THE SCOUSE VOICES SANG IT WITH gusto at the FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford in April whenever a blue scarf came into sight:
“ . . . Chelsea FC,
You ain’t got no history,
Five European Cups and 18 Leagues,
That’s what we call history.”
No other supporters cling to their heritage such as Liverpool fans. One man carries a half-size metal replica of the European Cup to games, passing the trophy round pubs as grinning reds queue up to have their photograph taken with it, as if it were the real thing. Callow adolescents sing of “the fields of Anfield Road, where once we saw King Kenny play”, something that Dalglish last did seriously before they were born. Such anachronisms are easy to mock. Especially since this is a club that has not won the league since 1990.
This is an age of insane rebranding, where the past is often seen as worthless. So, hail to the Fink Tank for daring to believe that the past matters; that football existed before 1992. Expect a letter from the Premier League’s solicitors, Finksters — didn’t Blair’s Government ban all talk of the past some time in 2001? Yet another of the scourges of modern life is the utilisation of resources in academia to prove the bleedin’ obvious. The man in the pub with the miniature European Cup could have saved the Fink Tank hours of research and mountains of cash. If one club has won the title 18 times — three more than the next contestant — then it is clear who is best.
Only the mindlessly bigoted could disagree with Liverpool topping the table. Eighteen titles — championships, we used to say before the marketing men stole the word for the second-raters — begin and end the discussion. And that is before five European Cups are introduced as proof.
But football is not about evidence. It is as subjective and complex as poetry and depends on interpretation. So the Fink Tank’s mathematical certainty is just a jumping off point for the quarrels that will follow. Manchester United supporters, for example, their egos inflated by years of self-delusion — “We’re the biggest club in the world,” they say — will stake their claim. They invoke romance and tragedy, as if they are exclusive to Old Trafford, and cite massive, half-hearted fan clubs in Bangkok, each member wearing a fake replica kit, as proof of global greatness. Come back when you have won four more titles.
Arsenal can make a case for ascendency with their longest continuous spell in the top flight, an impressive achievement. The marble halls and the sense of tradition make the club a unique institution. Recently, they have leavened the patrician attitude with a revolutionary attitude to importing foreign talent. It is hard not to be impressed. It is as compelling a case for greatness as can be made when you come to the table holding only 13 titles.
Yet this is the club that began life in southeast London, decided there were richer pickings to be had by squatting in Tottenham Hotspur territory and blagged their way into the top flight without having to bother with something as tiresome as winning promotion. Luciano Moggi, the Juventus fixer, is a mere amateur compared with Sir Henry Norris, who managed to get a team that finished fifth in the second division into the first in 1919 — and a Tube station renamed for the club.
Knowing that the aristocrats began life as robber barons puts their airs and graces in a different perspective.
As for Chelsea supporters, who will feel rather put out that Huddersfield Town and Burnley rate higher, there is some sympathy. For all the importance of the past, being top of the pile now should carry some extra cachet. As it happens, the history at Stamford Bridge is rich and full of bizarre characters, from William “Fatty” Foulke, the goalkeeper who weighed 26st, to Ken Bates, the former chairman, whose idea of getting the supporters buzzing was to use electrified fences for crowd control. Sadly, the days when Chelsea were a sideshow were more entertaining than recent winning Saturdays at Stamford Bridge, when José Mourinho’s overefficient drabs have succeeded without any sense of fun and left empty seats in their wake. Those stayaway Chelsea supporters prove that there is more to football than winning trophies.
But Liverpool are the greatest club and, furthermore, this table proves that they are based in the greatest football city in England. All the Fink Tank records worth having are shared between the city’s two clubs, with Everton — once the “Mersey Millionaires” and now, hilariously, “The People’s Club” — playing the most games in the top flight and scoring the most goals.
Mere dry statistics? Well, the city has bred England’s two best players in Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney. The epicentre of English football sits on the east bank of the Mersey.
The man in the pub with the cup could tell you that, too. He’d be even more vehement if he was carrying a newly-minted trophy this time next year — a Premiership replica would be ideal.
Even though it is nice to be the best ever, history is far sweeter in the making than in the remembering.
- Tony Evans, deputy football editor of The Times, is the author of Far Foreign Land: Pride and Passion the Liverpool Way, Naomi Roth publishing, £8.99
Dates define peak performance IAN GRAHAM, OF THE Fink Tank, has calculated each team’s strength on specific dates throughout history — halfway through a season and at the end of the season in every year of league football (click here for graphic). The strength of teams at any given time is determined by their likelihood of scoring a goal divided by their likelihood of conceding a goal, based mainly on matches over the previous year, with more recent games given greater weight.
The graph which shows the clubs’ rankings (Click here), depicts when they have held pre-eminence in English football. Manchester United’s two postwar blips came around the time of their relegation from the top flight in 1974 and then when Sir Alex Ferguson’s position as manager was under threat in the early 1990s. The clubs’ periods of pre-eminence are shown: Arsenal in the 1930s, Liverpool from the mid-1970s to the 1990s and United for ten years from the early 1990s. BILL EDGAR
