedy could have been avoided.”

By the close of the 1980s English football was well versed in tragedy, yet there was a recurring theme to the grim progression that began with the Bradford City fire a couple of weeks before Liverpool’s 1985 European Cup final against Juventus and ended with the Hillsborough disaster four years later. While the causes may have been different, in every case the loss of life was avoidable.

The problem at Valley Parade had been the entirely predictable consequences, at least from a modern safety perspective, of a discarded cigarette, a wooden stand and a shameful build-up of combustible rubbish below. The blame at Heysel was laid squarely at the door of Liverpool supporters by Uefa the day after 39 people died. By charging at their Italian counterparts the English contingent had to bear direct responsibility for the panic and crush that followed, even the collapse of an inadequate dividing wall that increased the death toll. “Only the English fans were responsible,” Uefa’s official observer, Gunter Schneider, said at the time. “Of that there is no doubt.”

While that may be the case in terms of strict cause and effect, Uefa managed to get off lightly. Without an official inquiry into the disaster, the controlling body for European football never had to defend its decision to stage a showpiece game at an obviously dilapidated venue. The stadium authorities and Belgian police were never questioned either. Heysel was demolished and rebuilt in 1994, without hosting another major game in the interim.

The Liverpool fans had found it ridiculously easy to break through the flimsy wire fence that separated them from the Juventus supporters, and while that does not make them any less culpable, the confrontation began with both sets of fans throwing stones at each other across the barriers. Stones they found lying on the floor, inside the stadium, either hard-core from underneath the terracing or bits of crumbling steps. Heysel had struck Arsenal fans who had visited a few years earlier as a “dump”. It was a far from ideal venue for a major European final.

There was nothing particularly wrong, by the standards of the day, with Hillsborough in 1989. The reason 96 lives were lost was because we had become careless about the way we watched football. Careless enough to accept pens and cages as the only alternative to hooliganism and pitch invasions. Careless enough not to think about the crush consequences of letting a crowd build up then releasing it into a confined space.

Even as the disaster was unfolding in Liverpool’s FA Cup semi-final with Nottingham Forest people formed the natural conclusion that some sort of disturbance was taking place, and assumed the supporters trying to scale the barriers – poignantly the ones who had arrived at the ground early to secure a place at the front – were seeking to run on to the pitch or fight with neighbours. Only in the horrific aftermath of Hillsborough were lessons properly learned, with the Taylor Report paving the way for all-seat stadiums, CCTV, adequate stewarding and meaningful safety certificates.

Back in 1985, preparing for the biggest game of his life, Neal innocently imagined he would be following a glorious Liverpool tradition, rather than leading the club into its darkest period. The only player to appear in all four of Liverpool’s European Cup victories between 1977 and 1984, Neal was captain by the time of their fifth final, with every expectation of rounding off his Anfield years on a personal high. “I anticipated lifting the silverware,” he says. “It was going to be another glory night and I would go up the steps first.

“Looking back now means looking across Hillsborough, which involved an even greater loss of life, but in 1985 Heysel was the worst thing imaginable. It felt as if Liverpool had let English football down, when for 20 years they had been its finest ambassador. That’s what really turned our stomachs, the feeling that the club’s impeccable record over two decades in Europe had ended in something so horrific.”

Kenny Dalglish, who would take over as manager when Joe Fagan stepped down after an uneasy couple of years, makes the same point. “Liverpool made it public in advance that they were concerned about the state of the stadium,” he says. “Uefa said they must continue. Liverpool did all the warning, Liverpool made every effort to prevent trouble between fans, and when the worst happened Liverpool received all the blame.”

English clubs were banned from Europe for five years as a result of Heysel, and needed at least that long again to catch up when they were allowed back. Some Everton fans have never forgiven Liverpool for preventing them entering the European Cup as English champions that year, arguing that a potentially great team had to be disbanded instead of getting the chance to grow with European experience. And on an unreal, unnatural, unforgiveable night in Brussels, Liverpool lost a European Cup final for the first time.

Fearing further crowd problems if the match was abandoned, the game took place after an interminable delay. Both sides played as if in shock. Juventus won through a Michel Platini penalty. Neal does not remember kicking a ball. “I have absolutely no recollection of the match,” he says. “The delay in the dressing rooms was bad enough, but as soon as we heard people had died we lost all interest in the match. The difference between then and now is that now we know watching football can be a matter of life and death. At Heysel we still had it all to find out.”

LiverpoolFootball violenceUefaPaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk