The New Anfield

Before you start reading my ramblings, please check out this link to my Just Giving page.

Ever since those two cowboys Hicks and Gillett rode into town, promising the earth - or rather a spade in the earth - and delivering nothing, the prospect of Liverpool FC's new premisis has never been too far away from discussion.

In fairness to them their timing was about as diabolical as everything else about them. Millions was spent on producing fancy new pictures of the "New Anfield" but as the financial crisis was beginning to bite in 2008 in meant that if they were going to do this they were going to have to spend their own money, rather than borrow more money that no-one was going to lend them that they couldn't afford. So in the end they spent millions on planning and designing what a new stadium might look like, but it never became anything more than a figment of someone's imagination.

One of the most expensive pieces of "art" in history

I don't really want to rake over the whole Hicks & Gillett saga again, because frankly we all know the story and it's really quite depressing.

It seems that John Henry and Co are now thinking more in terms of redeveloping Anfield, or rather two sides of it and personally I feel that this is a far better proposition.

This is where I get all misty eyed, but as Liverpool fans banging on about history is something we do rather well as there is plenty of it worth banging on about.

Anfield has been the home of Liverpool FC since day one in 1892 when John Houlding told Everton to do one, started his new team to show that they probably should have done as they were told in the first place. I suppose were all quite glad he did as we might all be Everton fans now and there wouldn't be any such thing as Liverpool FC and Everton would be on about 27 league titles by now.

I don't like the idea of Liverpool just getting a new ground, although admittedly it would have just been a couple of hundred yards from the 'old' one.

If you look what that means these days you end up loads of grounds that all look the same.. Derby, Southampton, Middlesbrough.. the only way you can tell the difference is by what colour the seats are. Or in the case of Boro if there's anybody sat in them.

The case of Southampton is interesting actually. They had one of the most distinctive grounds in the country actually at The Dell (largely because it was made up of bits of grounds borrowed from other clubs) and as soon as they moved to their new rent-a-box after spending years in Premier League and Division 1 they dropped down two divisions and ended up in.. well Division 1. Didn't you prefer it when counting made sense.. I blame George Lucas.

Spot the difference.

Even the Emirates, which by Premier League is pretty distinctive is virtually identical to the Stadium of Light in Lisbon - although admittedly the seats at the Emirates are comfier and they don't have riot police breathalyzing you on the way in after you've spent the previous several hours drinking around Lisbon. As a point of reference it's not a good idea at this point to try and run away as you will only get about 3 yards, they will take your ticket off you and you end up sneaking in the home end trying to not let on you're English.. and to top it off we lost 1-0.

I'm getting off topic slightly.

Personally - I don't want us to move from Anfield so I am happy that it seems that this will now happen. However, I would like us to sort out the things that are wrong with it, because some bits of it are a bit rubbish. Now if you're a season ticket holder you perhaps don't have to put up with such things, but if like me you end up scrabbling for tickets wherever you can get you will know that there are certain parts of Anfield that are to be avoided. Anywhere near the back of the lower tier of the Anfield Road end is to be avoided. When everyone stands up it is like watching football through a letterbox because the roof slopes down too much.

Sitting in the main stand is also a bit of a lottery when it comes to your restricted view seats.. this was a particular favourite from the Spurs game last season (left). Although this picture doesn't actually show how bad it was.

Luckily though nothing much happened in that game so I didn't actually miss much. Best part of £50 well spent I thought.

That is another thought actually. How much is all this  going to cost? You see, seamless. You might think this is all just thrown together, but it is all planned out.

It is already hideously expensive going to watch the football. Especially if we are not going to be in the Champions League regularly to help pay for it. Just look at Arsenal. They have managed themselves reasonably well financially, with the benefit of playing Champions League football every year. But they still lose all their best players because they've not won anything for years because they don't compete on the transfer market.

How will this translate to Liverpool? It's not clear how much money FSG are willing to throw at Liverpool. But if they spend on a new ground you can bet there isn't going to be a lot to be spent on new players. That was even the case this summer after they got there fingers pretty much burnt off throwing money around when Kenny Dalglish was in charge.

And you can bet that we will be the ones paying for it. It is already almost £50 a ticket. I can see that by the time we get our comfy new seats, with hopefully no posts in the way, well I wouldn't like to guess but in say 5 years time we could be talking about when it was ONLY £50 a ticket.