The handshake

Suarez is one wretched little sod, the true face of football for me. Decency is seen but not observed by most footy players. As for minute-silences, they'll probably start showing respect in this way for longstanding toilet attendants before long. At least they were faithful to their club. Testimonial matches are a thing of the past because no player is above money-scrubbing agents. There are so many players and managers that have played for and managed more than five clubs that I've started to call them club whores. When they kiss their shirt's club emblem, I almost want to puke. It's a sign that faith is dead, but at least you don't see many religious types changing sides. I'm still interested in the game but not like before, when teams were built to last. Suarez won't be missed and, with his pay-off, is probably better suited to drug trafficking. The only good thing to come out of this fiasco was that neither player was English. If Suarez had been English, he'd have been deported by now, the papers would have made a good whack out of it and the govt would have been congratulating themselves on his removal. On second thoughts, he couldn't have been deported so lawyers would be busy raking a fair few mill off him too, lengthening the dispute for the papers to make mincemeat of the already mushy minds of footy fans. What a wonderful world!

I have no opinion on this sorry affair. My support goes to the one person we all seem to have forgotten. The one person on the field of play who is abused every single game. The one person who seems to take it in his stride. He is abused from the terraces every week, by both sides. He is abused by the players, also from both sides. After the game both Managers will critise the way he played his game, Sky Sports will scrutinise his every decision. Yes the bloody referree! Talk about abuse, if we carry on he way we are,these people will have to be escorted from the pitch crying because someone has called them a wanker! But guess what, they just get on with it!

ps. the only reason LFC backed down was because Alan Hansen said they were a disgrace, and he's on £40,000 a show. Still, he does know his stuff, which is more than can be said for Liverpool's foreign owners. Dalgeish needs some happy pills. He looks more like a madman every time I see him, but maybe he's got a sweaty-vested interest in Suarez (contractual bonuses based on length of service/goals?)

I think the owners had no choice but to act, so damaging has this been to Liverpool FC - and should really have stepped in long before. I will believe it when I see it, with regards to Suarez being sold though, particularly once this has all settled down and he has scored twenty goals between now and the end of the season. I'm hoping this will mark the end of Liverpool football club - they should do the decent thing and stop.

If only!

It's not Liverpool who are ceasing to exist, it's those so-called defenders of the faith, the queen-loving tax-dodgers, the peepil, the loyalists of Castle Greyskull in Govan, the giant Ponzi scheme that is Glasgow Rangers. Oh, on another note, Suarez is a wee jobby.

Sorry guys, but you're all coming across as the polarised version of the people you wish to condemn. What's worse, you're coming across as ill informed and very very, for want of a better word, Talibanish. Folks, I suddenly find myself not liking the company I'm in, so I'm off to seek more stable, balanced, intelligent and yes, tolerant, comrades. And blighters, that second sentence of your first post here is a classic example of what I mean. Gentlemen, I bid you good day.

Sorry guys, but you're all coming across as the polarised version of the people you wish to condemn. What's worse, you're coming across as ill informed and very very, for want of a better word, Talibanish. Folks, I suddenly find myself not liking the company I'm in, so I'm off to seek more stable, balanced, intelligent and yes, tolerant, comrades. And blighters, that second sentence of your first post here is a classic example of what I mean. Gentlemen, I bid you good day.

Well that came from left field. Gosh; and all because of unqualified, unapologetic and continuing racism from Suarez and co'. Lenders stuff has been (self?) nuked. I can only assume that something was lost in the translation. As far as I read it, the comments, whilst imaginatively expressed (this is a site for creative writers) are all grounded in the idea of fairness and truth. Leander if you read this think again an return to the fold we are the poorer for your absence.

Did this actually happen while I was away listening to Super Scoreboard? Have I...lavadis and blighters...and everyone else who posted on this topic... really crossed a line causing another member to clear out the attic, up sticks and leave the premises? Am I really ill-informed, unstable, imbalanced, unintelligent, intolerant and (I love this one) Talibanish? Well, yes, maybe I am, but only on weekends away to Kabul. But how anyone can deduce that only from my few sentences above is rather astounding and bordering on genius-like? On closer inspection I, in my humble uneducated way, can only deduce that leander is either Luis Suarez's mother, or he is Craig Whyte. Of course, I'm probably wrong, but it's an honest mistake, Guv. Signing off, shocked and stunned.

Whew, a powerful debate. Not being a football fan, except for the Canadian Grey Cup at the end of the season, my opinion of the UK teams can't really be expressed. However, I am proud to state my uncle Jackie Stewart was a star, who never told me he was one. He never bragged, never told stories of glory about him getting the football record for carrying six touchdowns (yes six, and they won 36-0) across the goal line for the Hamilton Cats, one of two professional teams (the other was Hamilton Tigers) in Hamilton, Ontario. They later joined together to form the CFL Hamilton Tiger Cats. Unknown to me, he played from 1947-53 and was a star, as I read in one of his press clippings when I was 14, two years after he retired. I grew up in northern Quebec and hockey occupied our minds. His special room was filled with awards and pictures of him with all the sports stars of the day. Uncle Jack never regretted missing out on national hoopla because apparently the Canadian Football League was established shortly after he retired, and any standings prior to the new professional league did not count. My unassuming uncle accepted an excellent job as Assistant Operations Manager for Carling's Ale in Peterborough, Toronto, then Manager for Hamilton. When Carling's Ale phased out all Managers, they made him the highest paid trucker in Canada, as he told me. He was provided with a state of the art motor home, almost a block long, to attend all sports events, to promote Carling's Ale, which he did for a couple of years. Uncle Jack who hardly drank, didn't smoke, was in apparent great health, dropped permanently from a heart attack while mowing the lawn at the age of 51. He told me at the height of his football career, he was paid $1,500. He said it was considered a part-time job, even though they played the same number of games as the present teams.